Look, it’s a very good problem to have when it’s so tough to whittle down all the great new music in Portland for this here humble column. The city has churned out a glut of formidable albums in June alone that have been dominating my earholes (Orquestra Pacifico Tropicale’s El Poder, Lexie’s Halcyon Days, and BendreTheGiant’s Swollen Eyes among them). And while each deserves a spotlight all their own, it was an opening set by Sea Moss at the Buñuel show at Mississippi Studios in February that has managed to spelunk inside my brain the past few months and tip the scales.
Read on for a heaping helping of similarly tasty listening. And remember to chew with your mouth closed!
Sea Moss/Miscomings – Split LP
Big Tube Scene
For fans of Death Grips, Melt Banana, The Locust
Sounds of courted chaos are delivered in spastic blasts on the split LP from Portland’s Sea Moss and Seattle’s Miscomings. The Pacific Northwest crews find common ground with variations of electronic bedlam that, depending on your disposition, can either incite your revelry or your wrath.
Sea Moss’s “4040” highlights the perfect pandemonium between vocalist/knob-twister Noa Ver and percussionist Zac Dag. Over a cornucopia of abrasive electronic gadgetry, dial-up static, and rotary phone rings, the duo summons walls of circuitry havoc from a grab bag of oscillators and synths, with Dag’s explosive drumming anchoring a suite of bizarre tunes that bleed and wriggle within and into each other nonstop for the next three tracks.
A treat in this complementary split effort are the collaborative cuts at the middle and end of the album, with members of both bands contributing to tracks under the band names “SeaComings” and “MissMoss.” The groups find sonic kinship in the mashup, with Sea Moss’s somewhat more structured approach (that seems like a strange thing to write considering the above descriptions of the band’s controlled commotion) blunting the angularity of Miscomings’ raucous guitar-fueled output.
While retaining some semblance of aural brotherhood—with both bands leaning into their respective weirdospheres for mined blast-beat goodies and hoarse caterwauling—Miscomings glazes songs like “Lizard Limbs” with healthy globs of hardcore furor. This is counter-balanced by hyper-saturated synth leads that almost convince you this is some sort of deranged new wave redux before the unbridled rage of “Ick Stick” turns the whole genreless concept of the band on its ears.
Hard to define yet easy to love, Big Tube Scene is a challenging listen you should insist on being up for.
Big Tube Scene dropped Friday, June 26 via Zum Audio. Vinyl, digital album, and CDs are available through the Zum Audio Bandcamp. Both bands perform live Saturday, July 11 at High Limit Room, 720 SE Hawthorne. More info at highlimitroompdx.com.
Oddfellows
Oddfellows
For fans of The Nerves, Buzzcocks, Marked Men
It’s cause for special celebration when a band releases their first album over 30 years after their inception. A footnote in the tumbling sagebrush of Texas punk and power-pop, Oddfellows played a handful of gigs in Denton and released one EP before breaking up. Seminal guitarist/vocalist Mark Ryan went on to play in a Rolodex of influential groups, including Marked Men, Mind Spiders, and The Reds. On the band’s self-titled debut, vintage hooks pair with punk sneer for a reunion you never knew you needed.
The band resurrects its power-pop roots on jangly tracks like album opener “Draw the Line,” smeared with crusty bass lines and crystalline vocal harmonies. “I Burned Your Lawn” and a cover of The Reds’ “I Hate Rules” are budding punk anthems, complete with the band’s sophomoric humor and punk ’tude. “Tick Tick Tick” laments the ceaseless march of time over a frenetic downstroke guitar progression. Ironically, the whole track clocks in at a crisp 59 seconds. Mid-LP ripper “Late On Love” channels Pete Shelley’s power-punk blueprint, with a blippy bass line laying the foundation for the eminently singable title lyric.
There’s little in the way of revolutionary playing or statement-stamping lyrics; Oddfellows is simply a raw slab of self-aware punk that can occasionally surprise you with its gnashed teeth, as heard on “It Kills,” a whole two minutes of three or four chords that compels instinctual deskside headbanging. The only problem with the album whatsoever is its brevity, but that only means you can squeeze in a listen to the entire record that much more often. Which I recommend you do.
Oddfellows’ self-titled debut album dropped Friday, June 12 on Dirtnap/Wild Honey Records. Limited edition vinyl is available from Wild Honey Records’ Bandcamp, and digital albums can be purchased through either Wild Honey’s Bandcamp or Dirtnap Records’ Bandcamp.
Diles que no me maten
Escrito en Agua
For fans of Karate, The Sea and Cake, Can
Mexico City psychedelic jazz ensemble Diles que no me maten (Tell them not to kill me) delivers an unrushed collection of avant-garde tunes that embrace poetic wellsprings and disparate influences. On Escrito en Agua, the band’s recent underground buzz is revealed to be rooted in real art-rock transcendency.
Vibrant undercurrents of smoky jazz haunt the perimeters of Escrito en Agua from the get-go, with the sleepy speakeasy opener “Las noches que dormimos en sillas” setting a tranquil welcome to the proceedings. When the single “Hiriku” hits, an immediate vibe-shift commences, as a rhythmic avalanche descends in a surge of krautrock cool. The song’s obvious nod to legendary experimental rockers Can is an outlier on the album, though an indication of the wide variety of sounds and styles in the band’s riveting quiver of tunes.
“Perquisidor” plays like a spoken-word avant-jazz rarity, the echo of distant saxophones filling out the heavy-lidded composition like a wayward encounter with a stranger’s ambient chatter, as a torrent of mystical strings bookends the trippy track. Later, “Viene el Viento” blooms purposefully, giving light to Jonás Derbez’s confessional, fragile vocal approach. As the song unfolds into a mindmeld of pedal steel atmospherics, brass, and minimalist repetition, the full breadth of the band’s post-rock abilities comes into focus. By the time the Velvet Underground-inspired 8-minute-long finale of “Tunuwame” coils its psych-rock scales into your brain, the slow burn of Diles que no me maten’s spell has already sunk its fangs in.
Enjoyers of contemplative and multi-layered art-rock, jazz, and minimalism: say hello to your new spirit guides.
Escrito en Agua dropped Friday, June 12 through Moonlight Activities. Cassettes and digital albums can be purchased via Diles que no me maten’s Bandcamp.