Local News & Reviews

[February 14th, 2007]

^Project Perfect Wednesday, Feb. 14

Who knew difficult music could be this addictive?

[STYLE DRIFT] It's wonderfully apt that the first release to completely fit with local label Community Library's sensibilities—which are stylistically ungrounded, per dogma—is a rediscovered recording that completely flies in the face of sense: Project Perfect's PM+. In the span of 11 releases, Community Library has yet to redouble a genre, yet to touch anything remotely conventional. Free jazz, wired lounge, techno and noise all share in the label's love. And Project Perfect—the creation of ex-Fontanelle members Andy Brown and Charlie Smythe—proves the label's amorphous nature to be an ad infinitum sort of deal, bringing a sound as ungrounded as CL curators Paul Dickow and David Chandler could possibly hope for.

In Project Perfect's case, however, it's more accurate to say "resurrecting" a sound, as most of the duo's frenetic output was recorded and performed between 2002 and 2004—which, in Portland's volcanic experimental scene, is another era. The Red76 arts group originally released PM (the CL re-release includes new material, hence the "+"), but the record never found its way into distribution. PM was archived (thankfully), but its influence was a far cry from the relative renown of Fontanelle's Kranky Records-released material.

There is a glancing reflection of Fontanelle's beeps-and-boops backroom funk in Project Perfect's sound, however. But it is only a glance: Guitar wahs appear with a wink only to give way to what sounds like a fuzzed-out, muted jackhammer, which in turn gives way to a swarm of buzzing synth and guitar tones. The record moves through colors of sound like paint thinner, with little more than keys, guitar, drum machine and old twisted radio recordings. It maintains a palpable and constant mingling of rumbling drama (the album opens on hypnotic, chilly bass pulses), atmospheric lilt (PP loves a guitar delay) and transient plays at rhythm. Like labelmates Nudge, or again, Fontanelle, Project Perfect has more truck with heartbeats than clocks. And the end result—the seamless drift, the anti-gravity rhythm—is completely and horribly transfixing, nothing short of an ethereal narcotic.

—MICHAEL BYRNE.

Project Perfect plays with World, Light White, Smoke & Mirrors and DJ Brokenwindow Wednesday, Feb. 14, at Holocene. 9 pm. $6. 21+.

^Privacy Without Mercy (Marriage/Anthem)

Privacy's Laurel Knapp makes mountains out of molehills.

[MINIMAL FOLK] Spend enough time listening to abstract, left-field music, and stumbling upon a project like Privacy feels like a moment of wonderful clarity. It's as naked as anything any subsection of Portland music has produced in a very, very long time. It is stripped entirely of technical trickery or finery—just simple acoustic strumming and the lovely, smoke-filled, lazy vocals of Laurel Knapp.

It's amazing what simplicity can do.

The sparse, soporific style of Knapp's eight-song debut, Without Mercy (which takes its title from an E.E. Cummings poem), is somewhat reminiscent of Mi and L'au's 2006 debut, though in spirit it feels closer to the folk traditionals of Cowboy Junkies' Trinity Sessions. But you'd have strip both of those bands' music down quite a bit to reach either comparison: Junkies vocalist Margo Timmins is as quick to flaunt her range as Mi is her gloom, but one imagines Knapp would be loath to flaunt anything at all. This is hardly to say she has nothing to flaunt: Knapp's voice is a wonderful thing, breathy and deep, tinged ever so slightly with an uncertain waver. At its best moments, that waver gives way to an unexpected tremolo that's carried for a couple extra beats at the back end of phrases. It often sounds like Knapp's just discovering what her voice is capable of, particularly on "Goodnight Canyon," a track that finds her veering into a relatively higher register.

Beyond that voice, there's little else. Lyrically, the album keeps up the love/longing theme of the abovementioned Cummings poem (a few lines of which also make it onto the album). But one doesn't get the sense that content is meant to be at the foreground anyhow: Words are drawn and held, losing their immediacy for the sake of the tune. Oddly and wonderfully, though, the recording itself makes it into that foreground at moments. These are classic bedroom recordings, and the city's white noise filtered through building walls is there, waiting for a close ear—or a not-so-close ear, as on "Goodnight Fox" when a train whistle echoes through the background. The sound is accidental, but it serendipitously accents the isolated vibe of the album nonetheless.

