Blog: opbmusic

Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, the duo known as The Black Keys , return this week with their seventh full-length album El Camino . The band would have been forgiven for taking an extended break after last year's world-beater of an album in Brothers . Instead, they're striking while that iron is hot, like 2008's Attack & Release teaming with Danger Mouse on the new collection. The made their second (!) Saturday Night Live appearance of 2011 this weekend, performing lead single "Lonely Boy" along with album track "Gold On the [...]

Lost Lander previews the release of their debut album DRRT on Saturday December 10 at the Doug Fir Lounge. The album, out January 24th on Partisan, is the perfect balance between nature and technology. The triple-header also features Radiation City , whose debut The Hands that Take You came out this past September on Tender Loving Empire, and Bright Archer , whose album Hidden Systems also debuted this year. We're giving away the chance to see these three amazing bands who are climbing the list of what's buzzing right here in [...]

Happy December! Kate Bush pares her 13-minute track "Misty" down to 2 and a half for this accompanying claymation piece entitled "Mistraldespair." Like the the whole of her new 50 Words for Snow , it's wintry. Frosty the Snowman for the sensual adult set? Let's watch...

For a singer who's released all of one rather captivating single, Lana Del Ray has certainly proven to be a polarizing figure. Detractors harp on everything from her look to her stage name to what they claim is her unoriginal sound, yet the fact remains that her first single, "Video Games," has a stop you in your tracks sound, even if it has been played ad nauseum. She recently announced details surrounding her upcoming debut-- Born to Live is set for release January 31st in the U.S. on Interscope. There's the cover [...]

A while back I was driving north on the 405 and happened across what appeared to be a video shoot of some kind underway off in the brush alongside the freeway. The subjects were dressed in black and white and there was at least one hooded robe involved. Clearly, I thought, YACHT must be making a video. They were coy about it afterward via Twitter, but I know what I saw. Anyway, this has nothing much to do with that, except that any scenes captured that day along the 405 either didn't make the cut or [...]

Top plays on opbmusic.org for the past week: 1. Tom Waits: Bad As Me 2. M83: Hurry Up, We're Dreaming 3. Ryan Adams: Ashes & Fire 4. Feist: Metals 5. Real Estate: Days 6. Gringo Star: Count Yer Lucky Stars 7. Radiation City: The Hands That Take You 8. The Drums : Portamento 9. Van Hunt: What Were You Hoping For? 10. Blind Pilot: We Are the Tide 11. Milagres: Glowing Mouth 12. St. Vincent: Strange Mercy 13. Deer Tick: Divine Providence 14. [...]

Music made for kids-- or at least with kids in mind-- hasn't had the best of reputations. Oh, the kids like it fine, it's not them who've done the complaining. Parents, on the other hand, have often been forced to endure the kind of earworms that may actually kill brain cells. Good news, parents! There is another way. Perhaps inspired to action by those aforementioned negative possibilities and no doubt by the fact that she's a relatively new parent, Laura Veirs seems to have made her new Tumble Bee with both parent [...]

UK-based rapper Mike Skinner (aka The Streets ) made good on his promise from earlier this year, retiring his decade old hip-hop act with a farewell performance in Skegness, England. Spinner reports that a crowd of roughly 7500 took in the performance Saturday night at the Big Reunion festival, and it ended with Skinner inviting fans on stage for a goodbye drink. The final Streets release, Computers & Blues dropped back in March-- a final entry on the Streets' website reads simply ***closed*** .

"There was a time when the release of a new title by your favourite record artist was a cause for excitement and rejoicing but sadly no more," begins the entry on Elvis Costello's website entitled "Steal This Record." That could be a slight over-reaction, generally speaking, but the former angry young man is not happy and he's channeled the version of himself that once famously played and unscripted version of "Radio, Radio" on Saturday Night Live in the recently posted screed. So why's the upcoming release from one of our "favourite record [...]

Played most on opbmusic.org this past week: 1. Tom Waits: Bad As Me 2. Real Estate: Days 3. Phantogram: Nightlife 4. Surfer Blood: Tarot Classics EP 5. M83: Hurry Up, We're Dreaming 6. Feist: Metals 7. The War On Drugs : Slave Ambient 8. Wilco: The Whole Love 9. Luke Temple: Don't Act Like You Don't Care 10. Ryan Adams: Ashes & Fire 11. St. Vincent: Strange Mercy 12. The Bees: Every Step's a Yes 13. The Black Keys: El Camino 14. Blitzen [...]

