Because creativity and real human connection simply make life better
Things We Love
Besties Necklace
$ 65.00
- Like two peas in a pod, this necklace may become your new bestie. Buy two and wear your bestie with your bestie! Each circle is free-moving between one another and the chain. This necklace is handmade by Baleen, a small jewelry studio in Seattle, WA. The entire pendant (both circles) measures approximately 1” wide from a 16” chain. All components are sterling silver.
-
Baleen began in 2013 by Leah and Billy, a couple whose shared passion for well-designed, thoughtful and beautiful objects were propelled by their respective backgrounds in design and metalsmithing. The pair decided to start Baleen from the belief that handmade things don't always have to be expensive, and that good design is for everyone! They now design and create everything from their studio and storefront in Seattle, Washington.
Phoebe Wahl: Sunshine Card
Bison Bookbinding & Letterpress
$ 6.50
- Letterpressed with gold foil and die cut in Bellingham, WA with a recycled craft envelope. Blank interior. 5.5 x 5.5.
-
Bison Bookbinding Phoebe Wahl is a Washington based illustrator whose work focuses on themes of comfort, nostalgia and intimacy with nature and one another. Printed by Bison Bookbinding and Letterpress, who collaborate with artists from the Pacific Northwest and beyond to bring their products to life using old-fashioned letterpresses and the finest recycled and earth-friendly materials.
Rosé & Rose Earrings
$ 25.00
- Stop and smell the roses - and rosé! Everyone’s favorite Summer sipper and Portland’s signature flower make a perfectly mismatched pair of cloisonné and 22 karat gold plated petite studs from Yellow Owl Workshop! Presented in their original glass vial packaging, each earring is .5” (1.3 cm) or slightly smaller and have have hypoallergenic posts.
-
Yellow Owl Workshop is a collection of artful unique craft, paper and jewelry for creative expression designed by Christine Schmidt.
We Can Be Loved Print
$ 42.00
- Because you're perfect just the way you are. Spoken by a man we're proud to call our "neighbor," it's a sentiment that never goes out of style. 11" x 14". Screen-printed by hand on 100% cotton Cranes 110 lb lettra paper.
-
People I’ve Loved is a few individuals longing for connection / a small printmaking workshop based out of Oakland, California. They specialize in hand-printed & assembled objects, in an Oakland farmhouse with a lemon tree.
Small Flared Mug - Coral Satin
$ 38.00
- A sweet, simple and small handcrafted mug with just the right amount of flair. Measures 3.75" wide by 2.25" tall.
-
Alexandria Cummings Alexandria is a ceramist living and working in Portland, Oregon. She also co-operates Hey Studio, a ceramic focused space for people of all levels and practices.
Unpaper Towels (6 pack)
$ 20.00
- UNpaper® towels are the perfect replacement for your eco-friendly family's disposables. Choose from rainbow, or greys. Set of 6 towels, 12"x10" each. Towels are 1 ply and edges are serged for durability and to prevent fraying. Absorbency is increased after the first few washes and will shrink just enough to be the perfect size for a standard paper towel roll. The towels naturally cling together, making it easy to roll up on a paper towel roll without the need for snaps, or store in a basket. Washing instructions: Machine wash warm with like colors, dry in dryer.
-
Marley's Monsters is a Eugene, OR based one-stop shop for eco-friendly, reusable home and kitchen products and unique baby goods.
<3 Engraved Spoon
$ 25.00
- Baby Puppy Designs takes vintage spoons and hand-stamps the insides of the bowls with heartfelt, positive messages. With this piece, greet your loved one (or yourself!) with a heart as you tuck in to your Cheerios.
-
Baby Puppy Designs was interested in jewelry, but fell in love with hand stamping vintage flatware. They feel it's wonderful to be able to create a beautiful keepsakes for people to remember a special events in their lives.
