Grab the nearest vessel that will hold water and chug. Terrain — the annual arts and music extravaganza — is here, and that means you’ll be chatting, dancing, sweating, laughing and drinking for many, many, many hours this Friday night. For the sake of your liver, for the sake of your dignity: hydrate.
The brains behind this year’s one-night blitz packed the night with great music — from underrated locals to respectable out-of-towners. Here are our picks for the best stuff to dance to, sway to and sing at the top of your lungs to all night long. (LEAH SOTTILE)
MY PINKY HAS A NAME
File under: Electro-Cabaret
Spokane/ Los Angeles duo of Bobby Hattenburg and Hannah Reader’s My Pinky Has A Name sounds like the end result of Joni Mitchell spending the week drinking whiskey and composing an epic love story about falling in love at a carnival. It sounds weird, right? Trust me, give ‘em a shot. My Pinky Has a Name is easily one of the most refreshingly different and intoxicatingly catchy groups making music in Spokane. (AUSTIN MELL) 5:20 pm, main stage
THE CYPRUS EXPERIMENT
File under: Psychedelic Surf-Fusion.
Sometime last year I was introduced to the eclectic quartet Cyprus Experiment by an old neighbor. He described theirs as the kind of music that you’d be listening too after eating LSD and surfing all day in southern California during the late ’80s. The Cyprus Experiment churns out aggressively catchy music overflowing with limb-jerking melodies and jazzy structures. (AM) 6:10 pm, main stage
DARIE RE
File under: Feel-Good Folk.
First and foremost, multi-instrumentalist Dario Re is a poet; a poet that happens to have a damn good singing voice. With that voice he conjures beautiful imagery and paints an alluring and magical picture with his intricate guitar work. Fans of Josh Ritter and Blitzen Trapper should not miss Re’s set. (AM) 6:20 pm, Literature Park stage
BIAS
File under: Puff the Magical Electro Dragon
Caroline Francis Schibel’s brand new band BIAS is a stark contrast from her retro pop days with Mon Cheri. On tracks like “My Way Out” this trio infuses melancholy male-female harmonies — the likes of which you’d hear from a husband and wife no longer sleeping in the same bed. Other tracks juxtapose folksy vocals with robotic voice effects, palpitating drums and a synthesizer. (JORDY BYRD) 7:10 pm, main stage
JETMAN JET TEAM
File under: Shoegaze, Garage
This Seattle band is a pleasant surprise in the pop-heavy Terrain lineup. Jetman Jet Team is fuzzy, distorted, drugged out garage rock in the vein of My Bloody Valentine and locals The Soul and the Machine. Guaranteed they’ll have a cocoon of guitar nerds up close to the stage, entranced by their heady, visceral space-rock. (LS) 8:10 pm, main stage
CHARLES L. GREEN
File Under: Electro-Classical
Standing alone in Spokane’s hip-hop/electronic fusion valley, keyboard in hand, is one Charles Green, who crafts calculated but shocking avant-garde electronic classical pieces. Green’s pieces confuse, startle and have a jazz-like effortlessness. Yes, patience is required, but Charles Green will likely be the most thought-provoking musician you hear at this year’s Terrain. (JORDAN SATTERFIELD) 8:20 pm, Literature Park stage
STATIC TONES
File under: Rollicking, Repressed Sexual Energy
It’s easy to image brothers Joshua and Ian Nelson-Bass hiding Playboys under the bed as kids. When they grew bored with buxom blondes, they must have picked up guitars. The brothers formed the Coeur d’Alene alternative rock band in late 2011. Their album, Attack of the Static Tones, is a mixture of Buckcherry-esque lyrics about the ever-sexual witch and succubus. (JB) 9:10 pm, main stage
STRANGE MANA
File under: The Alternative Soundtrack to The Virgin Suicides
There’s a listlessness to Ramsey Troxel — formerly of Jazz — and Olivia White’s low-fi dream pop. The Whitworth juniors formed the band in June and describe their repertoire as “sleepy-eyed nightmare music.” Their guitars and lithium-induced vocals sound as if trapped inside a beautiful bell jar. (JB) 10 pm, Literature Park stage
TERRIBLE BUTTONS
File under: American Gothic
There’s something about Terrible Buttons that makes people lose their goddamn minds. Maybe it’s watching the seven members of the band pour their hearts into performances, singing and dancing and strumming like their lives depend on it. Or maybe it’s the bands’ dark folk music — songs about dealings with the devil — that tweaks something with audiences. It’s honest, gritty music that pulls from folk and blues, and conjures images of the dark side of humanity. (LS) 10:10 pm, main stage
OC NOTES
File under: The School of Pants
There are a lot of things to love about Spokane, but perhaps the coolest thing about the people here is our love for the weird, the off-kilter, the just-askew. If you ever found yourself freaking out at a James Pants show, or dancing by yourself at a Brothers ov Midnite set, you’ll love Seattle’s OCnotes: buzzy, bizarro electronic hip-hop filled with strange, hilarious samples that will, hopefully, get girls dancing (and fighting!) on the Terrain stage like last year. (LS) 11:10 pm, main stage
VELELLA VELELLA
File under: Body Rock
The best thing about Seattle’s proto-funk collective Velella Velella is the way it seems to ignore the little voice in every artist’s head that says, “make that more subtle.” Abruptly frank lyrics about sex, sly funk bass work and large arrangements featuring numerous synthesizers frequently give Velella Velella the sound of the funk homage that Beck employed circa Midnite Vultures. The difference is that there’s no reverence here, no quiet band that would waste its time with tastefulness. Velella Velella wants the dancing to start now, and it wants it to get dirty. (JS) 12:10 am, main stage
Terrain • Fri, Oct. 5, at 5 pm • Music City Building • 1011 W. First Ave. • Free • All-ages • terrainspokane.com
