Tag Archives: portishead

Poetic Memory: Tu Fawning (List)

Photo credit: Sara Meadows

Watching opening bands can be a bit of a gamble, but you’ll definitely want to arrive early at the Casbah on Friday, September 17. Before the feisty trio known as Menomena blows the crowd away with its sometimes bloody, always amazing act, Tu Fawning will take the stage, and you won’t want to miss it.

The Portland four-piece employs driving rhythms and delicate cacophony to create evocative, sinister moods that lie somewhere between the realms of Beach House and Portishead. It’s a smokey, intriguing combination of sounds, all tied together by Corrina Repp’s sultry vocals.

Repp was kind enough to share her Poetic Memory with us, a “smattering of records and songs” that form a cross-section of her musical influences. While you’re reading the list, you can download the free single of Tu Fawning’s “The Felt Sense” (MP3), which should whet your appetite for Friday’s show quite nicely. Click here for the Poetic Memory.

Poetic Memory: Hotel St. George (List)

San Diego’s Hotel St. George recently premiered the excellent video for their song “Little Children’s Bones.” The video features a robot battling a wizard in Russian roulette, a dog with a cape, and various other serious things. It’s definitely in your best interest to check it out.

To enhance the viewing of their latest musical movie film, band members Matt Binder and Eric Visnyak provided us with their Poetic Memory. Watch the video above, and read their list of influences below. Continue reading…

Poetic Memory: Kissing Cousins (List)

Kissing Cousins

L.A.-based Kissing Cousins, an “all female sepulchral counter-pop” band led by Heather Bray Heywood, began with a few modest EPs. Since then, they’ve had a song featured on Nip/Tuck and recorded a full-length album, Pillar of Salt. Kissing Cousins recorded Pillar live to tape—a rarity in today’s mostly digital landscape—with the help of Richard Swift. The band used Wilco’s old TASCAM 8-track to record the album, bestowing a second life upon the piece of equipment that has produced some of Wilco’s greatest songs. Kissing Cousins definitely do the machine justice.

Music videos for Pillar are in the works, and the vinyl will be released in July (see tour dates below). For samples, check out “In Too Deep” from Pillar, as well as “Deathhouse“, Heywood’s personal favorite song from the album.

After the jump: 10 bands that influenced Heywood’s songwriting “in some shape or form.” Continue reading

Download: Owl and Bear’s Honorable Mention of 2008


Owl and Bear’s list of albums that almost made the cut in 2008.

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