Even after a few listens, one suspects there's a vast range of color still unheard on Without Mercy—however secluded Knapp chooses to remain in her seemingly basic music. It's the refreshing sparseness of Without Mercy, in fact, that makes it far more than the sum of its few parts.

—MICHAEL BYRNE.

Privacy plays with the Kingdom; Point Juncture, WA; and the Watery Graves Thursday, Feb. 15, at the Towne Lounge. 9:30 pm. $5. 21+.

^Black Elk Friday, Feb. 16

Black Elk's villainous inspiration keeps its metal real.

[VILLAINOUS METAL] At least half of the songs on Black Elk's self-titled debut are about people being killed, a theme that vocalist Tom Glose credits to a love of comic-book villains that dates back to childhood: "The heroes, I just thought they were cheesy," says Glose. "They fall in love and stuff, but the villains actually have these brutal, dramatic, fucked-up lives."

"It's more like a normal person's life," adds guitarist Erik Trammel. True to that sentiment, some of the four-piece's songs are about real-life villains. "My Lil'," for instance, tells the true story of a puppy that belonged to a former co-worker of Glose's; the puppy was devoured by wolves, leaving only a tail. Impressively, the song sonically matches its subject matter. As Glose shouts, "Run back and forth!"—describing the puppy's feeble attempt to escape—a heavy, boastful, Melvins-style throb is randomly interrupted with bursts of shrill, discordant guitar. Like the wolves, the music alternately taunts and punishes.

While Black Elk does little that is strikingly new, subtle atmospherics do give the band a uniquely creepy and disturbingly physical tone. On "Eyebone," some of the only intelligible lyrics depict the broken image, "You've been found/ In the ditch and in the weeds," which lets your imagination go wild, and a slight increase in pitch—a slight twisting of the knife—during a screeching guitar part near the beginning, though subtle, still makes you uneasy.

Such uneasiness means it's sometimes hard to make it through Black Elk without a headache, but discomfort isn't always a bad thing, especially in a live setting: "The best shows I've ever been to are where I'm confused, surprised and scared," Glose says. And each of those emotions could easily describe the experience of seeing Glose perform, as the wild-eyed vocalist sometimes points at his audience with such fervor his straightened arm actually trembles.

Oddly enough, such menacing performances often accompany those of more bar-rock oriented bands, like slop-garage lords the Silver Kings. But Black Elk—which includes current and former members of Wadsworth, Burning Cindys and Lopez—has deep roots in the early-aughts heyday of clubs like now-defunct venue EJs. Because of its history, Black Elk lands on bills with bar rock bands as often as with metal groups—fitting for a band that finds common ground between supervillains and the average Joe.

—JASON SIMMS.

Black Elk plays Berbati's 20th-anniversary party on Friday, Feb. 16, with Red Fang, Fireballs of Freedom and DJ Nate C. 9:30 pm. Cover. 21+.

^Stars of Track and Field

Centuries Before Love and War (Wind-up)

[SHOEGAZER POP] Portland's Stars of Track and Field is a slickly produced space-rock trio that writes formulaic songs powered by indulgent, swelling guitar-rock choruses and mechanical-sounding vocal harmonies. Basically, this band is the anti-Portland.

Making matters more confusing, SOTAF is also really good. The band's new album, Centuries Before Love and War, is a downright radio-rock epic, and—with its major-label support—it has an outside chance at being among Portland's biggest releases of 2007.

But don't play your sellout card just yet. The oft-delayed Centuries—some of which originally surfaced on SOTAF's 2005 EP, You Came Here for Sunset Last Year—sounded like a major-label album well before Wind-up (Sony/BMG) stepped in. In fact, Wind-up bought Centuries from California indie label SideCho Records and released it totally untouched.

