In this episode from the Emerald Podcast Network, Emerald acolytes Sararosa Davies and Emerson Malone discuss the best articles they’ve read in the past week.

Here are the stories mentioned in this episode:

You’re Not Alone: A Community Of Musicians And Fans Bonded By Mental Disorders by Tatiana Tenreyro (Uproxx)

‘Harris Wittels was the funniest person I ever met’ – Amy Poehler, Sarah Silverman and Aziz Ansari on a lost comic genius by Hadley Freeman (The Guardian)

Remembering Harris Wittels Via An Impassioned And Endearing Email About Phish, His Favorite Band by Steven Hyden (Uproxx)

This episode was produced by Emerson Malone.

The post Podcast: Emerald Recommends what to read this week appeared first on Emerald Media.

The unsinkable Solange Knowles played the headlining slot for Soul’d Out Music Fest, a soul and R&B music festival based in multiple venues around Portland, on Friday, April 21, at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. The festival’s events from April 19–23 have included Travis Scott (who brought Drake out to get cozy in the crowd); Giorgio Moroder, The Ohio Players and Cory Henry and the Funk Apostles.

It’s hard to outshine the posh, well-dressed crowd at the Schnitzer, many of whom looked like they just stepped out of a J. Crew catalog photo shoot, but the high bar for the dress code was raised even higher as Solange and her eight-piece backing ensemble strolled onto stage in matching red jumpsuits; some were in white sneakers, others wore red flats. Everyone on stage was bleached under a rich, blood-red light for the hour-long show.

Solange’s set, which featured much of her album “A Seat at the Table” (read the Emerald’s review here), opened with the first three sequential tracks from the 2016 record: “Rise,” “Weary” and “Cranes In The Sky.”

The former two songs made Solange’s gravitational stage presence patently clear. She has a magnetic charisma that speaks volumes, even when she is dead silent.

In the opening of “Weary,” the shuffling, subdued bass line paused for a moment. The entire concert hall fell quiet for a brief lull, hanging in suspense before Solange murmured the opening lines: “I’m weary of the ways of the world.” It is impossible to take your eyes away from her.

During “Cranes,” her voice soared past the venue’s rafters to stratospheric heights. Her immaculate soprano voice is matched by the red-clad group’s perfect musical arrangement, which burst with triumphant trombones, stirring piano melodies, a pattering drum section and her angelic back-up singers.

She hopped offstage and romped around the crowd during “F.U.B.U.,” a powerful anthem about appropriation of black culture. In the track, she extends a sentiment of self-pride to her son: “I hope my son will bang this song so loud / that he almost makes his walls fall down / ‘cause his mama wants to make him proud / to be us.”

One of the most admirable elements of Solange’s live show is the impeccable choreography. It’s so precisely designed that every subtle movement, every head nod and jazz hand-wave, was on cue. At times the group would form a tight chorus line and sway back and forth in unison, with everyone (save the trombonists) continuing to play.

When she demanded that everyone dance during the bubblegum-pop hit “Losing You” from her 2012 EP “True,” the entire hall erupted at her behest. The encore performance “Don’t Touch My Hair” — Solange’s exhortation of the casual fetishization of black women  — was phenomenal. She turned her back to the audience and acted as conductor, commanding the musicians with loud, grandiose gestures. As the drummer smashed the cymbals, she mirrored him, thrashed her limbs and windmilled her arms.

Following the show, even one of the Arlene’s security guards — who just spent the last hour dancing — was quietly weeping and speechlessly shaking her head in awe. Solange isn’t just a firebrand individual, and her show isn’t just an opulent, elegant triumph of performance art. She is a puppet master; we’re marionettes.

Watch the music video for Solange’s “Don’t Touch My Hair” below:

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Spotlight on Science is a new series from the Emerald Podcast Network in which we bring in some of the members of the University of Oregon science community to explain what their research is in simple language we can all understand.

In this episode, Franklin Lewis speaks with Dr. Michael Haley, a UO organic chemistry professor, about common misconceptions about organic chemistry, how he likens organic chemistry to cooking and his Boston terrier Ricky Bobby.

