Paper/Upper/Cuts Saturday, Feb. 9

[February 6th, 2008]

[ORGTRONIC] David Fimbres, a.k.a. Paper/Upper/Cuts, has been in other people’s bands since he was a teenager. “I got my first drum set when I was about 13,” the 28-year-old says when delivering his solo debut, Collective Behavior, to my Northeast Portland home. “I’ve been playing ever since.” Los Angeles-raised Fimbres came to Portland nine years ago, on a whim. “I didn’t know anybody,” he says. “I knew it was cold.”

It wasn’t long before Fimbres found his first Portland gig drumming for post-rock outfit Prime Meridian, a position that led him to roles with psych-pop group Please Step Out of the Vehicle and experimental noise project Gulls (whose core member, Jesse Johnson, is a contributor to Collective Behavior), among others. All of this experience has been rewarding, he says, sipping on a bottle of Full Sail. “I’m in love with Portland.” But as of late, Fimbres has been looking for his own voice: “I just need to do my own thing.”

The influences present on Fimbres’ “own thing”—as one might expect from a musician who found his voice after a decade-plus playing in others’ bands—are varied. “Life,” in addition to the early influences of Mexican music and hip-hop, Fimbres says, “is an inspiration.” When asked, over the flute- and reverb-drenched drums of Behavior’s “Sunshine&Coffee,” whether Brazilian music is also an influence, he offers a quick response: “Yes. But I don’t know how. I don’t know where some of this stuff comes from.”

Its origins may be obscure, but Collective Behavior’s energy level is unquestionable. On album opener “Digital Stone,” Fimbres hollers, “Yeeeah! Fuck yeah, it’s gonna be tight!” before a drum-’n’-bass explosion. Unlike much of the noise scene with which Fimbres is well acquainted, the music of Paper/Upper/Cuts usually leans on a danceable—if distorted—live drum beat. It can be heard on the DJ Shadow-esque “An Opus Has Been Eaten,” where Fimbres breaks out the flute once again. Even on the album’s more laidback tracks, like the playful and bright “Time Is to Hug Your Friends,” a clear percussional pulse—the heart of Paper/Upper/Cuts—is beating.

“It’s natural,” he says, adding that he avoids the use of samples in concert, preferring to layer the tracks’ textures and beats individually. “It’s pretty organic, even though it’s also electronic. Orgtronic!” Fimbres exclaims, laughing. But that’s exactly how Collective Behavior comes across: It’s orgtronic.