H∞kers, Grapefruit

[TURN ON, TRIP OUT] Grapefruit is but one of Charlie Salas-Humara’s roughly 80-grillion musical projects, but it might be his most alluring. Kicking out gently oscillating jams that sound like retro-futuristic soundtrack music, the former Panther frontman and current Sun Angle member massages the cerebral cortex with pulsating synths and softly throbbing beats. H∞kers, meanwhile, are something else entirely. Placing dirty garage guitar riffs over swells of freakout distortion and an insistent American-motorik pulse, the nearly un-Googleable Portland band creates a droning interpretation of the blues that’s simultaneously cosmic and tethered to the ground. Both acts want to pave expressways to your skull, one way or another, which makes this a natural pairing for the chemically inclined.