Eugene Weekly

Human Ottoman is confident that their debut album Power Baby is going to melt your face off.  This chutzpah stems from the fact that, to their knowledge, they’re the only band in the world that uses this particular instrumentation, with Matthew Cartmill on cello, Susan Lucia on drums and Grayson Fiske on vibraphone (like a xylophone with a sustain pedal). “It’s shocking when you think you have an idea in your head about what cello sounds like and what vibraphone sounds like, and then what we do happens,” Fiske says.  Continue reading →

Get ready for a whole lotta Seattle. On Friday, May 2, Sam Bond’s welcomes a showcase of three up-and-coming indie rock bands from that other Emerald City. Who’s on first? Friends and Family. Celebrating the release of their debut record Happy, Good-Looking, and in Love, Friends and Family blend the lush, idiosyncratic arrangements of Arcade Fire with Of Montreal’s glitter-pop; the sound is artful, intellectual and over the top in all the right ways. Continue reading →

American “classical” music often finds a more welcome reception in choral concerts than in orchestra halls. Maybe it has something to do with the enormous popularity of choral music; nearly 30 million Americans — a tenth of the population — sing at least occasionally in a choir of some kind, whether it’s in school or church, amateur or professional. Maybe that’s why American folk and choral music sometimes seem like kissing cousins. Continue reading →

Lynx reminds me of a general — marshaling her beats, strings, digital bleeps and waves like orchestrated forces to create a united front. Or perhaps a captain is more apt. Her latest album, Light Up Your Lantern, sways like a ship in unknown waters on tracks like “Southern Skies,” leaving the listener a little woozy but eager for what lays ahead. Either way, Lynx is master and commander of her own fate, plotting her own folktronica course somewhere between the chilled mystery of The xx and the electronic exotica of Beats Antique. Continue reading →

Portland’s own Hillstomp has found a way to blend Northwestern sense of place with the sludge and balm of a Louisiana swamp. The duo’s new album, titled Portland, Ore., out now on Fluff & Gravy Records, is a 10-track work that ebbs and flows, jives and stomps and howls, riots and then takes a nap. It begins with a rather heavy twosome — “Santa Fe Line” and “Life I Want” — that showcases the band’s ever-growing ability to find beauty in mosquito-bitten disarray. Continue reading →

Bombadil’s quirky 2013 release Metrics of Affection defies expectations from the start — sounding more like British Invasion pop from the ’60s than contemporary indie rock from North Carolina. Album tracks “Angeline” and “Learning to Let Go” recall the Ray and Dave Davies songwriting partnership of The Kinks. “We do sound very Brit-pop,” bassist Daniel Michalak says. “When we started we wanted to sound like Neil Young. Now we want to sound like Jay-Z and The Offspring,” he jokes. Continue reading →

White mystery, booked by behavior castle play 543 Blair. Photo by Trask Bedortha.   Continue reading →

If you made it to Austin-based no-fi folk act Shakey Graves’ last Eugene show, congratulations — the line stretched around the block, and Sam Bond’s quickly reached capacity.  Since then Shakey Graves has continued to build his name as one of the hottest indie-folk/insurgent blues live acts, with matinee-idol good looks and an innovative one-man show (percussion supplied by suitcase). Continue reading →

Well, Mobb Deep is back together after a brief disbandment and they (Hempstead, N.Y.-born Havoc and Prodigy) just dropped another banger. That’s 20 years of hardcore hip hop for those counting, and the Billboard charts always look better with their names on it. Although The Infamous Mobb Deep, released April 1, peaked at number five on the U.S. rap chart and 10 on the U.S. R&B chart, it still can’t rival the New York duo’s ’99 release, Murda Muzik, which is certified platinum, having sold more than one million copies. Continue reading →

If Rob Zombie happens to remake The Lord of the Rings trilogy, he could do worse than to hire Circle Takes the Square to provide the soundtrack. Hailing from Savannah, Ga., this assaultive group lays down a cathartic catapult of noise that is migraine heavy and druidic weird. Circle Takes the Square’s new album, Decompositions: Volume Number One, is a non-stop barrage of hammering beats, pitched vocal screaming and grinding, squealing guitars, occasionally relieved by medieval moments of slowed-down chanting and neo-classical harmonic interludes. Continue reading →