Music Stories When New Zealand’s Flying Nun Records first came to the attention of the international music scene in the 1980s, it was hard to believe such a wealth of talent could exist on one tiny island nat   More

Music I spent a fair chunk of time last week on Twitter having a back and forth with other music fans and writers about how Portland is, in the eyes of some touring artists, a flyover spot. Bands, particularly those from overseas, and hip-hop acts tend to skip right over our fair city and either head directly to Seattle and Vancouver, B.C., or don't even bother with the northwest at all. For fans o...   More

Album Reviews [RETRO  DISCO]  Unlike other Portland dance acts, Ancient Heat isn’t simply influenced by disco music: This nine-piece ensemble is a living embodiment of the much-maligned genre. And   More

Brew Views In the first 10 minutes of Pieta, the latest feature from internationally renowned director Kim Ki-duk, a man in a wheelchair hangs himself, another loudly humps a pillow on his bed, and a third   More

Books By all accounts, Birmingham, Ala., was the epicenter of the civil-rights movement of the ’60s. It was there that two of the most important moments in the fight surrounding segregation occurred:    More

Brew Views During the 1988 election in Chile that led to the ouster of Augusto Pinochet, TV advertising played as major a role in the political process as traditional campaigning: For 27 days, each side ha   More

Album Reviews [HEARTBROKEN ROCK] Don’t be fooled by the picture on the cover of Scout Niblett’s new album, a photo-booth shot of a couple in full make-out mode. The heart of It’s Up to Emma is not a rom   More

Music  When I first moved to Portland about 15 years ago, the fun kneejerk complaint was directed at Californians who migrated north to take advantage of our lack of sales tax, better coffee, and milder weather. Now, it would seem the tables have started to turn. Over the last six to eight months, a slow but steady trickle of people from our fair city are starting to head to sunnier climes, with a ...   More

Album Reviews [INSTRUMENTAL MINIMALISM] Ambient music is a dangerous proposition for even the most studied of musicians. The combination of elongated drones, stillness and washes of synth has to be measured p   More

Music Masaki Batoh's performance last night was part experimental concert, part technology demonstration. The leader of the long-running psychedelic outfit from Japan known as Ghost, Batoh cooked up a device known as a    More