Eugene Weekly

Oregon’s favorite folk sisters recently returned from “band camp.” Thankfully, stories that could veer into American Pie’s “This one time, when I was at band camp…” territory don’t end with sticky flutes but with the Shook Twins recording their fourth album What We Do with producer Ryan Hadlock. Hadlock is the same dude behind The Lumineer’s self-titled, Grammy-nominated record (remember the summer of 2012’s “Ho Hey” frenzy?). The Shook Twins host an album release party Friday, May 2, at McDonald Theatre. Continue reading →

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 →