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This week, we are celebrating WW’s annual Best New Bands issue, a cover package that features 10 new (or newish) local music acts. For 19 years, WW has polled the local music industry about which acts they’re loving the most and who among those acts will be the next big thing to come out of Portland.
As our assistant arts and culture editor Bennett Campbell Ferguson writes in his intro, art is subjective. So take the titular best new bands with a grain of salt, because between the 100 different bands nominated, the consensus was heckin’ elusive, with winners each commanding a narrow share of the final vote tally.
So that’s the tea: Our city is overflowing with new music.
Today, I’m talking with Best New Banders Jessie Branch and Ryan Scott of Ghost Feet, a shoegazy, dreamy, melancholic five-piece ensemble that layers ethereal vocals over dark wave, gothy, shoulder-swaying compositions. To me, Ghost Feet sounds like a quintessential Portland band. Genre aside, the vibe is hazy gray, misty chill, Pacific Northwest dawn. We’ll talk to Jessie and Ryan about how they build that vibe.