Eclectic Grooves

I can remember a time when Portland's sole representation of community radio was KBOO. While KBOO still featured a few interesting musically curated shows in the first part of 00's, it began to slowly but surely eschew music shows to make way for more politically-minded talk radio shows around the middle of the decade. Recognizing that there was a serious void to be filled, an innovative community radio station named XRAY fm debuted on the airwaves in the Spring of 2014, promising to focus on free-form music shows that would challenge the current status quo of radio.  One of the unique things about XRAY was that it would be available not only to locals in Portland via FM radio, but streaming on its website xray.fm to the entire world. Another way that XRAY got the jump on the aforementioned KBOO was to archive a couple of their shows to be available to listeners on-demand, alleviating the need to be listening to the broadcast while it happens.  Consid...

The Pop Group- Y The Pop Group ranks up there with the Ten Thousand Maniacs as one of the most ironic band names in the history of rock music. This gang of left-wing political radicals from Bristol, England sound more like the antithesis of pop music. "Y" was released on the Radar label in 1979 to little fanfare, but Rough Trade liked the record enough to sign them. "Y" is a cathartic and uncompromising avant garde record that mixed free jazz, art rock, funk, reggae and industrial music. There are very few hooks or decipherable vocals, but the impassioned delivery of lead singer Mark Stewart is undeniable. Highlights include the wildly eclectic "Snow Girl" where agit-funk shares sonic space with stinging guitars and intense piano hammering, "Savage Sea" with distorted vocals layered on top of a propulsive rhythm section with reverb and echo that sounds like lost sessions of Lee Scratch Perry and the caterwauling, free jazz funk of "Don't...