Southeast Morrison’s Holocene is easily one of the best places in Portland for music that feels like Capital-A “Art.” Artists like Chicago’s greatest unsung avant-garde pioneer Olivia Block, former Yellow Swans synth maestro Pete Swanson, and Hopscotch art installation contributor Seth Nehil are perfect for a space like this. Will you get to dance? Maybe—but tonight, the rows of chairs signaled that this was going to be a performance, not a concert.
In front of the dance floor’s DJ booth sat the gadget array Nehil would be manning. Overlooking everything from just behind the railing was Block’s own console, equipped with her very own glowing orb. “Just what every show needs!” declared a friend, who sat knitting a marvelous hat in the second row.
Behind the DJ booth, stood Swanson, unassuming in a baseball cap and a Universal Order of Armageddon T-shirt as he spun records. To the nerds that knew who they were looking at— which, statistically speaking, was likely everyone at Holocene—it was a mind-bending treat to enter the space and see one of Portland’s great synth pioneers, performing live in Portland for the first time in 12 years. If this was the kind of crowd to get really animated, Swanson’s DJ set would have been a great place to start.
Serving as the de-facto “opener” was Nehil, sitting at a table with a laptop, an Arturia synth keyboard, and a modular synth sprouting an eye-watering number of technicolor patch cables. If you’ve visited Hopscotch Portland’s Unknown Atmospheres room, you’re familiar with Nehil’s game: Tastefully minimalist soundscapes flirting with the idea of being danceable, but like the best of IDM grooves, it confounds you as you try to find a rhythm to lock into. You could technically dance to this, but it might feel a little weird, especially while surrounded by projections of spiders and nature phasing in and out of focus on the walls of Holocene.
Like the best synthesists, Nehil’s ability to create immersive soundscapes for thoughtful spaces (an obvious byproduct of his work creating art installations for the last 20+ years) seems like a magic trick. “How is that rainbow of cables making that noise?” you ask yourself as you watch him spinning knobs, moving connections around like a bespectacled switchboard operator being watched by Portlanders sipping red wine.
The concept heralding Block’s return to Portland for the first time since 2009 is simple: Each musician takes music played by the musician before them, reworking and reconfiguring it. This gave the audience a split—those who were paying enough attention and picked up on the noises Block repurposed, and those who understood these songs as entirely fresh. After roughly 10 minutes, Nehil returned to his console, adding his own layers of sound to Block’s ethereal drone. In another 10 minutes, Nehil left and was replaced by Swanson, back at the decks. The drones swelled, becoming deafening, like riding the static-infused crest of a wave. Through it all, Block’s ethereal voice cut through, an anchor to the human element in everything. One person held rocker devil horns aloft, behind two people without earplugs, desperately plugging them to dampen the onslaught.
And then… it ended. After 36 minutes. Abruptly enough that I waited around for awhile, just in case that wasn’t everything. Surely that wasn’t everything? Somehow, though, it was. On one hand, it was satisfying to hear an evening of music that felt linear—one set bled perfectly into the next. On the other hand, just over half an hour is so short, right? For her long-awaited return to Portland, Block left a lot on the table next to her glowing orb. The best concerts will leave you feeling that way, but with Capital-A Art like this, the feeling of wanting so much more is the best outcome possible.
