Grandparents — Fumes
from Fumes EP (2012)
Sprawling psychedelic sounds… spooky harmonies and clattering drums… from Portland’s Grandparents. Git over to bandcamp for more jams like this.
Hat tip to This Music Doesn’t Suck on this one.
The Whines — Cut Meat
from Hell to Play (2010, Meds Records)
The first day my sister spent in southern California, at three and a half years old, having just arrived on a plane from South Korea, my parents pulled our Volvo station wagon through the McDonald’s drive-thru and picked up hamburgers and fries.
My sister had been subsisting on what I assume was a diet of primarily steamed rice and soup, and had absolutely no idea what to do with a hamburger. My mom finally decided the problem was that she wanted it cut up, so she carefully diced the burger. But my sister wasn’t having it. Just fries, for that first meal in America, just fries.
Having whet your appetite with that little tale, I present to you ‘Cut Meat,’ a perfectly tasty hunk of rawk from Portland’s very own The Whine. Maybe you’d like to visit them at the Free Music Archive?
Unknown Mortal Orchestra — Nerve Damage
from Unknown Mortal Orchestra EP (2010)
Great little psych-rocker from this mysterious Portland-based outfit. Kind of reminds me of the messy rawk jams Beck used to turn out in the flannel-shirted fuck-shit-up Mellow Gold days. Love it.
They also have a sweet little British-psych-sounding number called Thought Ballune up for free download at their bandcamp. (you can buy the 4-song EP there too!)
There’s not too much out there about Unknown Mortal Orchestra (hence the Unknown part, I guess?). He’s making some really funky lo-fi psych jams though that I’ve been a little crazy about the past couple of days. “Nerve Damage!” is one of his weirder tracks, featuring some groggy, barking vocals over some fuzzy, crunchy guitar work.
