Pour le Plaisir has been producing, remixing, and collaborating since as far back as 2001. Having released over one dozen records on the French dance label Moleskine, this is his first with the UK’s Blue Tapes and X-Ray Records, a recently revamped tandem tape and vinyl series who have also recently reissued on vinyl Blue Twelve, improvisational guitarist Tashi Dorji’s album from last year. Citing his hometown to be both as France and Italy, Pour le Plaisir (real name only provided as Patrick G., retaining a slight elusiveness to his identity) does seem comfortable in migration on the Tin Machine EP. While not as directionally opposed as the cardinal points, each of the four tracks on Tin Machine presents a…

Effortlessly eternal, Jack Name’s Weird Moons harnesses the same joyous commitment to polyglot musical experimentalism of the likes of Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall. Simultaneously evoking both the creaky wonder of lo-fi bedroom recordings and the organic richness of early 1970s “big board” recording studios, such as L.A.’s Sound City, it displays a masterful understanding of both songwriting and audio craft. These elements, coupled to his obvious exuberance at the creative potential of the arts at his disposal, make for an intoxicating and powerful mix. Enigmatic, and prone to the same promiscuity of naming that keeps fans of the Parquet Courts on their toes, Jack Name has released recordings under several different monikers. This choice is, we are told,…

Curated by vVv Stardust & Serious Moonlight of Intuitive Navigation, of Portland’s newest radio station, XRAY.FM — xray.fm/programs/intuitive-navigation — for PICA (Portland Institute of Contemporary Art)’s Giving Tuesday fundraiser.

Back in 2011, French record label Atelier Ciseaux collaborated with the label La Station Radar to curate an extremely popular mixtape featuring the pop stylings of bands like Lucky Dragons, Mathemagic, Jeans Wilder, and Reading Rainbow. Time may have passed, but Atelier Ciseaux’s dedication to inventive pop songs that saturates moods in bright washes has remained the same. Jeans Wilder returns on this year’s installment, along with some REDEFINE favorites like TOPS, Ariel Pink, and Amen Dunes, as well as amazing tracks by French-speaking musicians like Police Des Moeurs, and Essaie Pas.

The idea that the multiverse is more akin to an art project than a science experiment (or an art experiment, if you’re so inclined) is one of those Occult themes that typically gets dismissed by both overly scientific and religious types alike, even though it quite inarguably resonates now more than ever. One of the stranger aspects of human psychology that we essentially avoid touching in typical academic or spiritual discourse involves the fact that your average person now consumes roughly a hundred thousand times more art in a given year than they did even a mere century ago. We used to rely on mediums like galleries, plays, symphonies, and libraries to dispense our art, most of which weren’t super…

2014 was an amazing time for music, and this year, rather than asking the Gina Altamura and Van Pham of the interdisciplinary Portland venue and nightclub Holocene to list their favorite up-and-coming Portland musicians, we decided to give them the opportunity to highlight their favorite shows of 2014, both local and international. The dynamic result is not exclusively Holocene-centric, and definitely gives ample nods to Portland’s experimental music scene. PHOTO: SZA @ Holocene, Courtesy of Red Bull Sound Select SEE ALL POSTS RELATED TO: PORTLAND MUSICIANS + HOLOCENE PORTLAND