There’s a whole lotta news these days about Portland’s electro tinged indie pop band Lost Lander. For starters, the quartet, made up of original band founder/songwriter Matt Sheehy, Patrick Hughes, Dave Lowensohn and Sarah Fennell, will be releasing their debut album, DRRT on January 24th. Then, the band will be going on a series of West Coast tour dates with fellow Portland natives Radiation City. AND if that’s not enough, the band just released the first video off of the album, “Cold Feet,” which you can watch here:

DRRT has been four years in the making, four years of Sheehy crafting gorgeous music (first with his 2008 solo project Tigerphobia) inspired by the sheer beauty and grandeur of the Pacific Northwest. Filled with inspirations from everyone from Band of Horses to My Morning Jacket but with a sad, electronic edge, Lost Lander’s debut album will be released in special edition planetarium formatting (no lie, you can shine a light through each of the constellations to represent a different song). Check out a free MP3 download of “Cold Feet” here and the first set of West Coast tour dates below! – Amanda Dissinger

December 2011

04 – Eugene, OR – SELFEST @ Sam Bond’s %

05 – Sacramento, CA – Luigi’s Fungarden #

06 – San Francisco, CA – Bottom Of The Hill

07 – San Diego, CA – Tin Can Alehouse

08 – Los Angeles, CA – The Satellite

09 – Chico, CA – Cafe Coda

10 – Portland, OR – Doug Fir Lounge *

 * = w/ Bright Archer # = w/ Appetite % = w/ Appetite, Au & Bright Archer

Chrome Wings’ New Lands LP shows the duo’s pop sensibilities refracted through aquatic haze and liquid texture, advancing beyond a lo-fi aesthetic into new terrain defined by marina trenches and echolocation. While not departing from their tradition of creating dense, electronically indebted grooves, on this album Chrome Wings take the listener in a wholly accessible quest for a figurative Lost City. The abstract pattern on the cover harkens the fish-eye POV which refracts the pop sensibilities on New Lands, signifying a proverbial plunge into this trans-dimensional frame of mind and genre. The title track is an appropriate introduction to the ebulliantly rhythmic pulse which informs the album, where Chrome Wings guide the listener through a familiar, yet wholly alien landscape, propelled along by a dubby baseline. This self-described brand of dub-pop allows the gurgling synths to come up for air and symbiotically co-exist within the rhythmic consistency of each song. "Sky Mirage" could be the soundtrack to accompany the future discovery of Atlantis, triumphant in its progression towards an inevitable epiphany of decaying architecture framed by a horizon of underwater light. Instead of detracting from Chrome Wings’ pop ethos, the viscous effects filtered through each synthesizer, guitar, drum machine and vocal track synchronize into a symbiotic ecorhythm that gradually acculturates the listener to the depths of this band’s progression and talent in creating such a melodic and evocative soundscape. – Wyatt Schaffner

Freshly returned from tours with both Kurt Vile and The Flaming Lips, Talkdemonic has released the first video from their brand spankin’ new album for “City Sleep”, available to watch now on MTV Hive. The video, directed by Alicia Rose, plays up the mesmerizing beauty of the track, as shots and shots of Oregon desert landscapes pass by and Talkdemonic’s signature instrumentals take over. Along with the album, Talkdemonic has announced a set of tour dates for November and December (opening for Modest Mouse) with the promise of more for early 2012. Announced dates are below; Ruins is out now on Glacial Pace Records. Check out more info about Talkdemonic on their website (www.talkdemonic.com). –Amanda Dissinger

Tonight is going to be ridiculous. Seriously, it’s going to be crazy. People may go into the deepest nether regions of dancing eternity and never come back due to fits of explosive and love-filled lazers that make your best friend’s mind melt. Does that make sense? I’m sure it doesn’t. Regardless, tonight at Holocene is going to be one of the best shows you can come across at the beginning of this dreadful cold season. Come get warm with the Tender Loving Empire!

Here’s the breakdown from TLE:

Tender Loving Empire’s annual compilation of local music, entitled "Friends and Friends of Friends", is back in its 4th edition! Come celebrate the release with live sets by some of the glimmering talents showcased on the comp!

EARLY BIRD SPECIAL: First 50 people through the door will receive a FREE copy of the (hand silk-screened) comp!

9:00 9:30 – E*Rock

9:45-10:15 – Finn Riggins

10:30 – 11:00 – Brainstorm

11:15-11:45 – Radiation City

Lounge Stage: 11:45 -12:30 Adventures! With Might (super sexxy drunk dance party with LAZZERRSS!)

$8 21+

TLE Sampler by tender-loving-empire

Can’t decide what crazy Halloween event to go to? Looking for a neighbourhood bash that won’t be touting so-and-so’s band or something you ain’t looking for? Come to Mississippi Studios for Baby Ketten Karaoke! It’s free, probably more drunken than most parties could be on a Monday (considering the liquid courage needed for most karaoke participants), and you get to pick what songs you hear. Kind of. I mean, yeah, you do – and then you sing them. Plus, Bar Bar burgers (if the cooks aren’t sick of cooking them after yesterday’s Octossippi free burger parade). Come sing! Come dance!