Crystal Candle 4 oz
$ 15.00
- Hidden inside each candle is a crystal that helps center your mind. Once your candle has burned, retrieve your crystal and carry it with you, or place it in a special space to help manifest peaceful energy for your mind, body, and soul. Hand-poured and made with 100% American farmed soy wax and natural essential + fragrance oil blend. The 4oz candle has a 25 hour burn time. Sea Opal (Meditation) Rose Quartz (Love) Amethyst (Spiritual Growth & Healing)
-
JaxKelly is a woman-owned and operated jewelry and crystal candle line, inspired by a love for natural stones and sharing these in an approachable and meaningful way. Each piece in the collection is hand-selected to complement the other, and handmade with sterling silver and gold-plated settings - they are sisters not twins. Candles are hand-poured in JaxKelly’s studio in Sunny San Diego with 100% American grown soy wax, complemented with the scents of fine perfume and essential oils, with a crystal hidden inside to help set intentions for success in all areas of life.
Music We Love
Pre-order 'Anna Ohio' (releases 5/8)
$ 20.00
-
Listen to the song "Mess Up"
Growing up in middle-class suburban Pennsylvania, Jen Pague looked around at the routine of family life and rejected it in full. The suburban isolation, the lack of culture, the white picket fences: “I didn’t want to be part of it in any capacity,” Pague says. “Even from a very young age. I wasn’t going to do what my parents did.” So she started a band.
Three years ago, she watched with amazement as Vita and the Woolf’s achievements started to stack up: fawning press and radio attention in their native Philadelphia, support tours with Rasputina and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, a successfully Kick-started debut full-length (2017’s Tunnels) and press in Billboard and Elle. But Pague never felt that the album was fully her own vision, and the career-altering reviews and sold-out headlining tours never quite came along. When the whirlwind suddenly died down, Pague thought maybe her music career was over at 25.
So in search of reinvention, she moved to Los Angeles, alone. She took aimless drives while looking for day jobs. She went to therapy. And eventually, she met encouraging new friends, and began working on new music in a place without the baggage of home. The music started to come. She wanted to tell a story that could “reflect on, and then move on from adolescence.” So she invented Anna Ohio.
Anna Ohio is a fictional character. But Anna Ohio, the album, is a very real pilgrimage of self-discovery. The album’s interconnected songs tell a self-referential story about a flawed but strong character reaching for reinvention. As Anna, Pague’s dreamlike examination of life under late-stage capitalism (“Home,” “Auntie Anne’s Waitress”) and desire for escape (“Operator”) are somehow more real than reality: They’re a direct line out from a soul-searching heart and mind. The album is both patient and hook-filled. There are echoes of Elliott Smith in the understated guitar work. Longtime bandmate and friend Adam Shumski’s inventive drum pat- terns give the songs a rare rhythmic depth.
Most importantly, Anna Ohio is Jen Pague’s vision, through and through. She built it with her own hands. And suddenly the press and the renown seem secondary to what she has already accomplished: Pague wrote, played and recorded an album with the sound she had been searching for. And, through Anna, she told a story worth telling. “I gave up something while writing this record,” Pague says. “Anna Ohio holds my pain, the thoughts of not being good enough to date, hire, love, and respect. It holds my energy and refusal to quit being a human. It holds what I find beautiful when things somehow work out. And it’s a tip of the hat to the people who support and love me.”
TLE-088 (2020) - 1. Out of State
2. Confetti
3. Home
4. Kentucky
5. Operator
6. Feet
7. Mess Up
8. Machine
9. Auntie Anne's Waitress
10. Paris
-
Vita and the Woolf are an indie pop band from Los Angeles, California. Led by frontwoman Jennifer Pague, VATW has toured with Rasputina, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. They have also been featured in Billboard and Nylon Magazines. Vita and the Woolf's second full length album Anna Ohio drops on Tender Loving Empire Records Spring 2020
Mo Troper: Natural Beauty
$ 20.00
-
Listen to the song "Jas From Australia
In November 2018, Mo Troper announced on social media that he had written the theme song for the upcoming James Bond movie, Never Dream of Dying. The song—full of the sort of orchestral flourishes and soaring choruses that wouldn’t have sounded out of place two generations ago on A.M. radio—dropped on YouTube a few weeks later and was followed by a profile of Troper on the now-defunct “culture blog” ‘Reel News’ that sought to explain why in the world an artist like him would be tapped by the Bond franchise in 2019. Generous comparisons to Harry Nilsson and breathless quotes from *Hollywood producers* notwithstanding, Troper was certain that anybody who read the profile would instantly realize it was a joke, and that he was the author.
