FEATURED MUSIC STORY
Veteran MC Mic Crenshaw and MAX Attack Survivor Micah Fletcher’s New Album is a Cross-Generational Conversation About Social Change
  • Shannon Gormley
  • January 10
    •   
The Year in Portland Music, Ranked
The good, the bad and the weird of 2017, in 19 lists.
  • WW Staff
  • December 27, 2017
CONCERT PREVIEWS
Zaytoven’s Made a Career from Making Other Artists’ Careers. Now It’s His Turn.
  • Patrick Lyons
  • April 27, 2018
    •   
MUSIC NEWS
A New Sleater-Kinney Album Is on the Way, and It’s Produced by St. Vincent
  • Matthew Singer
  • January 8
    •   
PROFILES
Veteran MC Mic Crenshaw and MAX Attack Survivor Micah Fletcher’s New Album is a Cross-Generational Conversation About Social Change
  • Shannon Gormley
  • January 10
    •   
BEST NEW MUSIC
The Video for Lake Oswego Rapper Wynne’s Debut Single Features a Damian Lillard Cameo
  • Shannon Gormley
  • September 13, 2018
    •   
NEEDLE EXCHANGE
Needle Exchange: A DJ Questionnaire with Pocket Rock-It
  • Matthew Singer
  • May 3, 2018
    •   
ALBUM REVIEWS
Five Letter Word’s Debut Album Fills All the Requirements for Breezy Folk Music While Testing the Genre’s Boundaries
  • Donovan Farley
  • January 10
    •   
TOP 5
Five Recently Announced Concerts You Can Still Get Tickets To
  • Matthew Singer
  • May 9, 2018
    •   
CONCERT REVIEWS
At Their First Portland Show in 29 Years, the Sun Ra Arkestra Carried on the Genius of its Legendary Founder
  • Cervante Pope
  • January 10
    •   

MORE MUSIC

Five Letter Word’s Debut Album Fills All the Requirements for Breezy Folk Music While Testing the Genre’s Boundaries

The resulting record touches on well-trodden tropes of Five Letter Word’s chosen genre. But what makes Siren work—beyond the trio’s goose bump-inducing harmonies—is the record’s ability to highlight each member’s divergent passions and talents. Murder ballads like “Cast Iron Skillet” and “Rumor of the Money” stand next to darling songs like “More Than Your Dog,” which is about wanting more attention from a lover than he gives his dog. The languid, horn-assisted jazz of “Bills in the Mail” recalls Norah Jones’ early records, and the sultry “Easier to Go” is a song about a relationship that sounds as if it was written for the bedroom.
Donovan Farley   

Veteran MC Mic Crenshaw and MAX Attack Survivor Micah Fletcher’s New Album is a Cross-Generational Conversation About Social Change

Fletcher is 23, Crenshaw 48. The two met in 2015 through their overlapping roles as Portland poets and rappers. Crenshaw has mentored Fletcher since then. According to Crenshaw, the cross-generational similarities between the two MCs are much more profound than an affinity for hard-hitting verses and old-school back tracks. “When I was Micah’s age, I was also an anti-racist skinhead and a founding member of Anti-Racist Action. My whole approach and set of priorities socially in my subculture was about white supremacy,” he says. “Many years later, for Micah to be involved in his time in a current reflection of that—even if only circumstantially—is a powerful thing.”
Shannon Gormley   
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Best New Band 2018
Our Best New Band poll shows Portland music has never been so diverse, stylistically and demographically, as it is right now.