Portland's Finest

The latest from Portland natives Menomena lands at number three. From their groundbreaking debut, I Am the Fun Blame Monster, to their sophomore effort, the outstanding Friend and Foe, I waited with confident anticipation for the first half of this year until the release of Mines in July. I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed. The agonizing three-year delay between albums is because of the painstaking efforts these guys make to create perfection. Their process utilizes a technology called a Digital Loop Recorder, or DLR for short, or Deeler for really short, developed by band member Brent Knopf. They basically start with a nugget of a song, usually the drums, on a loop and the all three members pass the track around over and over again, adding a saxophone here or a guitar lick there. All three band members play a wide assortment of instruments and all sing, so the more the track is passed from one guy to the next, the richer and more complex the song. This meticulous process is by necessity incredibly slow. In an excellent interview in the Willamette Week earlier this year, the band explained that the three members essentially email their contribution on to the next person and are actually very rarely in the same room together. To me it’s absolutely astonishing that they can produce such a polished sound while remaining so physically disconnected. But the reason I think this works, and definitely one of the reasons I appreciate this band so much, is because this process is absolutely 100% democratic. Although each track originates in the mind of one of the three band members, all have an equal say and the resultant album is a perfect three-way blend of their component styles.

I listened to this album nearly every morning for about 6 weeks and found it to grow organically. Every few days I had a new favorite track. The tone of this album is probably a little more somber and the tracks are more subdued than on Friend and Foe, owing at least in part to the fact that two of the three members went through divorces since their last album. The excellent opening track, Queen Black Acid, begins with a strummed guitar and bass line that builds to an emotional finish and seems to certainly be about soured love as Justin Harris laments in the chorus “You bring me down, so down.” TAOS starts with a heavy base riff and high energy and ends with a jazzy outro that makes good use of Menomena’s signature bari sax. The highlights are too many to name, but Harris’s Five Little Rooms was my first favorite and remains eerily awesome and Danny Seim’s Dirty Cartoons and Tithe are both builders that satisfy. My least favorite tracks, as on their previous albums, are the ones on which Knopf sings lead vocals. That being said, they’re still solid songs and essential to the album to maintain that perfect balance.

I’m fortunate to live in the same town as these guys because if affords me many opportunities to see them perform live. The diversity that they bring to their music translates well to the stage as they constantly switch instruments and trade off on vocals while maintaining a high intensity level.

And then there were two. See who got first runner up tomorrow.