Beats for brick city New local electronica album hits this week BY SAM PFEIFLE
	BEATS.ON.THE.ROCKS Local electronica compilation | brick.city.media | released at Bubba’s Sulky Lounge, in Portland | Thurs., Nov 3 | with Lostsatellite + j.hjort + Jason Keith

On the eve of the release of Volume 6 in the much ballyhooed (and for good reason) Greetings from Area Code 207 series, another local music compilation has piqued interest around town. Brick.city.media, helmed by Jason Hjort, will be releasing this week beats.on.the.rocks, a selection of nine electronica tracks — largely what would be known as house and techno — by five local (well, one’s living in Glasgow, Scotland, now) musicians. If you’re looking for rock-solid proof that the Portland music scene is diverse and deep well beyond its apparent size, this is it. I’d be impressed if there was simply one electronica artist making tracks of high quality, but for there to be a selection of them is impressive, indeed, as there isn’t much Euro-club scene here and absolutely no radio possibilities. These people are doing it for the creative release, and doing it well.

Since, admittedly, electronica isn’t my forte on the criticism end of things, I decided to ask Hjort, who performs in the newly revamped slowing room and as the DJ j.hjort (all lower-cases intentional), about some of the nuts and bolts, or, er, beeps and boops:

One of the reasons I’ve always loved the Greetings from Area Code 207 compilations is because it’s a great way to show off the Portland scene, but obviously it’s just one slice, and I’ve really been hoping and waiting for people to step up and give us the other slices with other compilations.

That’s totally why I did it, man. There’s nothing that showcases any electronica at all — whether it’s drum and bass, house, techno — anything, so I figured somebody had to do something. I mean, all my friends do a lot of computer music, but no one was putting any of it out. So, I figured the compilation would be a good way to A: help my label; and B: let people hear some stuff that’s going on and they wouldn’t normally hear just going to the Asylum or the Free Street or wherever.

You say these guys are your friends — but what was the selection process? What were you looking for in an electronica song to feature on the compilation?

Basically, just that it’s good — because I’ve heard a lot of bad stuff, too. My personal preference is house and techno, and I don’t really play or listen to much drum and bass and stuff like that, but I appreciate it, and if somebody came to me with some really good drum and bass that I thought was exceptional, I would want to help them put it out. And I say my friends, but I actually met some people in doing this compilation. Foolish and Pretty Kitty are this couple who live in Freeport and they write this crazy — I mean you’ve heard those two songs on the disc — and it’s just this weird hobby that they do. They get together in their living room and they make electronica.

But you say, "is good." I’ve got ways of evaluating music — creativity, originality, lyrical content, etc. — electronica, it’s not exactly verse-chorus-verse, there’s not a lot of lyrical content. So what are you looking for?

Just the vibe of it really. I like a lot of grooves in my electronica, but subtle ones, not beat-you-over-the-head type of grooves. Just smart things. I guess it’s all the little things that make it up — how it’s mixed, really.

I also look for good drum programming because a lot of people are like, "Yeah, I write electronica," but what they do is just take a bunch of pre-programmed loops and throw it into a loop program. They didn’t really write the drums or the bass line, they just got a loop from someone else. I can tell that stuff right away. I’m not interested in that because it’s not someone writing their own stuff.

How can you tell that right away?

I can just tell those programs; I’ve seen that whole process from the start. When I started sampling, there weren’t discs out where you can buy like 200 loops of this and that. You can tell the sound of certain samplers and certain sequencing programs, where you know it was made in that. It depends on what program you’re using, but if you get something like Acid [a PC program], everybody’s got that, and you can just buy CDs like, "Here’s 200 trance bass lines. Mix one with one of your 200 favorite drum beats."

Yeah, well, it’s pretty fun to make music that way.

Yeah, yeah, it’s great, exactly. But the people who sit there and make those beats and loops you’re using, those are the people I’m interested in.

But Acid’s great, too, because people start messing with that stuff then they get interested in it, and then they’ll be like, "I don’t want to use all this pre-made stuff, I’m going to make it myself." So I guess that would be one of my prerequisites.

What kind of technology investment do you need to make to be able to loop your own beats and your own drums?

Everybody that actually has songs on this, made their song in Reason — Propellerhead Reason, — which is just a suite of virtual instruments. There’s like five different types of drum machines you can use, there’s samplers, there’s all kinds of different sequencers. It’s just a virtual, sky-is-the-limit kind of thing. Basically, as much as your computer can handle, you can add that many components and just keep building up tracks. It’s just like having real samplers and sequencers in the real world, and they operate just like that, they have chords that you connect manually and everything, but it’s all virtual.

Some of us use outboard gear alongside computers, too.

Meaning real instruments.

Yeah, real synths and samplers and stuff.

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at sam@phx.com