Best New Band 2014

VIDEO: Rachael Renee' Photography

“Everyone needs change,” says the tall, tattooed Mendoza when asked about the band’s beginnings. “When you’re doing the same thing over and over, even if it feels good, you start to wonder what it’s like doing something else.” Delffs, scruffy and clad in a slim sport coat, echoes those sentiments from across the table. “It’s like a well-oiled machine,” he says. “Beautiful things happen, but sometimes you need a fundamental change.”

In his case, the most fundamental difference is that the two musicians write songs together—a notable change for Dellfs, who’s used to playing frontman for both the Shaky Hands and his solo project, Death Songs. He and Mendoza began collaborating when a mutual friend brought them together to play at her house a few years ago. That one-off collaboration extended into days-long sessions in which they’d help each other flesh out their respective songs. A joint Death Songs-Y La Bamba West Coast tour followed in 2012, and the pair finally decided to start an official project.

“When you have the environment, tools, timing and right people, it just kind of happens,” Mendoza says. “A lot of people can resonate with that, but they probably have a different way of articulating it.”

With Mendoza at the helm, the band’s eclectic sound isn’t too far-flung a departure from past efforts. The music still incorporates traditional folk elements, with a heavy emphasis on syncopated percussion, instilling Mendoza’s distinctly operatic vibrato with a keen pulse flanked by delicately cascading guitar, lush harmonies and a scattered mix of keys and vibraphone. Additional percussion and Delffs’ dynamic drumming are pivotal to the rhythm, often rollicking in bare-bones fashion before erupting into a cannonade of toms and hi-hat. An all-female choir known as Maria Maria—which Mendoza refers to as a “vocal hug”—often accompanies the band, rendering her hushed, Feist-like timbre even more resounding.

With their other bands on indefinite hiatus, Tiburones is now both musicians’ primary concern. They just finished a short tour opening for Portland roots-rockers Black Prairie, and the band is wrapping up an album with the help of the Decemberists’ Chris Funk. But Mendoza and Delffs aren’t trying to look too far ahead. They’re happy enough just living in the moment.

“We’ve both been in bands who’ve toured and sacrificed a good deal for music,” says Delffs before he, Mendoza and bassist Samantha Stidham take the stage at Savoy Tavern. “We’ve talked a lot about our past experiences, and we want to try and do something different, to be smarter about this project.”

“But we also want it to allow us to be who we are,” Mendoza quickly interjects, “because we just can’t stop playing music. It’s an ongoing search for the balance.” BRANDON WIDDER.

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4. MODERN KIN

POINTS: 54

FORMED: 2013

SOUNDS LIKE: Arcade Fire covering “I Put a Spell on You” with the intensity of a Daniel Day-Lewis monologue.

Drew Grow has a voice so fiery and convincing it makes his trio, Modern Kin, an act of near-religious catharsis. The band’s self-titled debut full-length, released last October, is a mesmerizing amalgamation of gospel and rock ’n’ roll, delivered with the fervor of a man touched by an unspeakable force, not to mention a musical gene pool: Grow’s mother, a trained vocalist, sang in coffeehouses in the ’60s, and both of his parents sang in opera choirs. He owes his evangelistic presence to them as well.

“By the time I came along, my parents had become evangelical Christians,” Grow says, “and my childhood was full of church music, choirs, holy-roller all-night camp meetings.”

Modern Kin started as Drew Grow and the Pastors’ Wives in 2007. Three-fourths of the band carried over to the current act. They’re fewer in number but bolder in sound, trading twang and folk for bigger amps and a bit of fury. Drew credits the band’s versatility and flexibility to his bandmates, bassist Kris Doty and drummer Jeremiah Hayden. “After playing with four [musicians] for a few years, I’m enjoying the space in the music so much,” Grow says.

Grow had become so attached to the music that, by the time it came to record an album, he needed an outside perspective. So he brought in his girlfriend, drummer Janet Weiss of Quasi and Sleater-Kinney, to produce. “It was invaluable to have someone with her instinct and chops saying ‘yea’ or ‘nay,’” Grow says. Songs like “Abandon” and “Pony” contain the volume and ferocity of Arcade Fire circa Neon Bible. Others, like “Big Enough to Cook,” show signs of Talking Heads and even shock-rock specialist Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Doty’s upright bass grumbles from below, while Hayden’s piercing ride cymbal creates a chilling effect. In between is Grow himself, belting like it’s his last sermon on earth.

