Skip to main content[PSYCH DRONE NOISE] Performing as part of his main project—the frequently worshiped, occasionally reviled psych-noise duo D. Yellow Swans—Gabriel Mindel looks like a man on a bad trip. His limbs contort, he slashes the air, he screams unintelligibly about injustice and captivity. It's horrifying—and entirely mesmerizing.
Yet, last December during the first (and supposedly last) performance by Ocean Beach—a trio of which Mindel is part—he instead sat cross-legged and placid with his fellow collaborators: Zachary Reno (half of ambient-noise duo Ghosting and the mastermind behind local CD-R label Onomato) and Elizabeth Harris (the primary force behind ghost-drone project Grouper).
Such is the nature of true, graceful collaboration: The parts of the whole neither clash nor fully compromise. Reno describes the symbiosis of that first show as "one fluid movement between all three bands." But, Harris adds, "with overlap." Imagine a meta-DJ mixing the artists' three sounds together in progression, creating a seamless build from soft, echoing guitar drones to anxious stabs of heavy, fluid discord.
Ocean Beach began randomly enough: Its genesis occurred at Valentine's, the small downtown cafe/venue that's picking up speed as an incubator of the city's left-field scenes. Mindel was simply sitting at the bar with Reno and Harris when Jen Olsen, the space's curator, suggested the three make music together. And, of course, she'd give them a spot to play. Harris recalls, "It was pretty informal...something like, 'Do you all want to try and play a show together here?'"
And they did. Ocean Beach's one show at Valentine's found the band sitting out of sight of the crowd in the tiny upstairs portion of the space. Harris laid down song skeletons with her guitar; Reno etched in fine details—bouncing-off-the-sky guitar delays, "small sounds" and slight textures with a tray of effects pedals; and Mindel propelled the set toward a tempered, seething DYS-inspired conclusion.
That single show was also meant to be the collaboration's conclusion. But Olsen asked for another round of Ocean Beach—as did Southeast Portland's Artistery, which means the band will play two shows in a row this weekend. However "relaxed" Reno claims the project is, it may just be a matter of momentum: If Ocean Beach can make Gabriel Mindel sit still, it has a good chance of making it beyond this Saturday as well. MICHAEL BYRNE.
WWeek 2015