E. Ellison Previously under the moniker Cardioid and former Radiation City member, this new project from Lizzy Ellison is wrought with self discovery (not unlike previous works), but prodding deeper into the connection we have between the creation of music and ourselves. Her new record, Pillars, evokes a semblance of control, when in fact during the creation of it, her life felt contrary to this. The process was long as she allowed the songs to take shape in their own way, attempting to decode her methods in song-writing and creating new recording practices. Staying true to the autobiographical form Ellison typically shares, these songs ebb and flow through different terrains of darkness and light, hope and despair, discomfort and peace, while describing the details of her life, and more specifically the struggles. The palette of instrumentation is voluptuous and colorfully rich, using a classical acoustic guitar as the main inspiration and augmenting this with synths, layers of choral vocals, piano, fuzzed-out electric guitars, and raw lead vocals using as little effect as possible. Pillars was recorded in various places where Ellison traveled over the past 2 years including, Brazil where she lived for 5 months and while touring last summer across the country with The Decemberists. Pillars will be out this coming spring via Doe Records, Ellison's Portland based record label. SAMA DAMS is an avant-rock band from Portland, Oregon. Few bands command the unexpectedly fine line that divides tension and release like Sama Dams does. And it's no wonder: songwriters Sam and Lisa Adams have been playing music together for over a decade - as long as they have been married - developing a creative forthrightness that sometimes feels voyeuristic. Taking cues from jazz, R&B, new wave, indie-rock, and classical art song, the alt-rock trio weaves a sensuous musical fabric that is distinctly theirs. Much like the Dirty Projectors or Thom Yorke, Sama Dams's high art sensibilities are wrapped around a subversive knotty core of uncompromised radicalism - like if Leonard Bernstein was signed to K Records. In that way, the DIY ethos of the Pacific Northwest has shaped much of the band's path forward since graduating music school in 2008 and relocating to Portland in 2012. Sama Dams’s third and most recent full-length album, ‘Say It’, surprises you with its gritty yet precise instrumentation, striking a keen balance between reserve and power, from wiley "Neil-Young-riding-a-rocket-sled" electric guitar riffs and mutant waves of organ to distorted ukulele and cut-up-on-the-spot breakbeats. The Portland Mercury said “‘Say It’ is an endlessly fascinating sonic concoction, and a confident step forward for Sama Dams”. ARDEN DRANE BRESHEARS III is the work of May Arden, Caleigh Drane and Lily Breshears. While the three musicians are known primarily for dynamic, genre-bending projects in the Portland area, they returned to their classical roots and discovered a surprisingly wide cannon written for soprano voice, cello and piano. After many long nights of rehearsals that unfailingly involved wine, snacks and impromptu dance parties to Russian techno and Mariya Takeuchi, they’ve curated a program of old-world songs that feel anything but old.