The Roots are burning it at both ends. Somehow, between their regular weeknight gig on Fallon , backing Betty Wright on her new album, and releasing their own rather excellent How I Got Over just last year, The Roots have managed to record undun , a concept record that releases December 6th. Always among the most cerebral of hip-hop acts, their latest in their own words "is an existential re-telling of the short life of one Redford Stephens (1974-1999). Through the use of emotives and Redford's internal dialogues the [...]

In 1997, Elliott Smith was pre-major label and pre-Oscar nomination, garnering acclaim in certain circles for his just-released either/or -- not a household name by any means, but on his way. It was against that backdrop that Smith made a stop at WMUC, the University of Maryland's campus station, for a 10-song session that went live to air and was recorded for posterity on MiniDisc. The recording subsequently went missing for over a decade-- until recently. What's most expected about the finding is the discovery of a long lost original that Smith used as a warm-up. It [...]

Damien Jurado is nothing if not prolific, and shows no signs of slowing any time soon. He's just announced his tenth studio album, Maraqopa out February 21st on Secretly Canadian . Of note, it continues the recent musical partnership with Richard Swift, who recorded the record live to tape and produced it at his Cottage Grove-based National Freedom studios. The first taste, "Nothing is the News," is a mini-epic, teased with bits of psychedelia throughout, and stands apart stylistically from anything Jurado's done in the past. It'd be a surprise if last year's [...]

It's a funny thing about a song, how one individual listening can produce a vastly different interpretation than another, each of which may themselves be light years away from the songwriter's original intention. As listeners we tend to inject our own experience into what we're hearing, and that's okay (according to most). That's part of the fun and the exchange we have with artform of any kind. But the fun stops here: our semi-regular About a Song series asks the [...]

It's been a strange 20 years or so for Prince Rogers Nelson (the man formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince , and now simply, once again, Prince). Well documented label issues and litigation and other sideshows have at times during that stretch rendered his music an aftherthought, while at other times seem to have sapped his creativity. It's not unfair to say that his output has been spotty in places, for a variety of reasons and not unlike a number of others who saw their creative zentihs early on in their careers. Yet, his [...]

Some music is better listened to with your eyes closed; taking it in, letting it marinate in your ears and echo through your skull with the artist out of sight and in your mind. Austra , the Canadian new wave outfit which serves as a vehicle for the full-bellied voice of lead singer Katie Stelmanis, creates that type of music. Stelmanis got her start singing with the Canadian Children's Opera around age 10 and took her voice to the dark side. She started performing with band mates Maya Postepski (drummer) and [...]

When last we saw Blind Pilot , they were headed south with a setlist full of new songs, fresh from a rather celebratory show at the Crystal Ballroom during Music Fest, and shows in Astoria and Eugene to begin their tour. (Not to mention their studio session at OPB..) Back in Portland this month, Blind Pilot will play the Crystal Ballroom November 23rd. Point Juncture WA opens the show. Mind you, the 23rd is the day before Thanksgiving, so you might need to put the frozen turkey/tofu in the fridge before you head out, but [...]

You may have heard Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings , sure, and if so you know that the Brooklyn-based band sounds as if they were transported here straight from soul music's golden era, all vintage licks and blasting horns backing Jones' powerhouse voice. The thing is, if you haven't seen them, you're still missing out by at least half. Jones' on-stage energy is something at which to marvel (and she's no less of a firecracker off stage , as it turns out). She shakes, she shimmies, she shambles, all while belting it out like [...]

Portland singer-songwriter Sara Jackson-Holman plays a solo version of "Let Me In" on a cold morning in the park blocks, and talks with OPB's Ifanyi Bell. You can find the entire piece on OPB's Arts & Life page.

It's been a good fall for Kevin O'Connor and Lisa Molinaro, the duo that make up the Portland beats & strings instrumental outfit Talkdemonic . They released their first album for Issac Brock's Glacial Pace label, the measured but dynamic Ruins , and have been on tour with Modest Mouse and played a handful of shows with the Flaming Lips. What's next? How about a music video, as the kids used to call 'em? Alicia J. Rose (whose past credits include AgesandAges, Menomena and Viva Voce, among others) directed this new companion piece [...]