PORTLAND HAS A SERIOUS CELLO BONER.
Consider, for example, the wildly popular Portland Cello Project, a
distinctive homegrown choir of cellos covering everything from Bach to
Britney Spears. Or think of bands like Bright Red Paper or Holcombe
Waller and the Healers: Both are ascending Portland indie pop bands,
and both lean heavily on the sumptuous sound of the cello to define
their aesthetic.
Amid such a cello-tastic frenzy, Erik Friedlander would seem to be
the right performer arriving at the right time to this year’s TBA
Festival. “It’s only recently people have started to realize the
potential of the cello,” Friedlander says, explaining the explosion of
love for his instrument across musical styles and genres (and beyond
Portland, too). Friedlander’s genre-busting TBA debut show, Block
Ice & Propane, might expand the near-fetishistic passion people
have for the instrument.
The New York-reared musician—whose credits range from playing
with John Zorn and Dave Douglas to recording alongside Sting and
Courtney Love—describes his solo show as a sort of performative
travelogue, combining American roots music, video, his father’s
photography, and stories from Friedlander’s childhood memories of life
on the grand American road. He uses wisps of phrases like “Americana
vibe” and “this music and memory thing” to describe it.
He also admits it took a “huge leap of faith” for him, as an
accomplished solo gigger and sideman, to wander off into theatrical
territory. But he says the pungent memories of childhood camping trips,
and the music and stories those memories evoked, practically begged for
a stage.
Though the material he performs in his show is highly personal,
Friedlander hopes notes of universality will rise up from the assembled
fragments. “This feeling of memory, and putting memory back together,”
he says, and trails off. “It’s ultimately about the warmth and
strangeness of being with one’s family.” Who knew the cello’s popular
voice could speak so personally?