By Robert Ham. [Twitter @bob_ham]
Nomo @ Sunday @ Doug Fir Lounge
While the music writers and critics of the world try to parse out whether Vampire Weekend is honest in their approach to African pop, you should busy yourself with this fine group of gents from Michigan. Formed in the early part of the past decade, this sextet plays some of the best Fela Kuti-inspired Afrobeat you’re likely to find played by American natives. While they bring their upbringings as jazz and rock players into the mix, the heart of the group beats with the chugging, swaying rhythms of their plentiful percussion section and the buoyant back and forth of their horn section.

DJ Krush - Saturday @ Rotture
He touts himself on his MySpace page (or at least someone involved with his publicity does) as “one of the best hip-hop DJs”. Yet, one quick spin through his weighty discography and you’ll likely be saying the same thing. His work on the wheels of steel and as a producer have helped bring in such high profile collaborators as Mos Def, The Roots and Aesop Rock. But his musical chops have also earned him a place to perform alongside jazz/experimental icon Bill Laswell and Japanese avant garde trumpeter Toshinori Kondo. This night will likely see him tightening up his DJ chops for an upcoming event that will have Krush spinning for six hours straight. Prepare yourself accordingly for a long haul of deep grooves and lucid electronica.

Jaguar Love - Tuesday @ Holocene
The former members of the mighty Seattle group The Blood Brothers responded to that band’s break up by splitting up its musical personality. The gents who went on to form Past Lives took the sonic expansiveness, experimentalist leanings and low slung rhythms. But the boys who went on to create Jaguar Love kept the slinky sexiness that was always under the surface of many Blood Brothers tracks. Here, they’ve turned up the sensuality with the help of some curvy electro rhythms, taut guitar and keyboard antics and Cody Votolato’s straining vocals wriggling over the top of it all. Catch them now - for free, no less - in this cozy venue before the rest of the world gets a hold of them and you won’t be able to see them from the nosebleeds of whatever theater they’ll be filling up in six months’ time.

Matt Haimovitz - Thursday @ Doug Fir Lounge
This world-class cellist’s schedule for the year includes performances of Shostakovitch’s Concerto No. 1 and a concert at New York’s famed Alice Tully Hall. And a stop at Sam Bond’s Garage in Eugene. No, this isn’t your typical classical performance; it’s in-your-face classical fare, in a perfectly in-your-face setting. The 38-year-old cellist recently released a playful album called Figment, which puts his playing up against programmed beats, turntable scratches and Balkan-inspired melodies. The pieces were composed by some of the most interesting modern voices in American music, including Elliott Carter and Gilles Tremblay.

The Yummy Fur - Wednesday @ Mississippi Studios
Formed in the early ’90s and inspired by the thriving indie music scene in their native Glasgow, The Yummy Fur lasted seven glorious years, making a beautiful and often unhinged racket. They poked at the mores of modern society and baited the law enforcement with their lyrics, and tried their hand at all manner of musical styles - from scratchy, Fall-like punk to electro pop. They broke up 1999, leaving front man John McKeown plenty of time to form the power trio 1990s and two of his bandmates to achieve stadium filling stardom with their new outfit, Franz Ferdinand. The Fur are flying again, but only for a short while to drum up interest in a best of compilation that a U.S. label is threatening to release this year.

White Hinterland - Thursday @ The Artistery
There seem to be a lot of former folk-leaning singer/songwriters dabbling in electronic music these days (Laura Gibson, Bon Iver, etc.), but there aren’t any doing it more dreamily and engagingly than Casey Dienel. Working with band mate Shawn Creeden and producer Alexis Gideon under the name White Hinterland, Dienel’s lilting voice is served well by these icy futuristic soundscapes, chilling its internal warmth and saving it from wilting. And Dienel and her collaborators all do an incredible job with the musical end, fashioning danceable beats that never seem to resolve and letting long pings of marimba float into a pixelated ether.

Talk Demonic. Pic: Alicia J Rose

Today, we introduce a weekly spotlight of Portland-area concerts that we think you should put on your radar. A new edition will be featured here every Thursday.

Holocene 6 Year Anniversary - Friday & Saturday @ Holocene (1001 SE Morrison) One of Portland’s best venues celebrates their sixth birthday with a two-day extravaganza, featuring a fantastic lineup of music. The concerts showcase the two sides of this club’s personality, with Friday highlighting Holocene’s love of forward thinking electronic and dance music. That night’s lineup includes a DJ set from Brooklyn-based house DJ Marcos Cabral and a set by local favorites Linger & Quiet. Saturday leans heavily on indie rock with recent Willamette Week Best New Band pick Explode Into Colors and the drums/viola electro-pop instrumental duo Talkdemonic (pictured) headlining.

Basshaters/Peninsula Project - Friday @ The Wail (5135 NE 42nd Ave) A duo featuring drums and double bass in which neither instrument is played as expected. This San Francisco group ekes out scratchy noise and horn-like tones from the strings and uses their trap kit as a device to rattle instead of roll. The band is touring the Western U.S. with a likeminded bunch of noisemakers from Norway (with a instrumental lineup that includes bass, guitar and tuba) known as Peninsula Project.

Michael Hurley - Saturday @ The Press Club (2621 SE Clinton) One of the many great things about Michael Hurley is that you never really can pin the man down. His name seems to pop up on concert calendars without warning, leaving fans scrambling to rearrange plans so they don’t miss out on one of his peerless performances. Tonight, this long-time blues/folk veteran will be filing the cozy confines of the Press Club with his wizened vocals and arch lyrical visions.