Words like “stomp,” “shake” and “shatter” appear frequently in Modern Kin’s lyrics, which skip around subjects of mortality, family and, not surprisingly, religion. They’re potent words that carry a sound in and of themselves. “Let’s not talk or theorize, I can show I can surprise/ Pull the curtain back/ Ta-da/ Here is that bang,” Grow sings on “Modern Skin.” The diction is deadly, the written lines just as explosive and possessed as the music.

Last fall, Modern Kin played seven sets in 24 hours at Mississippi Studios. The shows were broadcast via YouTube, each scheduled for a different time zone. At 10 pm Pacific Time, the group was playing to a decent in-house crowd. At 7 the next morning, the band was scarfing doughnuts and playing before how ever many fans it may have in Beijing.

“It was an interesting experiment,” Grow says. “We wanted it to feel like we were playing from our basement, like Wayne’s World.” But he admits the shows played before actual attendees knocked the pants off the sets performed mostly for viewers half a world away. “The truth is that our rock show is not virtual,” he says. “It is a thing we do with our audience.” MARK STOCK.

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5. LIKE A VILLAIN

POINTS: 44

FORMED: Made her first recording in 2008.

SOUNDS LIKE: A congregation of umlauts—Björk meets Arvo Pärt at Steve Reich’s synagogue.

Like a Villain’s Holland Andrews scares children. At least, the scant video evidence seems to bear this out. A torrent of operatic wails from Andrews during an outdoor May Day performance sent a wobbly 3-year-old running for the nearest high ground.

“I like to think that the sheer raw power of my screaming emotions blew her away and terrified her,” Andrews says. “‘Daddy, I don’t want to grow up like that!’”

And sure, the title track of her upcoming album, Bast—the name of the Egyptian cat goddess—was inspired by a deep-throated, wailing Diamanda Galas piece that the notoriously frightening singer performs naked while bathed in blood. But Andrews—shy in manner and, on a recent rainy afternoon, a bit under the weather—says her solo project is geared toward healing.

“Some people see me acting like a freak and screaming and getting on my knees, and they can find some inspiration in that,” she says. “I’m an emotional person. I’d like to hope I’m not the only emotional person ever.”

The 25-year-old started making her own music in California as a teenager, when she got her first Mac computer, after previous time as a clarinetist for her high-school band and, tellingly, as a musical-theater nerd.

Like a Villain has developed into a study in dynamics—simple parts that build into storms. Andrews constructs her songs live with nothing but a clarinet, a glockenspiel and a series of loop, delay and reverb pedals—and, of course, the power of her own formidable voice. Her songs build from woodwind, chime and simple lyrics, looped around to reach crescendos that sometimes come on like a breaking wave. “You’re worth more than what you know,” Andrews belts, and the feeling is somewhere between a squishy therapy session and a desperate howl into the abyss. Her songs are a cathartic game of emotional catch-and-release.

She’s neck-deep into recording her much-delayed new album with producer Mike Erwin, and has commissioned sounds from her own bandmates in AU and from members of Typhoon, at one point asking 10 friends to stand in a bowling alley parking lot singing, “We are never going to die!”

It isn’t true, of course. But the whole point is making you believe it, if only for a moment. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

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6. GRAMMIES

POINTS: 43

FORMED: 2012

SOUNDS LIKE: Ornette Coleman’s The Shape of Jazz to Come and a lost J Dilla drum track playing simultaneously in the back of The Millennium Falcon.

It’s been nearly a month since Noah Bernstein and Dan Sutherland of experimental jazz hip-hop duo Grammies have seen each other, and instantly they’re making up for lost time.

“We’ll give you a minute to catch up on the disguises,” Bernstein says, laughing as he switches his Google Hangout costume from a party hat and mustache to a pirate get-up. “I’m already having too much fun.”

