Point Line Plane / Pink Martini

Point Line Plane

Smoke Signals

Skin Graft

Portland's synth-synth-drum trio reimagines the future as it was meant to be: full of screaming and sirens blaring.

Remember how cold, alien and downright lame the Y2K future was, according to '80s pop culture? Rigid pre-sequenced robotic music, flickering spinach-colored LED computer screens, cybernetic humanoids with trans-human body parts...didn't anyone predict Internet porn and the iPod? While so many contemporary retro-futurist bands continue to ironically recycle the past, Portland's own anachronistic dual-synthesizer-and-lone-drummer trio Point Line Plane sounds as desperately human and accurately advanced as the future is supposed to be. That is, the trio's sophomore album Smoke Signals sounds like the nightmarish techno-fetishistic future that post-punks were aiming to simulate, but with the advances and lessons learned in the years since. The title track opens the record, kicking off with an analog-synthesizer loop reminiscent of early Suicide. But when Joshua Blanchard's wavering vocal yelps and Nate Carson's lively drums kick in, Point Line Plane sounds no less urgent and as timeless as Little Richard. "Descender" begins with rollicking drums tugging at Howard Gillam's fugue-style keyboard lines. Suddenly, staccato rhythms interrupt the proceedings as Blanchard's voice flips and wails "Ignore the sirens/ It goes away." He then imitates the siren noise: "It goes aw-wah-ahh-wah-ahh-way-ayy-ayy." Unlike PLP's lo-fi debut, Smoke Signals is crisp and powerful. And unlike the synthy-dance pop of the Faint and countless others, Point Line Plane echoes the urgency of analog post-punk but brings it new life. (Dave Clifford)

Pink Martini

Hang on Little Tomato

Heinz

It's been seven years. Time to clean out your air ducts and listen to Pink Martini.

Seven years after Pink Martini's self-released debut Sympathique sold more than 600,000 albums, won creepily universal respect and adoration, and earned the local band status as the favored entertainment of black-tie parties worldwide, the group has finally finished its second release, Hang On Little Tomato. Seven years ago, you'll remember, the nation was gripped by the now-gone and largely unlamented lounge movement, but Pink Martini never really fit in with the genre's shallow tributes or novelty covers. Re-imagining cocktail jazz and Latin big band as ruthlessly disciplined chamber music, Thomas Lauderdale removes the historical context of his influences and creates a lush cabaret beyond time or place. Fragmented idioms blend into a dreamy coherence as the soundtracked meanderings of Lauderdale's sharp and far-reaching aural aesthetic swell and whisper and rumba. There were always disparate elements at play within Pink Martini's music--an average song builds pop chansons above orchestral flourishes and Cuban rhythms as a matter of course, as if that's how songs have always been constructed--but the new album assembles a true pan-ethnic cavalcade. Languages sung include French, Italian, Japanese, Croatian, Spanish and an English that itself sounds badly translated. Pink Martini's lyrics are far from the point of the project; while there are some throwaway lines, they're never embarrassing, and they are generally grist for frontwoman China Forbes' theatrical delivery as she glides to the top of her (not, shall we say, operatic) range and frolics with an effortless sophistication. Pink Martini's music, more than anything, sounds sophisticated, posh and worldly, but, for all the familiar glimpses, it is a world the group has created. (Jay Horton)

Pink Martini plays Tuesday-Wednesday, Oct. 19-20, at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 796-9293. 8 pm. $15-$45. All ages.

WWeek 2015