The fiercely independent creative culture that thrives in the Pacific Northwest has, of late, been receiving an upsurge of deserved attention, and for good reason. No band in the region embodies independence, practices innovative, artful living and is dedicated to their craft more than Point Juncture, WA., a collaboration between four Portland, OR. songwriters, instrumentalists, recording engineers, and friends: Amanda Spring (vocals, drums) Victor Nash (keyboards, vocals) Skyler Norwood (guitar, vibraphone) and Wilson Vediner (guitar). Point Juncture, WA live together in a house they purchased as a band and jointly own. Point Juncture, WA grows a lot of their own food, and camps on tour, cooking said food over campfires. Point Juncture, WA transformed a dilapidated barn on their property into a state-of-the-art, Dwell Magazine-worthy recording studio with their own hands so that they could have the perfect environment in which to create their newest full-length, Handsome Orders. Point Juncture, WA has always recorded their own albums, and they’ve printed their own records. Point Juncture, WA is not a band that is messing around, and it’s their time to shine.
During their years together, the band has toured extensively. They’ve been out as main support for The Thermals, and Stereolab, Dirty Three, and Britt Daniel. They’ve spent years touring the Western states under their own steam, playing festivals like Sasquatch and Bumbershoot and basement shows in towns you’ve never heard of, building a rich and devout network of friends and devotees along the way. They are a band who knows what a good record sounds like, and not just because they’ve been self-recording for seven years: members of the band have recorded records for Horse Feathers, Blind Pilot, Talkdemonic, and collaborated on recordings with The Decemberists, Laura Viers, Thao with The Get Down Stay Down and several others.
The band’s first two full-lengths, Juxtapony and Mama Auto Boss (2004 & 2005) were responses to what the band saw in clubs and basements at that time; love letters to hooky Northwest anthemic pop. 2009’s more diverse, textural Heart To Elk (named as Amazon.com’s Top 100 Records of 2009) was recorded at home over the period of two years by the band as they fully explored their influences and found new ground in the confluence of many different musical tastes.
Now having creatively explored what they’ve seen and what they hadn’t, Handsome Orders shows Point Juncture, WA looking deep within at what, and who, they’ve become as a band. Direct songs like “Violin Case” and “Chronological Order” show the band sticking to a less-is-more compositional philosophy—a practice they weave throughout Handsome Orders. Previously, the band’s catchy rock songs were often blanketed with vibraphone, synthesizer ambiance and layers of guitar feedback that would crest just at the point of obscuring the song’s melody. Now, a driving dissonance is absorbed into the bass and guitar parts themselves, offering the same counterpoint to the pop song’s format, but in a newly nuanced and elegant form. Keyboards, horns and guitar noise exist as textural layers above and underneath the fundamentals ofHandsome Orders‘ tracks, but each song has a dynamic range not common to a band so rooted in it’s live performance.
Point Juncture, WA uses that range to maximum effect, often piling the biggest and most chaotic moments of orchestration right on top of its most intimate and transparent songs (like “Boston Gold”, a whispered vocal melody over a slight but steady brushed drumbeat). The syncopated combination of Southern revival tambourine and auto harp glissando on “Baptist Jesus” (which features Steve Berlin from Los Lobos on baritone saxophone) is coupled with drums and an analog synthesizer right out of the Kraftwork songbook.
To celebrate the release of Handsome Orders The Vinyl District Nashville is giving away a copy of the record. All you have to do is tell us why you need Point Juncture, WA’s Handsome Orders in the comments section for your chance to win the LP! Get your comments posted, we’ll be choosing a winner on May 31st!