Dr. Haley has been teaching at UO since 1993. He served as the head of the Department of Chemistry from 2008–2014. He has co-authored more than 160 papers on novel, aromatic and carbon-rich molecules. He holds degrees from University of California — Berkeley and Rice University.

This episode was produced by Emerson Malone.

The theme music for Spotlight on Science is “Zombie Disco” by Six Umbrellas.

The post Podcast: Spotlight on Science: Dr. Michael Haley appeared first on Emerald Media.

News reporter Will Campbell and podcast editor Emerson Malone discuss the animated film “The Red Turtle” (2016) in this episode from the Emerald Podcast Network. The movie, which has no dialogue, follows a man deserted on an island with nothing but crabs, fish and turtles for friends.

“The Red Turtle” is playing at the Bijou Art Cinemas on East 13th Avenue. Listen to the episode above, and watch the trailer below.

This episode was produced by Emerson Malone.

The post Podcast: A discussion on ‘The Red Turtle’ appeared first on Emerald Media.

Good news: the Soviet Union and the United States have made up. They also made out.

All it took was of Montreal’s candy-pop and a little help from LGBT rights.

Of Montreal’s Friday night show at the Hi-Fi Music Hall was a well-orchestrated theatrical performance that regularly featured the band’s stagehands dressed in masks and skin-tight, nylon bodysuits. The night’s nuclear moment featured two masked men, each wearing a different flag as a cape: one sporting the United States’ red-white-and-blue and the other wearing the Soviet Union’s hammer-and-sickle flag. A comical, choreographed brawl ensued between the two before another person dressed in a rainbow-flag bodysuit intervened. Naturally, this led to the American and the Commie embracing and kissing through their nylon masks.

Only in the alternate reality of an of Montreal show can one believe that the solution to the Cold War was LGBT rights all along.

Beyond the Athens, Georgia-based group’s giddy glam-funk tunes, of Montreal’s performance was attuned with several costume changes, animal masks, skin-tight suits and other buffoonery. Images of water buffalo, muskrats, hairless cats, Calaveras, geometric patterns, polka dots and other incongruous cryptograms were projected onto the stage at a breakneck pace throughout the night.

Before the band’s frontman Kevin Barnes strutted onto the stage Friday night, he was preceded by a towering creature with glowing red eyes and a large knife that it frequently drew as it peered over the crowd; it appeared to be the Abominable Snowman look-a-like, but others believed it to be a large cat. Its physical attributes were just that indecipherable. The evening only made less sense from there.

Shortly thereafter, a stagehand ushered the the creature offstage. Unfazed, a stoic, glamorous Barnes paraded forward. He stood behind a microphone in an orange crop-top and blonde wig, his arms akimbo.

“Am I on the verge of a really big breakthrough or just another meltdown?” Barnes asks, his voice warbling in the track “gratuitous abysses” from the band’s 2016 record “Innocence Reaches.”

Of Montreal’s musical versatility and Barnes’ emotional vulnerability is laid bare during the show. The evening was ornamented with innumerable blessings, like the ambling bass line of “Gronlandic Edit” sounded like a Donna Summer production; the greatest boogie about manic depression in “Heimsdalgate Like a Promethean Curse”; and the EDM influences and trap beats laid under “a sport and a pastime,” named after the 1967 erotic novel of the same name. Ostentation is part of the band’s DNA. Barnes is the kind of artist who name-checks French writers in 12-minute long tracks (“The Past Is A Grotesque Animal.”)

Meanwhile, stagehands role-played several characters throughout the set. While Barnes sang “Let’s Relate,” a saucy, lustful barnburner, a woman in a black garb and a flog came onstage to pin Barnes down with one of her heels and whip and punish him. Later the backup dancers wore blonde wigs with gorilla masks. And even later still, they’ve changed into dog masks and red cloaks and resembled characters from the orgy in “Eyes Wide Shut.”

Somewhere in the middle of this convoluted production, you come to realize: “Wow, that guy with the Cyndi Lauper get-up can really harmonize with that keyboardist in the suit and cowboy hat.”

An of Montreal show is a visual assault that is excessive on every level. The extravagance does not feel gimmicky nor subtract from the music itself. Rather, to witness the entire gamut of this spectacle is to experience of Montreal in its purest form.