“So a week or two later,” he confesses to me now, “I found out that this guy whose band I was recording had told his dad about it. The dad had never really respected his decision to pursue music. But now it was like, Hey Dad, look at the kind of people I’m working with! And the dad—who I guess was a giant Bond fan—told his son for like the very first time that he was proud of him for being a musician.”
“Yikes,” I say. “I don’t even think that’s gonna be the actual title of the movie.” “I’m sure he’ll figure it out at some point,” Troper says, wincing at me over his cup of coffee. “I feel kind of bad about that.”
I first saw Troper perform when he was a brazen twenty-year-old college student fronting the power-pop band Your Rival. Upon hearing him climb into the upper reaches of his multi-octave range, my friend Lisa (who had been tight with the Exploding Hearts and has some expertise upon the subject) nudged me in the ribs. “This is punk as hell!” she said.
Now twenty-seven, Troper looks fatigued beyond his years and admits to a growing discomfort with his reputation in the Portland music community as being a bit of an enfant terrible. The fallout from the Bond stunt isn’t the first time he’s brought somebody grief with his music.
“I’ve considered removing some of those early recordings from the Internet,” he says, “stuff about my relationships that caused a lot of drama, or stuff that’s been critical about people in this town, but I can’t bring myself to do it.”
At least some of Troper’s fatigue must be due to having finally finished mastering his third solo album, Natural Beauty, a pristine collection of pop songs that represents a giant step forward from the hook-laden angst of his earlier recordings. “I’ve always wanted to make a record like this,” he says, “but the arrangements are much more intricate than anything I could have attempted a few years ago.”
It’s not the first time he’s used strings—they showed up on the anthemic millennial self-own “Your Brand” off 2017’s Exposure and Response (via Roger Joseph Manning Jr. of Jellyfish and Beck’s live band, one of Troper’s professed idols), a song that might have been huge in the ’90s, or in a parallel universe where petulant guitar music still charted—but with Troper’s caustic wit turning inward on Natural Beauty, the music in turn has become prettier, subtler, more timeless, and the strings no longer cry for attention. Natural Beauty was recorded in the uneasy yet fertile time after Troper returned to his hometown of Portland from two brief, failed experiments of living elsewhere: first in Los Angeles and then in New York. Album opener “I Eat” explores one of the less flattering corners of his life in LA: binge-eating.
“It’s a pretty funny song,” I tell him. “The melody is so gorgeous, but then you notice the lyrics—It’s the spice of life that I’m after / or at least something to die for—” “I don’t think it’s funny at all,” he says sharply.
Troper has generally embraced his reputation for being an “asshole.” Casey Jarman, co-founder of Party Damage Records, who released Your Rival’s debut album Here’s To Me back in 2013, even used that word to describe him in an early bio.
“Mo thinks his music should be huge,” Jarman confided in me last week, when I told him I’d agreed to write this bio, “but probably a little too often he’s let that ambition—and accompanying bitterness—seep into his lyrical subjects.”
That bitterness is not entirely unfounded—with his old bands Your Rival, TeenSpot, and Sancho, Troper was producing excellent emo-flecked “nineties-core” a good half-decade before the blogosphere caught on. And as a music columnist for the Portland Mercury and co-founder of Portland’s Good Cheer Records, Troper was, for a time, a tireless documentarian of his hometown’s “rock underground”—a scene whose vitality was eventually sapped by “wrongheaded, coke-addled moralizers” and “private school-educated opportunists.” (His take, not mine.)
Yet herein lies the enormous appeal of Natural Beauty: instead of the “snot-nosed pwnage” of his earlier music (so said Pitchfork in their 6.0 review of his debut solo album), this new record presents the salient details of Troper’s life without the juvenile editorializing that has, at times, kept listeners at arm’s length.
Album highlight “Jas From Australia” features a melody as buoyant and sweet as anything Ray Davies ever wrote, with a dash of Internet-age urgency mixed in. The song’s straightforward storytelling—Jas was Troper’s first love, they met online when they were teenagers, and never met in person—sets the listener up for this gut-punch two-thirds of the way through the song: “I said I was moving to Melbourne but I lied and now you know.”
