Today we’re happy to serve up a North West smorgasbord. However, unless you can get to the Portland area within the next 48 hours or so, this post won’t do you much good. There are the MP3s. Have at ’em. That’s the reason why you’re here ain’t it? This year marks the fifth time the good people of Portland have put their collective musicheads together for a weekend of free live music. The fantastic thing about the aforementioned people of Portland is that they’re doing this all out of the goodness of their hearts. Bands, businesses, and residents all volunteer their time to put on this grassroots festival which has spawned action packed compilations that help raise money and awareness for the festival. I wouldn’t mind it a bit if I were actually there this weekend enjoying the music, the weather, the wonderful city, and of course a healthy Powell’s browse would top things off nicely. If only… Included are songs from a few bands playing this weekend. And if your attendance is more than my pipe dream, here’s the link to the schedule.
Joyo Velarde
My lady’s gonna love this track. Know why? Because Ms. Velarde’s music has taken me home, specifically the kitchen, and I’m groovin’ and scrubbin’ and scrubbin’ the grooves and scratchin’ the grout. I’m washin’ and dryin’: the dishes, the oven, the counters. I’m whistlin’ while I work, “Let the music CLEAN YOUR HOME!” She’s awakened my inner domestic dude. She’s softened my hands and loosened my caboose while I do the dishes. I’m soaking in it! Alisa ain’t gonna know what hit this place. It probably works on the dancefloor too.
Project Jenny, Project Jan
Project Jenny, Project Jan soften the downtime since their debut album two years ago with this new collaborative EP. Considering the topic, their ode to unrequited love, “Pins and Needles,” featuring Fujiya & Miyagi, settles into a smooth club groove, while their work with percussion wunderkinds and fellow Brooklynites So Percussion and Mixel Pixel stirs up darker, primordial feelings. The emotional range on this EP seems to span eons and reminds me of Shriekback’s dark tone on Oil and Gold. It’s unexpected (but not unwelcomed) from the usually playful PJPJ, but they return with their usual pluck on the final tracks with Adam Matta and Clack Singles Club. No matter their mood, Project Jenny, Project Jan has left me with a bout of paresthesia, eagerly anticipating their next album, due before year’s end.
Pins and Needles Feat. Fujiya & Miyagi [MP3, 5.6MB, 160kbps]
Original Post 6/23/07:
Mapquest Project Jenny, Project Jan. Go ahead. I dare you. You’ll have a hard time pinpointing the Brooklyn duo because they’re all over the proverbial map. When their debut EP opens up with the marching band sound of “Fight Song,” you know you’re in for a treat. On their first full-length, XOXOXOXOXO, they start the party again with a nice brass section, giving way to a bright samba number. The freestyle-stylee vocals of Jeremy Haines keeps the tracks loose and the whole album will get you shake, shake, shaking your caboose, dancing the duck-duck-goose. Feeling down lately? These boys are sure to get you up and out of your seat with a little bit of banjo, a little bit of swing, a little bit of hip hop, a little bit of reggae and lots and lots of fun. Philly, Boston, Montreal, Toronto and Cleveland brace yourselves for this Brooklyn brand of electro-karaoke coming your way live next month with Fujiya & Miyagi. A match made in dancefloor heaven.
320 [MP3, 4.4MB, 192kbps]
Train Track [MP3, 3.9MB, 192kbps]
Brian Evenson
Brian Evenson looms dark, haunting myths. His raw, unflinching language will not leave you alone. Not ever. A modern-day, literary Job, Evenson sacrificed religion and family for the Word. For his new novel, Last Days, he added, ironically, to a previous novella about a recently dismembered detective, Kline, whose services are being forcefully sought by a fundamentalist group, a sect that believes literally in the biblical exhortation to cut off or pluck out any offending member of the body, hand, eye, lip, whatever. They threaten to subtract from Kline again unless he agrees to help them solve a murder amongst their numbers.