Listen to of Montreal’s “gratuitous abysses” below:

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Arts & Culture Editor Craig Wright joins arts writers Sararosa Davies and Dana Alston to discuss Father John Misty’s self-indulgent 75-minute folk-rock record “Pure Comedy.”

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On Sunday night, the sold-out Moda Center was packed with Radiohead fans of all ages for the group’s first Portland show since March 21, 1996. For reference, people born on that date are now juniors in college. 

“What do you want? We were busy,” Thom Yorke jested of the 21-year interim. With a look of disbelief, guitarist Ed O’Brien flashed 21 digits with his fingers to the fans in the front rows. Without further words, Yorke struck the opening chords on his keyboard to “Everything In Its Right Place” from the group’s landmark 2000 album “Kid A.”

Yorke’s sentiment is an understatement; the lion’s share of the band’s work has been released in the last two decades. The band had only put out two albums, 1993’s “Pablo Honey” and 1995’s “The Bends” before its 1996 show at the now-defunct nightclub La Luna in Southeast Portland (which is now an upscale ramen restaurant). That set previewed what the band would sound like in its forthcoming Y2K-era albums with “Lucky” and “Electioneering.” They even closed with an encore with a cover of Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does It Better.”

But Sunday night’s set, which clocked in at 24 songs and two-and-a-half-hours, captured an entirely different vibe, as this is surely an entirely different band: The night opened with “Daydreaming,” a transcendent track from last year’s “A Moon Shaped Pool.” Its hollow piano motif is cloaked with ambient electronics before pivoting into a circuitous, cosmic melody. Searchlights stretched from the stage and scanned every corner of the arena, ornamenting its ceiling with innumerable, crisscrossing lights.

As per request from the band to remain civil during the show, fans on the floor remained motionless for the song’s duration. Whether it was due to shock that Radiohead were actually in front of them, or the trance-like effect of the song, all night long people looked to the stage with a sense of wonder, respect and gratitude that is rarely seen at a concert.

Following “Daydreaming,” Yorke grabbed a guitar for “Desert Island Disk,” while drummer Phil Selway (who was joined by touring percussionist Clive Deamer, also known as Portishead’s drummer) hit his cymbals for a loose, imprecise rhythm.

The set featured six tracks from “A Moon Shaped Pool,” which spanned the emotional range of the doom-techno of “Ful Stop” to the sunken malaise of “Glass Eyes,” which marks the first time the song has been played in North America.

There were five from “In Rainbows” (2007), and some tracks pulled from the earlier catalog. During “15 Step” Yorke shook maracas and danced as though he were caught in an invisible sleeping bag, or like a sugar-rushed toddler who was given undiluted apple juice.

The set could easily have been twice as long and still been a spectacle. The breadth of amazing works in the back catalog makes the concert feel like a greatest hits compilation, which is maybe how every Radiohead show feels, regardless of the setlist’s combination.

Jonny Greenwood plays piano during “Daydreaming.” Radiohead perform at the Moda Center in Portland, Ore. for the first time in 21 years on April 10, 2017. (Phillip Quinn/Emerald)

“Kid A” was represented with “Everything In Its Right Place,” which closed with Yorke’s warbling voice crooning, “What was that you tried to say?” chopped, reversed and obliterated by a seated Jonny Greenwood and O’Brien sampling Yorke’s vocals in real time.

Greenwood plays with a versatile rig of hardware at his disposal, including a modular synthesizer to piecemeal together the convoluted rhythm of “Idioteque,” which culminated with a kaleidoscope of polyrhythms, computer bleeps, cascading guitar licks and a laser-gun sound effect.

During the tracks “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” and “Weird Fishes (Arpeggi),” Greenwood played the ghostly, antiquated electronic instrument ondes Martenot, for which he used his guitar’s pegboard to press its keys.

Only two tracks from “OK Computer” (1997) made it in: “Airbag” and “No Surprises,” and just “There There” from “Hail To The Thief” (2003).

After the band disappeared completely from the stage, fans lit up the arena with cell phone flashlights, which turned the darkness into an eerily lit scene tailor-made for a Radiohead show. “That’s what fans are for,” Yorke said with a quick flash of a grin before playing “Glass Eyes” and “No Surprises.”