Bernstein is forced to video chat because he’s spent the better part of April and early May on the road with Shy Girls, the band that was handpicked to open 14 shows across the country for rising sister-pop act Haim. But it’s his other band that is garnering tons of attention this year—odd and rewarding for a saxophone-and-drums duo that, to the untrained ear, makes a pretty weird racket.

Grammies’ music comes from the experimental world, but it also has two feet firmly planted on the dance floor. Sutherland’s beats—grimy, chopped up and syncopated, like something Flying Lotus would come up with when he’s super-baked—are aided by the use of a sampler, and he jokes that even if he screws up he can trigger it to match with the drums. Though Bernstein hails from a pretty strict jazz background, the duo’s mutual love of hip-hop and “modulating R&B chords” leads to jams that work surprisingly well as standalone songs. If the band’s rhythm were the foundation of an old church, then Bernstein’s heavily processed saxophone is all the intricate details: the etched markings above the entryway, the stained-glass window fading from too many years in the sun.

Bernstein and Sutherland interact, even in the digital space, like two long-lost brothers in on the same joke. Their chemistry is also immediately evident onstage, with Sutherland locking in on his kit while Bernstein goes nuts on the saxophone, soloing over the top like a free-jazz Damian Lillard. You can hear that same spirit in Grammies’ debut album, Award Winning (engineered by Shy Girls’ Dan Vidmar), and their follow-up, recorded straight to tape in a St. Johns basement during February’s snow storm with help from their friends in fellow 2014 Best New Band finalist, WL.

“I never really imagined being able to pull off such a full, intense sound with just two people,” Bernstein says. “In the past it was always, ‘I have this not very well-paying gig, let me call a buddy.’ This band is totally perfect, vibe-wise.” MICHAEL MANNHEIMER.

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7. MAGIC FADES

POINTS: 40

FORMED: 2011

SOUNDS LIKE: ’90s R&B dreamboats getting weird in adulthood.

A year ago, Mike Grabarek and Jeremy Scott were an Internet-based phenomenon, grinding out difficult-to-define beats somewhere between R&B and the hazy “vaporwave” micro-genre from the comfort of their bedroom. Now, Magic Fades has developed into a bona fide live band, with a fan base flourishing both online and off. But according to the duo, it wasn’t as if they just decided one day to go legit.

“The thing is,” Grabarek says, “people only knew of us online because we played around Portland, but like…”

“...nobody cared,” says Scott, finishing his partner’s sentence.

It wasn’t until the pair played the Dark Arts Festival at Holocene in 2012 that Magic Fades finally began getting quality gigs. At this point, the group has performed in just about every tiny spot in town, as well as popular spaces such as Doug Fir Lounge, Mississippi Studios and Valentines. Magic Fades hasn’t had to change anything stylistically—it’s still making gauzy bedroom music to soundtrack the late-night fantasies of lonely bloggers—but it has adjusted sonically.

“We’ve had to change around a few things in order to mix in a live setting,” Scott says, “instead of strictly listening to something on your computer or streaming a live audio.”

The band is in the midst of creating new music that will showcase “less R&B and more experimental weird stuff.” “We’re trying to get the project as good as we can so we can go shopping around for potential labels,” Grabarek says. In the past, Magic Fades would create a single and release it online immediately. Now, the intent is to build anticipation for a full-length album by curbing the quick-hit uploads. As for when that album will be released, “we’re not sure,” Grabarek says.

Even as they talk about hype, Grabarek and Scott are adamant about staying low-key, in the fear they will be “overbearing about advertising online, which is annoying,” says Grabarek. All of these concerns—adjusting the music to a live setting, figuring how much promotion is too much—are things the duo didn’t have to worry about back in the bedroom days, when online play counts were all that mattered. But the most important thing to Magic Fades now is the same thing it’s always been. 

“It’s all about the beat anyway,” Grabarek says. KATHRYN PEIFER.

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8. THE GHOST EASE

POINTS: 39

FORMED: 2010

SOUNDS LIKE: Heavy lullabies for the distortion-inclined. 

For a band that calls its music “dreamy,” the Ghost Ease certainly likes to turn up the volume.

“I’m a dreamy kind of person,” says singer-guitarist Jem Marie, who writes most of the group’s songs. “I’m also very intense, so there has to be those intense, punchy moments.”

