Ian King"It reminds me a little bit of my inner world when I’m writing music, where I feel... a kind of loneliness, a kind of melancholy, a kind of sadness. At the same time, I feel hope... I felt that this was kind of a very nice metaphor for this kind of...
When most people think of jazz, they either stop at Duke Ellington’s sophisticated big bands, or possibly make it as far as the edgy, revolutionary architecture of bebop, if they’re hip. This extremely limited viewpoint overlooks the...
On The Window Wants The Bedroom, the debut full-length from Biosexual, the trio of prolific sound artist Zac Nelson, along with Michael RJ Saalman and Jocelyn Noir, it seems like Biosexual is more interested in reflecting the surreal state of modern...
Vee Hua 華婷婷This audio-visual collaboration between Portland-based avant-garde metal outfit, The Body, and NYC mixed media artist Alexander Barton has been a long time coming, a homage to an enduring friendship. Combining their mutual shared interest in...
Digging out gems from the datastream can be a full-time job, if not a miracle, what with trying to separate the ore of genius from the millions of sub-par trap remixes extant. Enter Portland's SadoDaMascus Records, the publishing arm of the Sonic...
Dawn of Midi – Dysnomia Album Review (w/ Track-By-Track of Astronomical & Mythological Implications)
When the American trio Dawn of Midi released their accomplished 2010 debut album, First, the world had gained another practitioner of minimalist free jazz. Two years in the making, and at a reported cost of thirty thousand dollars, Dysnomia is the...
Call it a spiritual treatise, a visual masterpiece, or whatever you like -- but Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1973 film, The Holy Mountain, has inspired musicians dating as far back as members of the Beatles, who played an instrumental role in funding and...
Up until last night, I might have made the argument that the saxophone is one of the least interesting instruments on the planet. Although it is highlighted in jazz, its brass cousins easily overpower it in group arrangements. The saxophone, the...