It’s easy to take music this catchy for granted, and confuse beauty with superficiality, but these songs are remarkably durable. At a recent show at Portland club Rontoms, I found the choruses just as thrilling as on the record, and Troper’s range more audacious than ever. He seems, at long last, to feel at home in his hometown, and admits that he is more motivated by the idea of playing a festival like PDX Pop Now! than of getting another Pitchfork review.
“When I got back to Portland,” he says, “the joke was that I ‘faked my own death.’ Only a handful of people knew that I was here, and I was unemployed and living at my parents’ house. I would drive to Northwest and spend hours scoring the string and horn arrangements for these songs, and then I would put the arrangements on my phone and walk around the grounds of MLC—my old school—listening to them, making mental revisions. Although I didn’t realize it then, it was maybe the most inspired period of my life. And maybe the last time that things will come this quickly to me.”
–Michael Heald
TLE-087 (2020) - 1. I Eat
2. Your Boy
3. In Love With Everyone
4. Your New Friend
5. Everything
6. Jas From Australia
7. Almost Full Control
8. Potential
9. Come And Get Me
10. Lucky Devils
11. Business As Usual
12. Cameo
-
Mo Troper has been a Portland powerpop stalwart for years. The self proclaimed "conker's bad fur day of powerpop" delivers infectious melodies and unforgetable hooks that get stuck in your head for days.
Dark Thoughts
$ 20.00
-
Listen to the song "Gloria"
For The Shivas, the show has always been the thing. That thing being a bombastic, explosive and thoroughly communal live rock and roll experience where barriers between the performers and their audience seem to dissolve into the sweat and sound. It’s the stage—or the basement, or the living room—that’s the Portland band’s true element. It’s their raison d’etre. It’s their religion..
The album is a defining sonic achievement for the band, which began booking their own tours in high school. The group blasted their way through Portland’s storied and unsanctioned mid-aughts house show scene. Since then they have played over 1,000 shows spread over 25 countries, meeting new fans and friends from Belgrade to Mexico City. But The Shivas—guitarist/singer Jared Molyneux, bassist Eric Shanafelt and drummer/singer Kristin Leonard have all been with the band since its earliest days; guitarist Jeff Boyardee joined in 2017—still speak about their project with a DIY humility that sounds like their native Pacific Northwest. They talk up their own favorite bands, play all-ages shows whenever possible, and they bring a sort of blue-collar humanism to the live performances they relish so much. “We just want to make people feel good,” guitarist/ singer Jared Molyneux says. “We want them to forget they have to work tomorrow.”
Dark Thoughts is the sound of a tight-knit band whose members have learned not just how to trust each other, but how to grow together. “Being adults now,” Leonard says. “We’re starting to talk a lot more philosophically about why we do what we do. Some of my favorite music came from people needing to find a space. Music is just such a visceral place to find a release.”
That’s what The Shivas are here for: to help people get free, if even just for an hour.
If they drop a few great albums along the way, so be it.
TLE-086 (2019) - 1. Gloria
2. Turn Me On
3. Playing On The Radio
4. If You See Me
5. Start A Fire
6. IDC Lucky #13
7. Sometimes II
8. Can't Relax
9. I Want You
10. Feels Surreal
11. Over & Over
12. It's All In Your Head
13. Can You Feel It Too?
-
The Shivas are a rock and roll band from Portland, Oregon formed in 2006. In the 10 years since forming they have brought their raucous dance party to almost all 50 states, and over 25 countries worldwide, meanwhile releasing five full-length albums and three EP. The bands fifth studio album is due out fall of 2019.
Entre Los Dos
$ 16.00
-
Listen to the song "Rios Sueltos"
How far does our sentimental strength go? When do we turn to the other without any resistance? What is the breaking point? By showing emotional connections we become vulnerable. Existing together, we can not conceive without the other. "I am another you" is a Mayan thought that blurs the limits of personal bonds, extending individuality to any being that we choose to look in the eyes, allowing us to find something shared in each others stare.