Thom Yorke of Radiohead sings and plays the acoustic guitar during the band’s performance of “Desert Island Disk.” Radiohead perform at the Moda Center in Portland, Ore. for the first time in 21 years on April 10, 2017. (Phillip Quinn/Emerald)

“Burn The Witch,” the orchestral opening track of “A Moon Shaped Pool,” features an agitated knotty bundle of violin bow sticks clacking against the strings (a technique called “col legno”) but since the stage lacked an orchestra, this version traded the violins for bass and frantically picked guitars which still carried the song to its swollen, panicked apex.

It’s a marvel to see that even during the most convoluted of tracks and despite the band members being yards apart and rarely communicating with one another, cues are hit perfectly. Each track and its manifold moving parts — electronic and organic melded together — are arranged precisely through the aggressive and the reserved tracks: the stressed tornado of sound of “Burn The Witch” gives way to a sudden silence; a lingering bass line closes the door on “Bloom”; the closing percussion that caps off “There There.”

The night closed with the self-loathing anthem “Creep” — the first time the band has played the 1993 hit on this tour.

“I want you to notice when I’m not around!” Yorke sulked to this Portland crowd, for the first time in two decades.

Suffice to say, we did.

Setlist:

1. Daydreaming
2. Desert Island Disk
3.  Ful Stop
4. Airbag
5. 15 Steps
6. The National Anthem (with Hunting Bears outro)
7. Separator
8. All I Need
9. Street Spirit (Fade Out)
10. Bloom
11. Identikit
12. Everything In Its Right Place
13. There There
14. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
15. I Might Be Wrong
16. Idioteque
17. Nude
    

Encore 1:

18. Glass Eyes
19. No Surprises
20. Burn The Witch
21. Reckoner
22. Lotus Flower

Encore 2:
23. You And Whose Army?
24. Creep

Follow Emerson Malone on Twitter: @allmalone

Craig Wright contributed reporting to this review.

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Apart from the novelty riffs of Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop” and its countless copycats — Ariana Grande’s “Problem,” Jason Derulo’s “Talk Dirty” and Fifth Harmony’s “Worth It” — there isn’t enough saxophone in modern pop.

Luckily, Moon Hooch — which just played at the Hi-Fi Music Hall Saturday night — is pulling its weight by employing the sax to its utmost potential. Moon Hooch has traces of EDM in its barbaric and decadent jazz-fusion, but it’s not derivative of these pop artists; it’s more like jazz on crack. Similar to if Kenny G were abducted by aliens, came back and produced a dubstep album — it’s mesmerizing. Words can’t sufficiently sum up a Moon Hooch live show, but it’s the first time I’ve ever strongly related to the hipsters who are losing their minds at the jazz club in that old photograph.

Moon Hooch is a trio: Saxophonists Mike Wilbur and Wenzl McGowe share a kinetic rapport with drummer James Muschler, who lays down a trance-like, rhythmic layer under the woodwind duo. Muschler had a sweaty mop of hair stuck to his face and played the drums with such violence and enthusiasm that he is the closest human representation I’ve ever seen of Animal from the Muppets.

James Muschler of Moon Hooch plays drums in the back of the stage on Saturday night, April 8 at HiFi Music Hall. (Emerson Malone/Emerald).

The two-hour set was something of an endurance challenge, for audience and artist alike. The Moon Hooch catalog is virtually interchangeable; it’s near impossible to tell when one song starts and another one begins because even individual songs halt and change up every few measures. But there was never a moment of silence between tracks, and it was hard to distinguish improvisation from premeditation. At one point, McGowen crammed an orange construction post down the bell of his sax and made that baby purr. In another moment, I’m pretty sure Wilbur solo-played something by Philip Glass for a full minute. It’s not the kind of fare one expects to hear half past midnight at a downtown Eugene bar.

Wenzl McGowen (left) plays the contrabass clarinet while Mike Wilbur (right) plays saxophone during the Moon Hooch show on Saturday night, April 8 at HiFi Music Hall. (Emerson Malone/Emerald).

Wenzl McGowen of Moon Hooch on Saturday, April 8 at HiFi Music Hall. (Emerson Malone/Emerald).

