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

Music Stories [HIP-HOP HERESY] Early on Soopah Eype’s most recent mixtape, El Planeta de los Simios (that’s “Planet of the Apes” for those without access to Google Translate), the Portland rapper drops    More

Music Even if you've never had the privilege of visiting the Northeast Portland home of Ju Suk Reet Meate and Rock & Roll Jackie, if you've heard some of the deliciously overstuffed music the two have recorded as The Tenses or as members of the long-running collective Smegma, yo...   More

Album Reviews [GARAGE POP] True fans of the Shivas have already heard the songs on their second album a dozen times over, either through seeing the quartet’s sensational live show or by purchasing a copy of W   More

Album Reviews [ELECTRO-POP] Kevin Robinson has already made his name as one half of dream-pop duo Viva Voce and the countrified Blue Giant, and he’s got enough cultural currency saved up to indulge in whateve   More

Music Stories The phrase that gets tossed around most often when publicists and writers talk about the music of Portland’s Shook Twins is “quirky folk.” It’s a simple enough descriptor that’s great to   More

Music These are boom times for fans and players of solo guitar music. The past few years have seen an impressive glut of new and reissued recordings that feature a performer eking out beautiful, eerie, and sometimes grotesque noise from a six- or 12-string. The first few months of this year alone have seen the release of some amazing documents from the past, including reissues of    More