Entre Los Dos is the follow up to critically acclaimed Mujeres (NPR, Pitchfork, Billboard), Y La Bamba's most recently released full length album (February 2019). This EP comes as a collection of portraits, affinities, and new visions birthed during Mendoza's frequent stays in the city of Guadalajara, Mexico. These are songs and powerful prayers, created with their purpose being to protect the land and its people, recognize the ancestry that burns in our hearts, and treasure wisdom weaving healthy bonds that reflect self-love with dignity.
Through the veins of front person Luz Elena Mendoza, runs Purepecha blood. Adapting to new environments over and over again, she has become someone who constantly questions and empowers through music: her great teacher and tireless companion.
The creative flow of Entre Los Dos moves without stopping, without resisting its own form. It adapts, migrates, and fuses with its environment and receptors. The adrenaline of a new beginning moves us, but also leaves a fragile space where the fear of being cornered and devoured may exist. When you float in foreign waters, you can not do more than surrender to doubt and become one with the death. The world is dangerous, and even more so when it comes to surrendering blindly to love.
TLE-085 (2019) - 1. Gabriel
2. Entre Los Dos
3. Rios Sueltos
4. Octavio
5. Soñadora
6. Las Platicas
7. Los Gritos
-
Entre Los Dos is the follow up to critically acclaimed Mujeres (NPR, Pitchfork, Billboard), Y La Bamba's most recently released full length album (February 2019). This EP comes as a collection of portraits, affinities, and new visions birthed during Mendoza's frequent stays in the city of Guadalajara, Mexico. These are songs and powerful prayers, created with their purpose being to protect the land and its people, recognize the ancestry that burns in our hearts, and treasure wisdom weaving healthy bonds that reflect self-love with dignity.
Friends and Friends of Friends Vol 12
$ 15.00
-
Friends & Friends of Friends is an annual 2-disc compilation of music curated by Tender Loving Empire. We collect submissions from our friends and (as the compilation title might suggest) from their friends. We request specific songs that we love and include our favorite jams from bands on our own record label. This year it's time for number 12, and we've put together 40 songs that reflect the best of what we're into now.
TLE-084 (2019) -
DISC 1
1. Vita and the Woolf - Sun Drop
2. Bells Atlas - First Gen Pisces
3. Ural thomas & the Pain - Smoldering Fire
4. Arthur & The Antics - Jennifer Said
5. The California Honeydrops - Live Learn
6. Aftercare - Still Love
7. Slow Corpse - Lonely 3000
8. Blossom -Moi å Moi
9. Ripley Snell - Manifinessea (ft. Old Grape God)
10. SISTERS - Y Do U Take So Long ft. Sol (Budo Remix)
11. Brijean - Show And Tell
12. PALMCO - Don't Let Me Down
13. Small Skies - Faces
14. Pure Bathing Culture - Moonrise
15. New Body Electric - Peaceful War
16. Human Ottoman - Maraca Who
17. Martha Stax - Rock and Roll
18. Jeff Bond - We Are Getting Closer
19. Little Wins - Let Me Into Your Heart
DISC 2
1. Y La Bamba - Boca Llena
2. Neptuna - Las Margaritas
3. The Shivas - Turn Me On
4. Elly Swope - Habits
5. Balto - Black Snake, Mojave Blues
6. The Rare Forms - Under The sheets
7. Help - Skeletons
8. Mega Pacific - Weed Police
9. Laundry - Junkyard Robot
10. Patrician - Your Friend
11. Sama Dams - Mounted On The Wall
12. Rum River Cult - Strangers Now
13. Melt - Snow
14. Shadowgraphs - Sun Is Rising
15. Mo Troper - Never Dream Of Dying
16. Perhapsy - 34th & West
17. Souvenir Driver - Admire
18. The Jerry Cans - Makiliqta
19. John Craigie - Virgin Guitar
20. Kelly McFarling - Pacific
21. Perlo - Masters -
The players: Vita and the Woolf, Bells Atlas, Ural thomas & The Pain, Arthur & The Antics, The California Honeydrops, Aftercare, Slow Corpse, Blossom, Ripley Snell, SISTERS, Brijean, PALMCO, Small Skies, Pure Bathing Culture, New Body Electric, Human Ottoman, Martha Stax, Jeff Bond, Little Wins, Y La Bamba, Neptuna, The Shivas, Elly Swope, Balto, The Rare Forms, Help, Mega Pacific, Laundry, Patrician, Sama Dams, Rum River Cult, Melt, Shadowgraphs, Mo Troper, Perhapsy, Souvenir Driver, The Jerry Cans, John Craigie, Kelly McFarling, Perlo
Paradise Hotel
$ 20.00
-
Listen to the song "The Situation"
Paradise Hotel was borne out of years of collaboration in the Portland music community. The thirteen-track vinyl compilation was produced by Jesse Bettis of New Move Studios, in tandem with each featured songwriter, and is built on the sense of discovery between Bettis and each artist. “The reason collaboration is so powerful is the vision that every person brings to the table—and the result is much greater than the means,” says Bettis.