The three met as students at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City. The group’s first few gigs were on the street busking on NYC subway platforms, where they inspired plenty of impromptu dance parties before being banned from playing (in at least one station) by the NYPD. (The Moon Hooch saga is published in full on its Bandcamp page.)

Moon Hooch purportedly calls itself “cave music” (/ ˈkāv myo͞ozik / — “like house, but more wild, jagged, more free, more natural to live in.”) It’s even the name of its sophomore 2014 album: “This Is Cave Music.” It makes about as much sense as you would expect from a group that names itself after bootleg liquor procured on the Earth’s natural satellite.

Regardless of terrain — be it cosmic or subterranean — never miss a chance to see Moon Hooch.

Wenzl McGowen of Moon Hooch on Saturday, April 8 at HiFi Music Hall. (Emerson Malone/Emerald).

Wenzl McGowen of Moon Hooch stuffs a construction post into his saxophone during a show on Saturday night, April 8 at HiFi Music Hall. (Emerson Malone/Emerald).

Watch the video for Moon Hooch’s “EWI” below:

The post Review: Moon Hooch bring their cracked-out jazz to Hi-Fi appeared first on Emerald Media.

Spring term means music festival season, and the most impressive lineup of them all may be at the eighth annual Soul’d Out Music Festival.

Multiple Portland venues will host a remarkable array of talent for the music festival, which will take over the city from April 19-23.

Solange Knowles, The Ohio Players, Alex and Allyson Grey and Giorgio Moroder are among the headlining acts for this year’s lineup. Plus, Travis Scott and Flying Lotus were announced as late additions to the already-packed lineup; the pair will be playing an all-ages show at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum on April 19.

Solange Knowles

Hot on the heels of last summer’s exceptional record “A Seat at the Table,” which made the list of the Emerald’s favorite 2016 albums (read our review here) — Solange Knowles will be headlining. A Seat at the Table is an immaculate, sweeping epic of R&B, protest-soul, and slow-funk. Solange’s first show in the Pacific Northwest will not be one to miss. It’s Friday, April 21 at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Tickets start at $50.

The Ohio Players

Get ready for the soul-funk legends behind some of the best funk albums of the ‘70s: “Skin Tight,” “Fire” and “Honey.” In January this year, keyboardist Walter “Junie” Morrison, an alum of Parliament-Funkadelic and inspiration for “A Seat At the Table” jam “Junie,” passed away. This nine-member lineup of Ohio Players will feature four original players. The group will play at Roseland Theater on April 22. Tickets start at $35.

Giorgio Moroder

The prolific dance producer and DJ who has worked with everyone from Led Zeppelin, Electric Light Orchestra and Elton John, also joins the lineup. Moroder’s fingerprints are all over Donna Summer’s repertoire (just listen to him talk about how Star Wars inspired the saucy hit “I Feel Love”) and even Daft Punk’s 2014 album “Random Access Memories,” on which he muses about his childhood and early years.

RJD2

The Eugene-born, electro-acid-jazz producer Ramble Jon Krohn, perhaps best recognized for the “Mad Men” theme song, or his work from your dorm neighbor’s parties, will join Chicago post-rock quintet Tortoise. In 2016, RJD2 put out “Dame Fortune” and Tortoise released its seventh studio album “The Catastrophist.” They’re all playing the Crystal Ballroom on April 20. Tickets are $27.50.

Even a few Portland natives are included in the lineup: jazz composer and trumpeter Farnell Newton and dream-pop singer-songwriter Coco Columbia. Also: 24-year-old R&B icon (and American Idol alum) Moorea Masa, who has sung backup vocals for a slew of indie acts including El Vy, Allen Stone, Nick Waterhouse and The Decemberists, will play the Wonder Ballroom on April 19.

All access tickets are $250 (which you can find here) but individual show tickets are also available.

Visit the Soul’d Out website for more info.

Follow Emerson on Twitter: @allmalone

Check out the full Soul’d Out Music Festival lineup below

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Following Saturday night’s game, in which the Ducks fell to the Tar Heels 77-76, sports reporters Jack Butler and Gus Morris recap the national semifinal game. Also in this episode from the Emerald Podcast Network, Butler and Morris speculate how Jordan Bell, Tyler Dorsey and others will proceed in the coming months.

This episode was produced by Emerson Malone.

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