Mice Parade Thurs July 29 Holocene 1001 SE Morrison The hoary cliché regarding it being all about the music truly applies to Mice Parade, the five-year-old project of Brooklyn percussionist extraordinaire Adam Pierce. This state of affairs presents serious problems for a writer (not that you care; just laying out the scenario here). Readers want […]
Dave Segal
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Heart Beeps
The Humanity of Ghostly International
Ghostly International Tour Wed July 28 Holocene 1001 SE Morrison Operating just outside of techno’s American birthplace, Ann Arbor, Michigan’s Ghostly International has become a label whose releases people obsessively follow and collect. Marked by distinctive graphics and quirkily cute ads and merchandise, Ghostly cut through the visual humdrum of electronic music’s status quo to […]
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Half & Half
Funkstörung Goes Mid-Range
Funkstörung Sat June 26 Holocene 1001 SE Morrison Only in the insular, abstruse world of IDM (Intelligent Dance Music–cough, cough) would an album like Disconnected be considered a “pop” deviation. On Disconnected, Funkstörung’s long-awaited follow-up to their phemomenal 2000 debut, Appetite for Disctruction, German producers Michael Fakesch and Chris De Luca use actual human singers […]
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Om, Sweet Om
Acid Mothers Temple’s Volcanic Rock
Acid Mothers Temple Wed June 2 Berbati’s Pan – 10 SW 3rd Kawabata Makoto–guitarist and leader of Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. –looks like the guru of a mystical, musical cult: wise visage, garish robe, unkempt mass of curls, and bushy beard. But instead of sending his charges on killing sprees or […]
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Blaze & Amaze
DJ Frane’s Hydrosonic Fantasies
DJ Frane Thurs May 13 Tiger Bar 317 NW Broadway Deep in his underground hiphop bunker, DJ Frane lights another, gets his head right, slides some wax on the decks, and starts a ritual he calls “High Chi.” It’s like Tai Chi, but different; High Chi involves making music according to his stoned whims. “The […]
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Tranquility Bass
Strategy’s Blissed-Out Dub
Strategy Fri April 30 Holocene 1001 SE Morrison Portland’s Paul Dickow is a multi-tasking maniac. Besides co-running the Archigramophone and Community Library labels, he plays keyboards for funkadelic post-rockers Fontanelle and many instruments for brainy IDM trio Nudge. But it’s his solo project that may launch Dickow into discerning boomboxes and iPods worldwide. His new […]
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Lilting Latin
Scott Herren Tries Subtlety
Savath & Savalas Wed April 2 8 Aladdin Theater 3017 SE Milwaukie It would’ve been easy for Savath & Savalas mastermind Scott Herren to release another collection of cerebral, pastoral post-rock like 2000’s Folk Songs for Trains, Tree and Honey. The horn-rimmed cognoscenti would’ve scooped it up by the tens of thousands and he could […]
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On the Money
Buck 65: Canada’s Ratso Rizzo
Buck 65 Tues April 6 Ash Street Saloon 225 SW Ash Canada’s greatest gift to hiphop (stop laughing), Buck 65 is a genuine original. This former pro-baseball prospect (nee Rich Terfry) made the leap from underground bastion anticon (an incubator of genuine originals) to Warner without watering down his richly introverted, emotionally piercing production or […]
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Ghetto Philosopher
Diverse Innovates with the Truth
Diverse Thur March 25 Berbati’s Pan 10 SW 3rd Chicago’s Diverse (Kenny Jenkins) is one of those earnest, true-school MCs who treat hiphop as a religion, one in which flaunting verbal skills and uplifting the community outweigh bling and Benzos. But don’t think this ghetto philosopher’s a sour-faced killjoy lecturing the great unwashed about how […]
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Sex Shooter
Luomo Gussies Up
Luomo Sat March 20 Holocene 1001 SE Morrison No, we’re not talking Italian fashion mags; this Luomo is the sleek, accessible guise of Finnish electronic composer and crack jazz drummer Vladislav Delay. In 2000, Luomo dropped the wildly acclaimed Vocalcity, which streamlined the dubby, clicks-and-cuts techno elements heard on Chain Reaction and Mille Plateaux releases […]
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Suck It, Clear Channel
Sage Francis Is What He Is
Sage Francis Mon March 1 Roseland 8 NW 6th Avenue Representin’ the angry avenues of Providence, Rhode Island, Sage Francis earned the “emo hiphop” tag after dropping his 2002 debut album, Personal Journals, on the controversial anticon imprint. With a frank vulnerability rare in hiphop (he even refers to himself as “small-dicked” on his website), […]
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Space Needle to the Record
A Seattle Techno Empire Grows
Orac Records Tour Wed Jan 14 Holocene To call Orac Seattle’s best techno label is to damn it with faint praise. Who’s the competition? Nevertheless, Orac’s gaining traction in the global electronica network with European distro via Germany’s powerful Kompakt consortium (you’ve truly arrived when Kompakt returns your emails). And your imprint’s really blossomed when […]