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Monarch Presents: Canary Room, Holloway, World Record Winner

  • Alberta Abbey 126 Northeast Alberta Street Portland, OR, 97211 United States (map)

Doors at 7:00 | Show at 8:00

All ages welcome.

Free parking available in the lot across the street until full.

CANARY ROOM

Canary Room is the project of Portland based songwriter Maddy Heide. Over the last few years she has uploaded a massive selection of songs to her bandcamp. It is a magnificent display of songcraft in its rawest form; each collection feels like a peek into the brain and surrounding world of someone who has to keep writing songs in order to survive. Pulling from a long tradition of folk music through many generations (Vashti Bunyan, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Cockburn, Gillian Welch, the Weather Station, etc.), Maddy pens pockets of beautiful, heart-wrenching and yet comforting songs with little more than guitar and voice. 2021’s critically acclaimed EP Christinewas recorded outdoors on 4 track cassette by Bud Tapes’ Emmet Martin at the controls. Positioned among trees, an overgrown garden, and a plethora of birds, Maddy’s performances are stark and emotive, feeling as lithe as they are poetically precise, and brought a flood of attention to Canary Room. The gorgeous but unassuming Christine received praise from a range of outlets including The Portland Mercury and NPR.

Kind Words for Christine:

“It takes a lot for a singer-songwriter with only an acoustic guitar to break through. Then I heard the song ‘Christine’ by Canary Room. It’s from a short, five-song EP recorded outdoors on a four-track; listen closely and you can hear birds chirp and leaves rustled by the wind. But mostly you just hear Maddy Heide’s voice up close, as if she’s sitting right next to you, thinking out loud about the way seasons change in a person, and how you love them anyway. The melody ascends and descends like rolling foothills — gently, but not without a heart pumping blood.” NPR

“At just over 14 minutes long, the collection is brief but beguiling, quietly potent. The primary draw is the album’s five compelling songs, all built entirely from fingerpicked acoustic guitar and Heide’s delicate voice, which sounds like it was made to channel stirring, English folk-style melodies. Lyrically, she unspools dreamlike stories to process experiences and family history, then calls in natural settings…to frame the feelings that fuel the tunes. The first two pressings of the EP sold out long ago, and a third edition is dwindling—an indication that Heide’s modest project is reaching people in ways she never expected.” Portland Mercury

HOLLOWAY

Holloway is the collaborative project of Kaden Burdick, John Durant, Steven Driscoll, and Cole Gann. The bands eclectic energy is credited to the members various musical backgrounds: spanning jazz, rock and folk. Their work ranges from heavy post punk to introspective melodic pieces. Their sophomore album “ok sounds good no worries” explores this contrast, with songs about loss and anger invoking both riot and memorial. With members located in both LA and Portland, song writing has taken on an amorphous form. Holloway is both genre-less yet identifiable by way of Burdick’s vocals and songwriting. Given their disjointed nature, a Holloway show is a rare gem in the Portland indie rock scene.

Kind words:

"For their Sophomore album Portland band Holloway retreated to a house in Bend to self record a collection of new songs. The result is ‘Ok, sounds good. No worries.‘ an assortment of tunes that combines the group’s well known high energy live performance with moments of calm and introspection. The highs are the loudest and and most precise of their career and the lows burn deeper than they have gone before." -Psychedelic Baby Magazine

WORLD RECORD WINNER

World Record Winner is the recording project and sometimes band of bud tapes founder and Portland resident Emmet Martin. Combining elements of folk music, Pacific Northwest indie rock, drone and slow core, Martin assembles lofi textiles of textures and melodies onto various tape machines. In a live setting, the band can take the form of anything from a rock band, to a free improv drone ensemble, to a multi media collage of sound and visuals. You never quite know what you are going to get but in any form it's been known to hypnotize.

Kind words:

"Oaks Park in Southeast Portland is a strange and beautiful place...Emmet Martin, aka World Record Winner recorded Moss Rug down in that bottom using their guitar, rocks, stick, leaves, and field recordings. Have a listen, and be transported to deeply weird Portland." -Deepest Currents on Moss Rug

"An honest-to-goodness ode to the joy of rooting around in the dirt and leaf litter away from worries and cares." -Various Small Flames on Pockets of Nature

"While many know Emmet Martin as one of the busier movers and shakers in Pacific Northwest DIY— in addition to having played in Boreen, Dog Thieves, Lutra and more, they’re also the engine behind Bud Tapes, which has pressed some of independent music’s finest post-COVID releases — their solo output as World Record Winner is cocooned music, warm folk that draws textures and memories from the world around it and, beaver-like, assembles them into a comfortable organic nest...These recordings are at turns reminiscent of the airy slowcore of Crescent and the shambolic folk of Adrian Orange, but with a modern collector’s ear that allows World Record Winner to transcend old-school trappings. Martin’s wide range of sonic influences, along with a knack for sound collages and buoyant synth textures, result in songs that play as much with the limitations of 4-track tape as with the vast possibilities for musical exploration afforded by the digital age." -Oranj Discs

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Left on Tenth with Sooth and the Sweet Souls, Smile Pile

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September 2

Heritage Soulfest 2022 featuring Soul Vaccination w/ The Chris Baum Project