The all-female trio released its self-titled debut LP last year: eight tracks of hazed-out garage rock, heavy on the distortion, which envelops trance-inducing guitar riffs and Nsayi Matingou’s crashing, frenzied drums. Marie’s high, delicate soprano mixes with the heaviness, slowly ascending right along with the surprisingly laid-back melodies—an effect that lends itself to a bleary, warm feeling, like waking up from a long nap.

Formed in 2010, the Ghost Ease first began as a solo project for Marie, who still performs solo under the moniker Murmur Ring. Matingou joined in 2012 after seeing Marie perform around town, and ditched the guitar—which she played in her previous experimental rock group, Kusikia—to learn drums.

“I think that’s why it was fun to jump into this, because it was such a new experience,” Matingou says. “You get so used to the ideas of what the rules are. And with drums, I don’t know the rules yet, so I do whatever I want.”

Following the release of its album—recorded in Matingou’s cousin’s house as a two-piece—the Ghost Ease added Fabi Reyna, also a guitarist, to the lineup to play bass. Fresh off a West Coast tour earlier this year, the trio is working on new songs for its second full-length, tentatively scheduled for release this summer. Marie says the new songs mark a shift in her songwriting, with the angst present in the first album beginning to fade.

“At that time, I wanted so many things and couldn’t get it,” Marie says of making the band’s debut. “Now with my life, I’m like, ‘I want it, I think about it and I get it.’ I’ve just discovered how to do that over maturing in all these different ways.”

Although the eeriness of the music will remain, the band says its songs have grown up, too, in part because of the newly stable lineup. “They’re going to be fuller and even more dynamic,” Matingou says, “because there’s three heads instead of two.” KAITIE TODD.

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9. WL

POINTS: 38

FORMED: 2011

SOUNDS LIKE: Waking up with a bad hangover before realizing your roommate has a plate of scrambled eggs and a cold compress for you.

Last summer, WL performed at a Red Bull-sponsored event at which the band was required to give the energy-drink company unlimited rights to one of its songs.

“They record it live at the show and then they can use it for whatever they want, anywhere in the universe, forever,” says guitarist Michael Yun. While some bands gifted a song from one of their albums, WL wrote a song specifically for Red Bull. Drummer Stevie Sparks chimes in: “The chorus line was, ‘Fuck all your bullshit,’ 20 times, over and over.”

“They kept saying, ‘What about this other one?’” adds vocalist Misty Mary. “But we just said, ‘No, we made this one for you.’”

That act of defiance says a lot about the band. While WL has frequently been referred to as “shoegaze,” due to the mellow, ambient sound of its debut album, last year’s Hold, the truth is that, underneath the slow tempos and atmospheric vocals, WL is a band with bite. For certain audiences, sometimes it bites too hard.

“We just played a show in L.A. where we were heavily pushed as a shoegaze band, and the audience was a bunch of kids crossed-armed wearing ‘Ride’ T-shirts and expecting something entirely different from the keyboard trio onstage,” Yun says. “In some senses, we embrace that, sure. If there’s an audience that wants to see a shoegaze band, come out and we’ll play for you.”

With its upcoming album, though, the band is looking to paint a more accurate depiction of itself. (The members confess they’re not even all that familiar with the shoegaze genre; Sparks is a metal fan, in fact.) They finished recording in January and have been carefully tweaking the record. Yun says the band is “getting pretty antsy” about moving on to its next project, but the members are  forcing themselves to reel in their impulse to jump ahead too fast. They believe they’re at the point where WL needs to garner more exposure for the next album, in order to develop its audience—the right audience.

“I am confident that when we release our next album, some of our shoegaze reputation will be shattered in a way that will help us connect more directly with people that will appreciate what we’re doing,” Yun says. “We’re working hard to create good music that we hope will enrich people’s lives.” LAURA HANSON.

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10. TxE

POINTS: 37.5

FORMED: 2009

SOUNDS LIKE: Wandering into a house-party cipher and getting the strange feeling you’ve been kicking it with these dudes your whole life.

These days, MCs Anthony “Tope” Anderson and Jamiah “Epp” Sneed have a pretty good relationship with Portland’s indie-rock scene—better, in fact, than most other hip-hop acts in town. But there have been some bumps in the road. Like that thing at Rontoms two years ago.

