SOUNDCHECK
Kyle Carnes
Justin Harris, one half of Menomena’s core duo, swaps his baritone sax for a bass guitar and takes to the mic during a post-Turkey Day concert at the Wonder Ballroom on Saturday, November 30. Menomena—perennial PDX indie rock faves— headlined an all-Portland bill that also featured Brainstorm and Gallons. See photos of all three at vrtxmag.com/photo.
Portland
was the best place to It was considered a logger’s town, overlooked by the res but that is why so many unique bands came o
Greg Sage, The Wipers
Portland has a creative legacy of not just music, but also of music journalism. But as the aughts rolled around, our music-centric publications started to die off. The biweekly rag The Rocket disappeared in 2000, while the industry mag Two Louies ceased publication a few years later after a quarter century in service and more than 300 issues of coverage. Unlike the ‘80s, Portland is no longer overlooked. When the eyes of the world are watching and consuming the craft and culture of Portland more now than
o be in the ‘80s. st of the world, out of here.
Blitzen Trapper by Kyle Carnes
ever, why is it that we don’t have a high-caliber, in-depth publication solely dedicated to music? And not just the records, bands and artists, but also the community, scene, business and history behind it all? In the spirit of Two Louies and The Rocket, we are proud to present Vortex Music Magazine—a print and online publication founded by David Mosher, a successful entrepreneur and casual musician, and Chris Young, a Portland-based writer, editor and concert addict. With a daughter that shot concert photography for The Rocket in the ‘90s, David was aware of the thriving music scene in Portland but felt unable to navigate the modern landscape that had changed so much since his days seeing bands like Johnny and The Distractions, the Dan Reed Network, Wheatfield, and Seafood Mama (and later Quarterflash) at defunct venues Euphoria, the Earth Tavern, and Long Goodbye. Anxious for accessible, meaningful information, David aspired to create his own source. And after 37 years of prosperity owning and managing the Art Media retail stores he founded, this idea revitalized David’s entrepreneurial spirit as he set his sights on starting his own music publication. Enlisting local writer and digital journalist Chris Young—founder and managing editor of the all-genre website Oregon Music News, managing editor of Neighborhood Notes, and frequent contributor to About Face Magazine and the Outdoor Project—the two began to plot what would become Vortex Music Magazine. With a name inspired by the homegrown hippie fest—the only state-funded rock concert in American history—that purportedly drew more attendees than a weekend at Coachella, Vortex Music Magazine aims to not only document the proud tradition of Oregon arts alive in this state, but also spread the word about the community, culture and artists in Portland’s distinctive music scene. We believe music is a lifestyle in Portland. Vortex Music Magazine intends to make the Portland music scene more successful by making it more accessible, providing quality journalism, informative digital tools and phenomenal photography that investigate, document and examine the circulation of music through our veins and culture—because Portland is the best place to be. We are Vortex Music Magazine: Music, Portland-Style. David Mosher Publisher, Founder Chris Young Editor-In-Chief, Founder
AID MATT SHEEHY OVER THE PHONE ON A GRAY TUESDAY AFTERNOON.
recorded separately and together at the Oregon Coast and in the rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula, amongst other locales, before inviting a bevy of Portland musicians to provide support.
“I spend a lot of time in the woods because I’m a forester, and it’s hard for me to put a finger on how exactly me spending this amount of time in nature affects the recording. But what it comes down to is the sense of wonder that I get from looking up at the stars or hanging out at a planetarium or studying trees or looking at the eccentricities of plants—that’s one of my favorite types of feelings. I try as hard as I can to recreate that [feeling] in the work I do in music and art.”
“Usually we would go over to their houses or rehearsal studios” to record, explains Sheehy of working with players like Dana Janssen (Akron/Family) and Scott McGee (Y La Bamba, ex-Loch Lomond) on drums, Nick Jaina on bass, and with Sean Flinn (Y La Bamba) and Seth Olinsky (Akron/Family) providing some guitars. Jenn Harrison played the French horn, Lucia Conrad performed all the strings, and Matt’s sister Holly Atryah provided any female vocals you hear on the record.
Sheehy’s latest musical endeavor, Lost Lander, reflects his amazement. Crafting an auditory world of wonder, Lost Lander’s delicately elaborate tunes teeter on organic surrealism like the natural marvels that awe and inspire whether it’s the brilliance of aurora borealis, the intricate beauty of ice crystals, the perfect rings of Saturn, or even the glow of a lightning bug. “It’s that feeling that you get when you discover that there’s a whole other universe that you didn’t even know about and how it makes you feel kinda small,” continues Sheehy. “Sean Flinn calls it ‘the big small,’ where you realize how big you are and how small you are at the exact same moment. It’s trying to capture that. I try to spend as much time as I can in that headspace.” And thankfully, now you can too with the release of Lost Lander’s debut album DRRT. The wondrousness that surrounds us all and influences Sheehy now has a somewhat tangible form and a release date: January 24. The album’s title digs even deeper into depths of Sheehy’s artistic process. Stylized as leetspeakesque spelling of “dirt,” the name is both organic and technological at the same time, a theme relevant to record’s creation. Teamed up with producer Brent Knopf (Ramona Falls, ex-Menomena), the duo Sarah Fennell of Lost Lander
Each session with each player was different, but there was no shortage of material—Sheehy and Knopf recorded it all, take after take, allowing the organically improvisational sessions to evolve. “The way that Brent works is very collage oriented so a lot of times in a single session there would be 90 percent more ideas than ever actually end up getting used,” says Sheehy. “And on some of the songs we had some pretty different versions than what ended up on the record.” Part of the collaging process was to “go through and highlight our favorite moments and collage together that composition. That was sort of the working method, and that was all Brent’s idea—that’s the way I think he’s developed over time with Menomena.” Listening to Sheehy explain the process—much like the welldocumented recording style of Menomena—seems like an absolute contrast to what is heard on the record. Creating a collage of the best sounds is an inorganic, technologically