Jonathan Lethem
Once, on my way to New York City, my father who was dropping me off at the airport, asked how much cash I was taking. Perpetually late, and perpetually putting off until tomorrow things I could and should do today, I replied, unashamedly unprepared, “None.” I planned to hit an ATM as soon as I got into the city. Simple enough. While I worried not a whit about traveling cashless, I wouldn’t dream of traveling without a good book, and more often than not, when traveling to New York City, I’d have a Jonathan Lethem book tucked into my carry-on. Lethem dabbles deftly in several genres. His novel, The Fortress of Solitude, one of my favorites, blends two styles of realism, gritty and magic, in a masterful coming of age tale of one young Brooklynite in the ’70s. His latest, You Don’t Love Me Yet, is his take on a romantic comedy set in Los Angeles among modern-day indie rockers. If you’ve been missing out on Lethem, you’ve been missing out on the last decade of American culture.
Mark Richard
If you’re an impatient Mark Richard fan like myself you’ve stopped waiting for his next fictional foray. After being crowned one of the kings of contemporary literary fiction (read: big fish in a really small pond), he left for Hollywood to write for television (Chicago Hope, Party of Five, Huff) and film (Stop-Loss and the adaptation of his story “The Ice at the Bottom of the World” due out next year). Outside of that bubble I highly doubt he’s made any new fans with his screenwritings. Mark Richard discoveries take place tete-a-tete, with loaner titles being passed mano-a-mano. I love digging up used copies to pass along as gifts and now, sharing with a wider audience. Take a deep breath before you dive into the first story. It’s two sentences long. One sentence slightly longer than the first and chock full of images you may want to consider before you move into that charming apartment after moving out or losing your house to this lovely market we’ve been experiencing of late.
(Note: If you’d like your fiction to be considered for review, please email us links to your work.)
Mary Robison
Besides music rattling around in my head most of the day, words take up residence there too, sentences, stories, novels. I’ve wanted to add stories to our offerings at 3hive for a while now and it’s time to stop wanting. The arrival of Mary Robison’s novel One D.O.A., One on the Way has been looming for too long. It looks ready for reading finally. The curt and sardonic Eve Broussard narrates the story of her life in post-Katrina New Orleans in quick snapshots detailing the decline of her husband’s health and the pair’s relationship. It’s not unlike the fragmented and funny Why Did I Ever? the novel Robison scratched out on 3×5 cards, often while in her car waiting at stoplights. Both perfectly consumable novels for the clinically distracted. Tune in again next weekend for another edition of WordHive.
New Phoenix Single
I like Phoenix. And they like you. To prove it, they just released their new single “1901” as a free download. Gotta go here to get it. No email or log in necessary. The band will issue their full album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix on May 25th.
Gnarls Barkley
So, Gnarls Barkley. You might have heard of these guys, eh? Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo? Yeah, they’re kind of popular, with two records of sweet beats and smooth vocals, and an EP with versions of the song below. Oh, and a pair of Grammys, also. Yep, here at 3hive, we’re glad to introduce you to the cutting edge of new music!
Loyal Divide
This makes me sick! (Well, the sick feeling probably comes from the dizzying bout of Neuritis I’ve been battling for the past week. Makes typing a bit tedious.) Peeved may be a better word. Either way, I can’t believe I let 2008 lapse without mentioning my favorite EP to come our way at the end of the year. Chicago’s Loyal Divide is at once cold and earthy, shoe-gazey and trip hop, Nine Inch Nails and Autolux, Laurie Anderson and Portishead. Your not so typical post-industrial-shoe-goth if you don’t mind me taking such liberties. “Labrador” is tethered to time as the track unwinds into a chugging locomotive pace, driven by Can’s tribal basslines, until ethereal vocals hauntingly give way to a languid narrative about a dog with “blackest eyes and softest mouth / she buried her bones behind the house / she grabbed a bird trying to steal my food / she squeezed its head until it cooed.” The vocals float along through punchy bass-lines and electronic tickings and tweets as everything but the bassline drop out, then rush back in. The Loyal Divide creates the most compellingly textured music I’ve heard from a new artist in some time.