“They kind of banned us,” says Tope from a table outside Peet’s Coffee & Tea on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard, as Epp giggles at the memory. In July 2012, TxE, the rappers’ trio with producer Gabe “G Force” Edelmann, was offered a spot on one of the East Burnside bar’s free, often-packed Sunday showcases—a rarity for a rap group. They even got And And And, the hottest band in the city at the time, to open. “We get to soundcheck, and the soundman’s like, ‘There’s no way you guys are headlining over And And And,’” Tope says. After successfully doing just that, Epp took a moment to gloat. “The soundman didn’t think we could headline tonight,” he told the crowd, “but I think we just showed him, obviously, we’re worthy of headlining!”

“Then G Force comes from behind the tables,” Tope says, “grabs the mic and goes, ‘Yeah! Fuck the soundman!’”

“It was some real punk-rock shit,” Epp adds. A politely worded email arrived shortly thereafter, saying the group would not be invited back.

What’s ironic is that, at the time, TxE was at work on a clever crossover bid. On TxE vs. PRTLND, Tope and Epp affixed their casual, everydude flows to beats built from the guitars, synths and delicate vocal melodies of the likes of Typhoon, Sallie Ford and Starfucker. But the album, which didn’t drop until late last year because of label issues, wasn’t intended as an olive branch to Portland’s dominant music culture. It’s the product of what Tope calls “a weird summer,” spent going to house shows, drinking “bad Champagne and PBR” and “hanging out with a lot of hipster girls.” Making a record drawn from the sounds surrounding them just made sense.

“Subconsciously, it wasn’t like, ‘We need to be part of this,’” Epp says. “We were making music, and people were liking what they heard.”

With G Force having recently decamped to L.A., and with each member’s solo ventures taking off, the future of the group is somewhat in flux. But Tope, who placed on our Best New Band list as a solo artist in 2012, says when it comes to making another TxE record, “the door is never closed.” “We all sound different on our solo stuff,” he says, “but once we come together as a group, it shines.” MATTHEW SINGER.

WHO’S GOT NEXT?

11. Sama Dams 35 pts.

12. Talkative 33.5 pts.

13. Your Rival 32.5 pts.

14. Illmaculate 32 pts.

15. Thanks 29pts.

16. Hustle & Drone 28.5 pts.

17. Hook & Anchor 27 pts.

18. IBQT 27 pts.

19. Houndstooth 26 pts.

20. A Happy Death 24.5 pts.     

10 YEARS OF BEST NEW BAND: WHERE ARE THE WINNERS NOW?

2004—Menomena
Founding member Ben Knopf left in 2011. Debuted its most recent album, Moms, with a laser show at OMSI.

2005—Talkdemonic
Expanded into a four-piece and put out its last album, 2011’s Ruins, on Isaac Brock’s Glacial Pace label.

2006—Copy
Mostly inactive since Marius Libman hung up his keytar and picked up another BNB nod with Sun Angle in 2013, but a new record is coming soon.

2007—The Shaky Hands
Disbanded in 2011, but has reunited sporadically since. Bassist Mayhaw Hoons and drummer Colin Anderson started Spookies, while Nick Delffs released an album as Death Songs before forming Tiburones with Luz Elena Mendoza of Y La Bamba.

2008—The Builders and the Butchers
Released Western Medicine, its fourth album of Southern gothic gallows folk, in 2013.

2009—Explode Into Colors
Imploded into nonexistence in 2010.

2010—Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside
Put out two albums, played Letterman, blew up in France, broke up last year. Ford immediately formed a new band with members of Albatross, Viva Voce and Point Juncture, WA.

2011—And And And
Still plays profusely and hosts its annual summer Rigsketball tournament. Drummer Bim Ditson has become the Portland music scene’s unofficial mascot.

2012—Radiation City
Released its second album, Animals in the Median, last year, along with an EP of remixes by TxE’s G-Force featuring a verse from Southern strip-rap king Juicy J.

2013—Shy Girls
Spent this April and May playing large theaters opening for Haim. Also received shoutouts online from Maxwell and Brandy.