Ben Salmon

BRAVEYOUNG Monolithic, moving instrumentals. DAMIEN RIEHL Eluvium—AKA Matthew Cooper—has quietly built one of Portland’s most compelling catalogs in experimental music, encompassing gentle noise, melodic drones, minimalist piano pieces, and modern classical compositions. Eluvium’s music has always seemed to exist on its own island, but Portland-based trio Braveyoung’s new album, Misery & Pride, suggests there may […]

Braveyoung’s Misery & Pride trades in aggression for graceful dread.

TEENAGE FANCLUB Fannies on the rocks. Donald Milne Here’s Teenage Fanclub’s formula: Three Scots write their own songs, bring them to the group, and weave them together into a winsome whole. Since 1997, they’ve followed a particularly egalitarian model, splitting up writing duties equally on five consecutive albums—12 tracks per album, four each for band […]

Teenage Fanclub returns with 2016’s Here.

JESCA HOOP Triple vision. ANGEL CEBALLOS Maybe it’s the season, but when she’s talking about her new album Memories Are Now, the California-raised, Manchester, UK-based musician Jesca Hoop can’t help using flowery language. “You never know how [a career] is going to bloom for an individual. And for me, I feel like the roots have […]

Jesca Hoop’s Memories Are Now blooms with the spring.

ITASCA Capturing the sound of the environment in her songs. Ella Andersson KAYLA COHEN’S 2014 album Unmoored by the Wind is a well-crafted patchwork of exquisite folk songs. Self-recorded at Cohen’s Los Angeles home and released under the name Itasca, it’s an endless hallway of hushed vocals, gently plucked acoustic guitar, handcrafted hiss, and the […]

Itasca’s new record Open to Chance channels the natural world.

JOHN K. SAMSON Chronicles of the life and times of Virtute the Cat. NEIL YOUNG has always hovered in and around the works of singer/songwriter John K. Samson. Young grew up in the Canadian city of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Samson did, too, and he’s arguably the current-day artist most closely associated with the city. In 2003, […]

The Weakerthans frontman’s new album revisits Neil Young’s On the Beach.

DEAR NORA Gen X philosopher of the foothills. CHRIS LAEL LARSON RIGHT NOW, it feels like we need the winsome, world-weary indie-pop of Dear Nora more than ever before. If that sounds dramatic, consider that fans basically begged Portland singer/songwriter Katy Davidson to revive the band she shelved in 2009. Back then, Davidson thought she […]

Portland’s Katy Davidson returns as Dear Nora to reissue her 2004 cult classic, Mountain Rock.