Skip to main content"There are a lot of bedroom electronic producers here in Portland, and they're making music that's fantastic but not commercially viable," says Galen Beals, a local electronic musician who operates under the stage name N-Grava. "I love the idea of pulling a blanket off something unusual and saying to a crowd, 'ta-da!'"
It's ta-da time, then. Beals and some of his laptop-lugging cronies are starting a new Portland-based label called IsDiff Records, aiming to bring their eclectic, electric exercises to the world. All these guys create variations on what is commonly referred to--for lack of more descriptive terms--as intelligent dance music, or IDM. This basically means they look to push the limits of what their software and hardware will do. The results run from bouncing bubbly beats to expansive, rhythmless meandering.
Of course, some would see this alternative to dance-club mindlessness as an express route to oblivion. But IDM owns a surprisingly big chunk of Portland's musical rock. Witness the fact that IsDiff joins at least three other local IDM labels--OMCO, Audio Dregs and Archigramophone.
"The real eye-opener for me was when Autechre played here last year," Beals says. "The place was packed. Where did all those people come from?"
Of course, no electronic-music label can be without a website, and Beals has put together a very spiffy one for IsDiff (www.isdiff.com). What's particularly noteworthy, however, is that the site allows the visitor to download or stream a full album's worth of complete, high-quality MP3s of N-Grava tunes, with songs by others to come.
"I want people to know what we are about when they go to our website," explains Beals. "To me the best way seems to just give them some of our music to decide for themselves if they like it."
This puts IsDiff in the company of a growing number of electronic music labels who offer at least some of their releases for free download. Some are unabashedly nonprofit, offering songs, cover art, the kitchen sink, you name it. Others are comparatively conventional, alternating MP3s and hard-copy releases. IsDiff leans more towards the latter approach.
"IsDiff is not strictly an online label," says Beals. "We all share the same ideals about making music, but we don't always have the same feelings about releasing it. One of the things I'm interested in doing is offering releases online, on CD, on vinyl, and even on minidisc or DVD."
The flexible approach seems well-adapted for an era when people can get music pretty much anywhere, through many different avenues, in many different formats. "At one time, I thought there were enough music collectors out there who would buy records just to own them, so that they have something tangible in their hands," Beals says. "But now that seems to be shifting."
Beals and his collaborators are pragmatic about their financial prospects. "The object at this point is just to promote our music. Get it in the hands of people who like this kind of music. All the money that's made from the label, even the shows, goes right back into doing more releases."
So the only question that remains is whether a midline city like Portland can support so much esoteric electronica. "I think Portland has the potential to become an electronic-music hotspot," says Beals. "I think having several local IDM labels helps us, makes us stronger, more unified. It just means more twisted electro for Portlanders."
Blackbird, 3728 NE Sandy Blvd., 282-9949. 9 pm Sunday, Sept. 22. $6. 21+.
WWeek 2015