Review: Priory – Priory (2011)
The Northwest is a fertile breeding ground for original sounds and Priory is rooted in that innovation. This group of four handsome fellas from Portland got together to flood your senses with a cocktail of folk-electro fusion. Mixing tambourine, guitar, bells, bass, keyboards, xyloph
REVIEW: POINT JUNCTURE, WA – HANDSOME ORDERS (2011)
There are many reasons why I’m in love with Portland, OR. One of them is Point Juncture, WA. This band of four bought a house they all live in, they grow a lot of their own food and they took an old barn on their property and have transformed it into a recording studio. Do you […]
REVIEW: CROOKED BARS – EP (2011)
I was a little intimidated when I first turned on Crooked Bars’ self-titled EP. The Portland quartet describes its sound as being heavy in jazz influences, and it is, in fact, jazzy. Perhaps jazzier than anything in my music collection. Just by clicking the “play” button I was venturing int
Interview: Y La Bamba’s Luzelena Mendoza
Y La Bamba comes out of Portland, Oregon, and the boundless, profound creativity of Luzelena Mendoza. Nurtured by parents who immigrated from Mexico, and the communities surrounding her, time saw her bring in an artistic family of seven musicians for the creation of their stunning 2010 album, Lupon
Review: Y La Bamba – Lupon (2010)
Lightning struck twice this year. Once during “My Darkness“, and the latter soon thereafter in watching easily the most beautifully orchestrated video of the year. Y La Bamba came coincidentally at the same time Nick Jaina performed in a small housing cooperative in Madison, however the form
REVIEW: NICK JAINA – A BIRD IN THE OPERA HOUSE (2010)
Earlier this year there was an artist coming to Madison, a favorite. Like Barnum & Bailey Circus, it was a show not to miss. But when Nick Jaina took to the floorboards in a quaint, couch-lined co-op room, my resolve to stay and hear a few songs soon dissolved faster than sugar in wate