Imaad Wasif - Saturday @ Mississippi Studios (3939 N Mississippi) You can catch this brilliant singer-songwriter opening up for Neko Case at the second of her two shows at the Crystal Ballroom. Or you can make it a late night and stop by Mississippi Studios at midnight on Saturday when Wasif will be performing what’s sure to be either a sleepy or boozy set of beautifully rendered acoustic pop.

The Juan MacLean - Sunday @ Doug Fir Lounge (830 E Burnside) If you ever need proof as to the hypnotic power of dance music, I suggest you drop your tone arm on the masterpiece that is “Happy House” by The Juan MacLean. It wraps the history of house and disco into a tight, 12-minute package custom made for a sweaty dance floor. It’s going to get mighty muggy in the Doug Fir once this group hits the stage.

Portland Radio Authority Benefit - Tuesday @ East End (203 SE Grand Ave) This online, non-commercial, listener-supported station is seeking out a little extra help during this wintry economic climate via this well-curated benefit show. On the bill is art rockers Iretsu and filmmaker Matt McCormick playing minimalist electronica under the name Very Stereo.

Here we are at the end of another year, in fact almost the end of a new decade, and the musicians of the world continue to turn out amazing work. The CD industry continues to slump and digital sales are not filling the gap, yet amazingly I am able to play on average 26 new songs over 2 hours on my twice weekly radio show here in Portland. It’s an honor to be able to expose brand new music from artists old and newly discovered to both my blog readers and my listening audience too.

Esau Mwamwaya & Radioclit Are The Very Best

So how does one come up with a smart list of hot bands? Who is deserving, and why? Well its never easy..I just went back through all the music submissions for just one week and extrapolated the numbers out over a year - in 2008 so far I have been sent, on average, 6,134 MP3s and 1,304 CDs. That’s a lot of music, [especially as I'm the main writer for Pampelmoose,] and creates lots of decision making every day as I try and filter the good stuff on behalf you the reader or the radio listener.

In a nutshell, I came up with this list based simply on which artist’s work stirred me the most as I listened to it as dispassionately as possible. To some it won’t make sense, to others it will because they understand the eclectic nature of my blog and radio show. Others still will be outraged that I didn’t include their favorite band and others will decry me as a self-serving-know-nothing music snob [this has happened in the past, sort of makes me proud] but its all water off a duck’s back at this point.

The Very Best represent to me all that is possible in music. Back in October when I first received the mixtape I was thrilled. I was equally thrilled to find today that Scott Plagenhoef at Pitchfork gave the mixtape a great review and how he shares my findings of their music ….”Mwamwaya and Radioclit are open here to everything from South Africa’s marabi and kwaito music to Hans Zimmer scores to French and American hip-hop to Michael Jackson– and in most cases, it’s the tracks that lean furthest away from the familiar that work best. The regal “Sister Betina”, BLK JKS collaboration “Salota”, and Radioclit productions “Funa Funa” and “Kada Manja” are as immediately likable as the rest of the mix.”
And in a moment of headiness created by listening to the mixes I wrote of how this mashing of cultures even beyond music may engender a more peaceful global society - Fighting Terror via Art, Supper, Double Club and Sapeurs.

Here’s the top ten winners, in order this year:

01. The Very Best - Esau Mwamwaya & Radioclit Are The Very Best [Mixtape]
Available for free here.
02. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Dig Lazarus Dig!!!
Buy Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! here
03. Nightmares On Wax - Thought So…
Buy Thought So.. here
04. Susanna - Flower of Evil
Buy Flower of Evil here
05. Dead Confederate - Wrecking Ball
Buy Wrecking Ball here
06. Brightblack Morning Light - Motion To Rejoin
Buy Motion To Rejoin here
07. Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - Cardinology
Buy Cardinology here
08. Booka Shade - The Sun & The Neon Light
Buy The Sun & The Neon Light here
09. Ume - Sunshower EP
Buy Sunshower EP here
10. The Happy Hollows - Imaginary EP
Buy Imaginary EP here

Check out a track from each artist here:

The Very Best - Kamphopo
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
Nightmares On Wax - 195lbs
Susanna - Jailbreak
Dead Confederate - Goner
Brightblack Morning Light - Hologram Buffalo
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - Magick
Booka Shade - Dusty Boots
Ume - The Conductor
The Happy Hollows - Tambourine

Another PDX POP NOW! is ‘in the can’. Once again it came, it saw, it kicked our ass.

I took some behind the scenes pics on Saturday and Sunday. Also, here’s a group of ‘POP’ pics I put together (for you, baby), including the one above of Fist Fite’s Jonnie Monroe. Aw Yeah. She kicks out the PWRFL keyboard jams and still finds time to make CUTE POP PIX.

I’ll spare you my verbage regarding the weekend whirlwind of sweet Portland musical artists, junk foods, and how many people I hassled into posing in front of that wall that said ‘POP’ on it. I don’t have the energy to type, I need to get to work in a half hour, and frankly, I think these peeps have it covered:

There’s a shit-ton of blogging about PDX POP 08′ hap-nin’ on urban honking. Seriously. >>>>WOW<<<<.

The Portland Mercury did a snazzy fest preview.

Also, Localcut’s Michael Mannheimer has detailed reports of days two and one.

ONLY 352 days ’till PDX POP NOW 2009!!!

Post by Jon Ragel