Music When Liz Harris gets going, she just can't stop. Recording under the moniker Grouper, Harris has crafted some of the most beautiful late-night music to come out of the Pacific Northwest in a long time, with treated guitar, swirling feedback, and her ghostly voice dominating my post-midnight soundtrack for most of 2008 with the elemental Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill. Now Grouper is back with a ne...   More

Music Stories When it was time for Akron/Family to send out copies of its new album, the experimental-folk rock band abandoned the usual channels of distribution—giving promo copies to the press, streaming the    More

Music Stories [SELF-HELP INDIE ROCK] It’s often said that the best music comes in the wake of personal tragedy. The history of gut-wrenching breakup albums—from Bob Dylan’s    More

Bar Reviews When new owners remade Scoreboard Sports Bar (4822 SE Division St., 233-2971) a few years ago, they left a couple of relics from the past: a series of old-school NBA pennants so dated that the purple one says “New Orleans” over the Jazz logo and the Sonics   More

Music Now this is an interesting way to combat a leak. Today the DFA records blog posted the second of its "White Out Sessions," where James Murphy's impeccable dance-rock label plays a new song from one of its artists on a turntable in the label's office. After hearing "Dystopia (The Earth is On Fire)," an unheard YACHT track, I'm p...   More

Music Dan Bejar is an incredible songwriter. Though he's quick to say that he's bored with instruments or that he recorded most of the vocals for his new album while he was fixing a sandwich, there's no denying that Bejar's sharp, twisting songs require a lot of effort. On email, however, Bejar is quick and to the poi...   More

Music Stories More than any other current songwriter, Dan Bejar’s lyrics beg for a good unpacking. For 15 years, Bejar has written twisting, expansive and eccentric songs for his own Destroyer project as well a   More

Music It's here, folks: Menomena's new Alicia J. Rose-directed clip for Mines standout "Taos" takes the reconfigured band—can we call it Menomena 2.0 yet?—on a journey to a wrestling ring, where a smattering of costume-clad women live out all their fantasies for multi-instrumentalist Justin Harris. Basically, Harris gets humiliated, but there's a twist that's too good to spoil here. Rose has directe...   More

Album Reviews [THE LONESOME CROWDED NORTHWEST] Ever since moving to Portland in 2008, Morning Teleportation has been tagged the Next Big Thing.   More

Bar Reviews “I’ll buy a free drink for anyone who sings an Erasure song!” yells the bartender, her face hidden behind dry ice and a series of red and green laser lights straight out of a televised Muse Christmas special. Welcome to Sunday-night karaoke at The Lovecraft (421 SE Grand Ave.   More