And, yes, the shimmering musical peaks and valleys on Centuries are highly navigable, but their predictable nature leaves SOTAF's songs no less rocking. Chalk that victory up to both Tony Lash's (Dandy Warhols, Heatmiser) lush production and the band's own sonic intuition. From the twisting, Swervedriver-esque buildups and wall-of-sound breakdowns of "Say Hello" to the warm beats and sandpaper harmonies of "Lullaby for a G.I/Don't Close Your Eyes," SOTAF's studio skills are that plump, juicy carrot at the end of the stick.

Lyrically, Jason Bell and Kevin Calaba take the Thom Yorke approach, preferring splintered, cataclysmic catch phrases over fleshed-out storylines, but unlike Yorke's illuminating delusions, SOTAF's lyrical shrapnel often fails to match the band's epic thrashes and wails. Even then, though, Bell and Calaba's innate sense of vocal timing and careful harmonies do the trick. Other times, the group's vocal mantras are nothing more than complementary percussion to Daniel Orvik's violent drumming and programmed loops: On "Arithmatik," the singers fall out of the picture for a few bars, then repeat "Yes/ No/ Yes/ No/ Yes/ No/ Yes" over the rise and fall of bursting power chords.

Really, though, these guys could be singing Stryper lyrics and no one would notice. It's the way they sing, and the ethereal moments that propel their words, that make Stars of Track and Field forgivably, even lovably, radio-ready.

—CASEY JARMAN.

Stars of Track and Field plays with the Thermals and Tea For Julie Monday, Feb. 19, at the Crystal Ballroom. 9 pm. $9.47. All ages. Also see Monday listings. Don't hate SOTAF's pop because it's beautiful.

^ELUVIUM COPIA (Temporary Residence)

Eluvium's latest helps listeners see the field for the grass.

[lAPTOP SYMPHONY] There's an infinite set of visual accompaniments—made and unmade—just waiting for Copia's hand in A/V marriage. In the immediate sense, Eluvium's new release (the eligible bachelor, if you will) is totally without that certain something, that narrative progression that makes an album wholly self-contained.

But when you do discover something embedded in Copia's meticulous, richly layered laptop symphonies—the seamlessly grafted reversal effect at the tail of "Reciting the Airships" or the cannon-like sounds that punctuate "Repose in Blue"—it's like finding a bullet casing in a field of grass. Those tiny sonic offerings, in fact, become the field. And—at a time when heavy drama (Explosions in the Sky, anyone?) and overt experimentation have become expected in post-post-rock—it's sometimes hard to see, and appreciate, the field for what it is.

Copia is the fifth release by Eluvium, a.k.a. Matthew Cooper, and it's the first to totally eschew those expectations. His prior full-length, Talk Amongst the Trees, was a classic ambient haze of feedback and looping guitars, inviting, nay, begging dissection as much as introspection. Copia, on the other hand, is built of orchestral arrangements—strings, reeds, horns—and if a foreground does appear, it's Cooper's delicate piano lines. On "Seeing You Off the Edges," Eluvium's sound barely holds onto any linear logic; it instead bases itself within a broad weave of rising and falling strings that intersect in a sort of harmonic pulse. The following "Prelude for Time Feelers" initially seems a showpiece of Cooper's piano ability, but after the entry of what sounds like a full orchestra (amazing what you can do on a laptop these days), it reveals itself as a glaring boast of compositional craft.

The solo piano piece—a bare, two-minute number titled "Radio Ballet"—instead arrives two tracks later, and it's far too beautiful to be considered the record's "odd song out." Then there are the cannons, which close out the album's "epic" track, the nine-minute "Repose in Blue." Cooper plays his synthesized orchestra here with a wink and a nudge, drawing his string section along a melody that slyly references its keyboard origins in stepped structures that defy the capabilities of organic strings. By this time, there's plenty of room for winks and nudges: Cooper's proved his point, and we've walked on, kicking the bullet casing aside.

—MICHAEL BYRNE.

Copia comes out Tuesday, Feb. 20.Eluvium's latest helps listeners see the field for the grass.