Got a new track, “hot off the presses” (i.e. only a month ago) from former Lubbockites (present Richmonders?) The Diamond Center and man, it’s dense. A slow burner for sure, this 6 1/2 minute track is haunting throughout, starting with the slightly pitch-shifted opening chords and continuing with the monotonic vocals from singer Brandi Price, before smashing head-first into some killer reverbed-assisted guitar solos. For me, it’s very reminiscent to the drugged-out prog-rock ballads from decades ago…
For those who follow me on twitter, you are probably already aware that I’ve relocated from Portland to Utah this past month. To commemorate this move to a new environment, I’ve made a one-hour mix composed of mainly new groups from the past year-or-so (with the most notable exceptions being DOOM and Big K.R.I.T. — those songs were just too tight to leave out). All these artists have, at some point in time, been on constant repeat while I’ve packed/moved/unpacked my stuff from point A to B this past month. Much love to Delicious Scopitone, YVYNYL, Get Off the Coast, Salad Fork, Beko-DSL, Widows/Watch, and of course all the stellar bands who’ve submitted mp3s to me which have shown up on this mix. Track list and download link is below. Hope you dig “New Beginnings”!
Closing out this series of catch-up posts, I’ll start with the end of an era with Lubbock favorites The Diamond Center leaving West Texas for the more fertile grounds of Richmond, Virginia. To say an appropriate farewell, a majority of Lubbock acts took part in “Texodus”, an all day free music fest, at the beginning of August. The show was funny at times, emotional at others, but always lively with act-after-act displaying the awesomeness that is the Lubbock music scene. Here’s a pic of La Panza that night:
Following the example of The Diamond Center, I left Lubbock later that month to make way to Portland, where since then I’ve settled down nicely. I’ve seen a handful of shows, but have only been able to document some of them (camera restrictions at venue, poor lighting, etc…). Here’s a brief list:
In mid-September, I also attended Music Fest Northwest (MFNW), Portland’s counter to Austin’s SXSW. Pretty much every hip-and-trendy venue in Portland takes part in this four day fest, with bands ranging from obscure locals to popular international acts filling up bills. The festival’s first set was at Berbati’s Pan courtesy of Okkervil River’s Will Sheff. Here’s a video from the performance:
A lull in my concert going happened for most October, but I was able to check out the Danish act Choir of Young Believers. I caught them open for three acts while in Denmark, and then it was just a duo between singer/songwriter Jannis Noya Makrigiannis and cellist Caecilie Trier. Playing with a handful of more musicians, COYB shocked me at how much they have improved over the span of a year. Where once they seemed emotionally detached from their music live, during their Portland performance they were spewing energy and excitement left and right. Sure the sad ballads and whole-note based compositions were there, but they had a different air about them that made the performance much more intriguing.
Well this ends my recap of the past six or so months I’ve been absent from the blog. I have a string of shows I intend to see (Girls and Neon Indian are on tap just for today!), so I’ll be sure to post some more in depth reviews. I’ll also update a bit more regularly with daily blurbs of interesting acts, videos, and songs found throughout the interwebs. Plus, my vinyl collection has been growing and I have some ripped gems that I want to share with the world, so stay tuned!
Here are some tracks from the artists mentioned above:
