Beats Per Week

Portland's Best Dance Music Options, March 20-26

Tags: natasha kmeto, rap class, dj zimmie, Total Freedom, ikonika, rufus du sol

Total Freedom plays the Rose Thursday, March 20 with Club Chemtrail.

WW contributing writer Mitch Lillie helps the discerning club-goer put together their weekly calendar by compiling Portland's best dance-music options for the next seven days. Turn up, tune in, drop the bass.

— The Portland Art Museum is not a venue you’ll see too often on Beats Per Week, but Red Bull’s Canvas Cooler event on Thursday is too weird to pass up. Featuring DJ sets from Natasha Kmeto and Rap Class—Dropping Gems’ finest—plus Portland-based globetrotter DJ Zimmie, the event will also entail a lot of other stuff I’m not really sure about, involving canvas-wrapped coolers. (Does a “Red Bull Cooler” = mini fridge? Do the winning artists really want to roll up to Art Basel with Red Bull stickers on their shirts?) One thing I am sure of: “Hosted Bar” is a really classy way of saying the drinks are free. (8-11 pm, free, 21+)

— It has been a god damned Fade To Mind invasion of late, thanks in no small part to the Club Chemtrail crew of SPF666, Commune and of course Massacooramaan. I, for one, welcome our new dark, avant-dance overlords. On Thursday, the longtime veteran of LA’s Moustache Mondays and GHE20G0TH1K alum Total Freedom comes to the Rose. He’s done wonderful, dark surgical things to Ciara, Lil Jon and Rihanna—now let him do those things to you. (10 pm, $5, 21+)

— Contact, Love, Want, Have is one of the best debut full-lengths by any producer ever, and Ikonika’s had a lot to live up to since her 2010 record. Bass and dubstep exploded across the ridges of that album, but now have imploded to a very different space. Sara Abdel-Hamid’s latest effort, 2013’s Aerotropolis, is a synth-ridden jaunt through 1980’s Italy and its electronic disco sounds, still heard and aped around the world. “Zen Sizzle” is her finest hour, exploring an 808 like no one else does in this decade. Catch her at the Rose on Saturday. (9:30 pm, $8, 21+)

— I’m pretty sure “indie dance” was created as a genre to spare reclusive bedroom acts from big room, big budget dance music’s Beatport chart monopolies. Still, there are often serious winners amidst the fray, one being Sydney’s Rufus Du Sol, playing Saturday at Holocene. Atlas, last year’s debut album, is full of wordplay-ridden vocal house hits, including the memorable “Desert Nights,” that feel like aloe after a long day in the sun. Maybe a lot of aloe: there’s no ozone down there. (9 pm, $12, 21+)

— Honorable mention: Normally Seattle is off-limits for Beats Per Week, mostly due to jealousy at many major producers skipping Portland over. But this deserves special mention, because Osaka’s weird and wonderful Innit party is coming to Seattle’s Dial Up for one evening only, on Wednesday. Not only will the amazing Seiho be performing, but they’ll continue the Innit policy of inviting local producers to bring their own tracks to the show. The best of the bunch will get to play shows in Japan—seriously. (9 pm, free, 21+)

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