Now that autumn has drooped its frigid cloak over the Pacific Northwest, it seems like the perfect time to lean into the contemplative and cozy. I am officially trading in my summer slides for all-weather boots, my obscenely large ball cap collection for my equally absurd pile of beanies, and charging up my electric handwarmers. Gone are the late evenings basking in the final dregs of the sunlight, reading books at an outdoor patio in Buckman. The sunglasses are mostly hibernating, and I am about to join them.
On top of that, itโs my favorite time of year to tuck into new music. There is an unspoken, unplanned alchemy brewing between temperature and tunes. Which is to say, I have no proof that colder weather and great music go better together, itโs just that the door is cracked a little wider for the thoughtful side of life when you have sock-clad feet and slow cookers of soup bubbling in the kitchen.
This weekโs Spin Cycle brings a few autumn-approved heaters your wayโfrom Portland-based Darci Phenixโs album inspired by bucolic Scotland, to the red-hot debut of Texas-born Olฤka, and an unbelievably lengthy free jazz/post-punk record from a collective of Irish lads, Robocobra Quartet. Prepare your ears for fall.
Abalone – Darci Phenix
For fans of Jessica Pratt, Laura Gibson, Alela Diane
Clashnettie Arts Centre, a creative residency in the quaint Scottish village of Strathdon, served as headquarters for Portland multi-disciplinary artist Darci Phenixโs personal rediscovery. While immersed there in 2025, Phenix linked up with Scottish fiddler Johnny Hardie. Hardieโs home studio, in the carriage house of his clanโs old castle, gave rise to the collaborative tune โLast Leaf,โ and later, the entirety of her new album, Abalone. Phenixโs rustic LP is blushing with pretty folk songs, accentuated by harmonium, subtle percussion, and Hardieโs gorgeous violin.
Following the palate-cleansing instrumental track โDilly Dally,โ the album shifts into the dark-ish โFire and Fawn.โ Phenixโs delicate voice offsets an ominous harmonium progression as she sings โIf I donโt sleep soon / Itโs gonna get worse,โ keeping the looming dread of the melody at bay through her lullaby vocals. As the album progresses, โHeirloomโ ushers in a tender composition. Here, and across Abalone, Phenix uses a playful cadence that adds a hypnotic, rhythmic nuance to her songs.
These tracks narrate Phenixโs own attempt to reconnect with herself and her music by seeking out new spaces, faces, and feelings. This experimentation with sound and collaborative work allowed her to engage in a personal reckoning, exploring new worlds of sound and pushing the bounds of her own creation with the aid and care of artistic residence.
Abalone is a sleepy album tailor-made for rediscovery through meditative folk, inspired by a faraway hamlet, yet still grounding the listener in something like home.
Abalone will be self-released on November 20, with an album release show at Laurelthirst (2958 NE Glisan) November 19 (more info). Digital copies of the album can be purchased through Phenixโs Bandcamp.
Human Error – Olฤka
For fans of PJ Harvey, Ours, St. Vincent
Olฤka (AKA Autumn Beviacqua) spent a lot of time on the other side of the soundboard prior to striking out on her own. The Texas-born songwriter and multi-instrumentalist also works as a producer and audio engineer, two disciplines that doubtless informed the huge sonic depth of her debut album, Human Error.
Beginning with the manifesto โMeta Cognition,โ Olฤka announces the hyper-personal scope of the album, purging a rollicking confessional with pleas for healing in lines like โStraight from the bed I made / All my plans and my opinions rage / Shades of my past mistakes / Turning into something else.โ
Amongst the often crushing edges of the albumโs focus, Human Error finds moments of light to draw away from the shadows. โHuman Errorโ unfurls slowly, beginning with a quiet guitar intro that sets the tone for a topsy-turvy arrangement. With rich strings, wayward bass lines, and scratchy electric guitar, a foggy patina envelopes the title track. Olฤkaโs multi-instrumental range combines with her production chops for a heavily layered listen that folds in folk, โ90s alt-rock, and chamber-pop among other subgenres of sound.
โSomewhere Out of Reachโ shows the variety of Human Error. The song navigates a plaintive piano ballad, featuring flute and resting beneath choral harmonies that break for lines like โGrief / You donโt really own me / Yet you follow my stride.โ Later in the album, โWhoโs Watching the Kids?โ also waxes and wanes, transforming its gentle first half into an eruption of goopy guitars near its close.
Across Human Error, profound lyrics hash out childhood memories, loss of family and loved ones, and an absence of purpose. Olฤkaโs strengths are in her ability to translate those traumas into stunning, epic-scale compositions with teeth.
Human Error was released October 21 via X8 Music. Olฤka is performing November 7 at Revolution Hall (1300 SE Stark), opening for collaborator and X8 label head, Quadeca. Tickets are $36; more info here.
Hundred Pieces – Robocobra Quartet
For fans of Craig Finn, Sam Prekop, Fugazi
If youโre as sick to death of the goddamn algorithm dictating every corner of your cultural life as I am, I recommend this 100-song album from Irish post-punk jazz collective, Robocobra Quartet.
You read that right: 100 songs. I have barely enough room to introduce the breadth of creative expression it takes to possibly approach a project of this scale, let alone review it in any meaningful way. That is except to say that its five-hour runtime took up the majority of my Halloween week to absorb, and I loved every second of it.
Hundred Pieces was forged as a reaction to the attention economy. Its athletic arrangements exist within a hybrid of spoken-word/post-punk jazz and ambient music, taking aim at the woes of living in a world where being thoughtful is deprioritized for the quick and shiny. It is a loogie in the face of the idea that extended, in-depth tasks are somehow a plague from the past that we must overcome, that AI is inevitably the next chapter, even when it leaves us feeling empty, underused, and insignificant to the scrolling wheel of progress.
These cornerstones coalesce on incendiary tracks like โNothing,โ a Fugazi-like minimalist track heavy on a muted-string bass guitar, with flourishes of distant saxophone and vocalist/drummer Chris W. Ryanโs stunted lyricism. โHahaโ includes sparse lines like, โAlways tip your waiter / Donโt buy a car / In fact, donโt even learn how to drive.โ
As the LP unfolds, themed sections become clear. Tracks 30-40 lean on atmosphere and instrumentals, bridging some of the more full-bodied songs. These occupy a cinematic realm, thriving on wide swaths of affecting tones, brass flourishes, and scant vocals offered like shredded poems set to a sepia film.
Is Hundred Pieces an endurance trial? Rarely. Especially if you work at a desk job with headphones on all day. Did I listen to the entire album more than once? Yes. But I work a desk job. If you donโt, listening to the whole album in one go isnโt required, but thatโs sort of the trick here: to feel the need to reengage with it, to pull new angles from its extended innards, and to even rediscover as you go along.
What will they think of next?
Hundred Pieces will be self-released on November 13, initially only available as a digital album. The band is announcing a physical sampler in mid-November for release sometime in March 2027 via the Robocobra Quartet Bandcamp.