And if you’re not feeling free shows at Burgerville, head to Mississippi Studios for Grouper. You can swim in the clouds of wonder in her ethereal and eerie heartstrung melodies. The sound that hangs between the sparse and present vocals of Liz Harris will weigh down on your like the whispers of autumn careening between the space between guitar strings. After re-releasing a handful of haunting records in 2010, Harris has been playing shows here and there, but not quite everywhere. Catch her while you can. Listen to her fabulous and recently re-pressed Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill here:

Grouper – Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill by _type

I love love love hamburgers. Actually, not really. I love cheeseburgers. But more than either of those things, I love all-ages shows. And tonight, you can get both of those things in one place. That place is Burgerville. Tiger House and Tango Alpha Tango will be shaking your milkshakes and greasing your pretty little french fries tonight, for free, at the Hawthorne Burgerville at 6pm. Don’t miss it! Check out the Facebook event here, and check out this awesome live record from Tiger House from Bananastandmedia.com.

Now is when your dedication to good shows really shows, Portland. It’s rainy, people are occupying things, but it’s still Friday, and there is still hell of good music going down tonight. If you’re downtown this evening, you can spot folks from The Deli at our show pick for the week: The Tomorrow People. Read what I wrote about ’em over at Words Cut Open. The Tomorrow People release Rose City Rose tonight at Ash St. Saloon! It may be the only good reason to go downtown tonight. Come get floored by some of the best rock-n-roll to come from this city in years.

The Tomorrow People- Rose City Rose by The Tomorrow People (USA)

This weekend is a clustercuss of amazing shows for both Portland bands and touring bands alike. Locals playing with the big boys, the big locals playing with little boys (not in a dirty way – for the most part). If you’re in town, here’s what should be on your plate:

Friday:

Adventures! With Might at Love Craft – it promises to be as gothy as your older sister in middle school.

UMO and Toro Y Moi at Branx – You will dance. You will sweat. Your brain will explode.

Saturday: 

CANT at Doug Fir – Chris Taylor (of Grizzly Bear) is on the road and blesses Portland with his ethereally soulful side project.

Sunday:

Cansei De Ser Sexy at The Wonder – Always a dance party. Maybe the last dance party of the summer, even though it’s already Autumn. Now that Lovefoxxx can call Portland her home, this tour kick off should be a dance party to remember.

CSS HMLAR from forrest borie on Vimeo.

Portland darling Laura Gibson has signed to Barsuk Records. Currently over the pond touring the UK, Laura moved from Hush records, which put out her latest work "Beast of Seasons." The Coquille born songstress has played a variety of venues on her way up the Portland music food chain, including AIDS hospices and kindergartens (get them while they’re young, right?). Her soft and loving approach to songs is always gentle and thoughtful and we wish her the best with Barsuk!

We all have our own wistful ideas about what a Sunday should be; what a Sunday should feel like, smell like, look like, taste like, sound like. For me, this past Sunday felt like sleep, smelled like rain, looked like fall, tasted like German pancake, and sounded like the new Talkdemonic record, Ruins. Now that’s a downright Sunday.

As usual, Kevin O’Connor and Lisa Molinaro, recently signed to Isaac Brock’s Glacial Pace Recordings, deliver us big and loud, lulling and orchestral, strange digital symphonies. And while Ruins has all that, this time around, there’s something else. This time around, their forward-looking symphony rings out like an ageless book of poems.

It’s usually the job of a song to tell us a story. But these songs rehash the seasons, the past decade, Sundays past, a memory gone astray – what it feels like to fall in love and what it means to stay in love. And to me, that’s poetry.

The friendly thing about Talkdemonic, you always know it’s them. You hear that grinding, deeply mewing violin in tandem with the blips and crashes of electronic delight, and you’re emotionally involved. You’re one smitten kitten. But listen for the more this time around, listen for the evocation, the merry meaning. Listen hard. Oh, and do yourself one last favor – see them, for free, the same day Ruins drops, October 4, at Music Millennium.– Morgan Brothers

Radiation City is one of (if not the) most promising acts coming from Portland right now. Blooming out of the ever-busy, multi-project madness of Apes Tapes founders, Cameron Spies and Lizzy Ellison, Rad City has the sound of a memory pressed in a book about tomorrow. With the seemingly effortless rhythms of Randy Bemrose and strikingly smooth basslines of Matt Rafferty rounding out what most have been calling 60’s dream-pop, you can’t help but dance when you see The Hands That Take You come to life. Probably still recovering from their recent national tour, Radiation City is releasing their LP on Tender Loving Empire this Saturday at the Doug Fir. With other local favourites, Blouse and Aan, this show is definitely my pick of the week. If you only do one this this weekend, make sure it’s the Doug Fir on Saturday night.