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For its debut, Portland's Magic Marker looked outside the Pacific Northwest in compiling We Can Still Be Friends, a 20-song collection of acts from around the country. But the three young men behind the label, listed in the liner notes as Mark R., Curt K. and Pete C., display an ingenuity and sensibility that will ultimately benefit Portland's scene. They've assembled one of the most cohesive and accessible compilations of indie-pop in years, patched together with little-known bands such as locals Boy Crazy and Kissing Book, California's Nothing Painted Blue and Lunchbox, Seattle's Tullycraft, Faster Tiger and Incredible Force of Junior, and several East Coast acts. It's a tour de force of melodic rock songs that share a host of common traits, from tastefully subtle production to jangly guitars to an equal emphasis on male and female vocals. The album begins with the joyful "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" by Denver's the Minders, a group affiliated with indie rock's version of the Wu-Tang Clan, the Elephant 6 collective (led by members of the Apples in Stereo and the Olivia Tremor Control). From there, the album plays like a painstakingly assembled mix tape with songs presenting themes of youthful confusion about romance, culture and family life. Another new local label, Note Farm Records, meets with more modest success on its first offering, Six From the Farm. Featuring a few songs each by a half-dozen Pacific Northwest bands, this compilation is more of a sampler of the region's up-and-coming bands, some of which are surprisingly good considering that they're essentially unknown. Ice Break, which hasn't had much of a presence in this city's rock clubs, contributes a trilogy of somber, propulsive songs about drinking: "On the Rocks," "Vodka" and "White Russian." Seattle's Bali Girls perform a nine-minute composition constructed from feedback, oddly metered rhythms and emoted vocals. Two of the featured bands are minor revelations, if for no other reason that they're such free spirits. Lielythe's retro psychedelia recalls prog-rock forerunners that skirted around San Francisco's Summer of Love scene (i.e. the Charlatans and Quicksilver Messenger Service), incorporating flanged-out acoustic guitar, unorthodox time signatures and mopey vocals. Dignen chimes in with a trio of artful tracks that fall somewhere between emocore and art rock; its tune "Weather King" is the record's majestic highlight. Tacked on at the end, Spectator Pump's straightforward punk-pop seems an awkward inclusion, as does the off-kilter grim folk warbling of Year 5000. These flaws aside, Note Farm's Richie Young and Mat Probasco hint at a promising future as Portland label owners. Along with Magic Marker, they're a revitalizing element in a rock scene that desperately needed outlets for new music. Portland Postscripts: Seattle's Micro Mini plays here almost as often as in its hometown, so the band hosted a record release party for its debut full-length, Get in the Go Go Cage (Collective Fruit), Saturday night at Berbati's Pan. The quartet used to flaunt its poster-worthy good looks with overly cute songs like "Meet Me in Bed After Practice," but both its recent show and the new record signal a honing of songcraft and a more aggressive musicianship...It took nearly four years, but the perennially overlooked Sidecar recently wrapped production on its first album. The quartet spent two weeks in Los Angeles recording and mixing a dozen songs for a forthcoming release on Bong Load, the label that issued Beck's early material. |
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