In bringing you the best in independent music, I speak to a lot of musicians. In those conversations, musicians frequently say things that stick with me. I once spoke to a musician from Portland and he said that the reason the city has such a good music scene is because all the rain makes it hard to do anything besides practice music. I could take it one step further and say that at least some bands in Portland use the weather not only as a reason to practice music, but also to create music that doesn't sound like too many other bands.
Hello Electric is such a band. There is something immediately familiar about Skychief. The bass in the first track "Rotate" reminds me a lot of "Hey Man, Nice Shot" by Filter. Aside from that the band is harder to classify. This is a band whose sound is one part experimental indie rock worthy of Touch and Go, one part industrial (mostly in the bass), one part spacy shoegaze ("American Buffalo").
There is one thing about this album that I don't quite understand. If you look at the track listing, you'll see the last song "Untitled" is more than 20 minutes long. If you guessed hidden tracks, you're right. Now, I am not befuddled by the concept of a hidden track or two. However, the way this track is put together is a little strange. Between the 13th song and the first hidden track is a five-minute gap. Then after a fairly standard-length hidden track is another gap of more than three minutes. The lack of continuity makes it easy to forget that you have a CD playing. Ultimately, the band could have done the hidden tracks without making the listener wait so long for them.
Does the rain in Portland have anything to do with this band's unusual sound? I can't answer that conclusively. However, I can say that if you're looking for something off the beaten path, Hello Electric is a band you should check out.
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