Thematically, each artist comes from their own place of struggle; the songs range from feminist anthem (Y La Bamba) to melancholic ballad (Aan). The sonically eclectic and exciting collection melds under shared production values and instrumentation, like the synthesizer, for a common aesthetic. Paradise Hotel’s distinct sound palette is a groovy, upbeat vibe, a la vintage 70s vinyl.
The seeds for writing and producing Paradise Hotel were planted over two years ago, when Bettis heard a demo of Boone Howard’s “Limit Of Love,” and was inspired to record it. More recently Cameron Spies (Radiation City, Night Heron, Gold Brick Studios) and Bettis became neighbors and joined forces on two songs, “The Situation” and “Astronaut Lover.” Bettis says, “New Move Studios was formed for the Portland music community. It’s a space dedicated to supporting creativity and releasing music and videos regularly.”
With Portland undergoing increasingly more change every day, it’s important to carve out a place where ingenuity and collaboration happen. The neon sign atop a decaying building on Paradise Hotel’s cover is reminiscent of Portland’s past, while looking ahead to a hopeful future. “The picture of decaying leisure class culture is also a new beginning,” Bettis says.
Paradise Hotel is a pillar of the Portland music community and its amazing creativity, and it represents just the beginning of a new, exciting body of work to come out of New Move Studios. Bettis says, “Everybody needs a community, and the more you can connect with the people around you, the better off everyone is.” .
TLE-083 (2019) - 1. Dan Dan - Circuit
2. Michael Finn - Good Heart & Full Support
3. Y La Bamba - Something Wild
4. New Move (feat. Night Heron) - The Situation
5. Tribe Mars - Ya Yea Yeah
6. Minden - Turned
7. Melt - Saltwater Taffy
8. Night Heron (feat. New Move) Astronaut Lover
9. PG-13 - Happy Birthday Trevor
10. Laura Palmers Death Parade - Heartbeats Dancing
11. Mat & Ritchie - Get It On
12. Boone Howard - Limit Of Love
13. Aan - Fell Into A Hole -
Paradise Hotel is a pillar of the Portland music community and its amazing creativity, and it represents just the beginning of a new, exciting body of work to come out of New Move Studios. Bettis says, “Everybody needs a community, and the more you can connect with the people around you, the better off everyone is.” .
the mystic
$ 20.00
-
Listen to the song "Belly"
Bells Atlas’ latest offering the mystic digs further into their soulful buoyancy to explore both sound and storytelling. Sandra Lawson-Ndu, Douglas Stuart, Geneva Harrison, and Derek Barber stumbled upon a new, more production-oriented process for songwriting-- which included sampling grainy phone recordings-- that elevates Bells Atlas’ already unique approach to psychedelic R&B. The spontaneity of the mystic’s creative process results in a raw, cosmic sound that is mirrored in its lyrics. The record can be seen as sci-fi fantasy of two first-generation Nigerian American women coming to terms with a mental health diagnosis, and at the same time, a very universal exploration of how we make sense of reality. “It’s about a truth seer and a skeptic trying to make sense of what’s mystical and what’s clinical,” frontwoman Sandra Lawson-Ndu says. The listener is made to consider the possibility of magic. Is it possible, for instance, that someone who navigates the world differently may have a deeper understanding of the universe? The mystic is a spectrum of deep emotionality, impulse, and even humour; a tool to explore the full dimension of our reality.
TLE-082 (2019) - 1. Hazelwood
2. Rogue Dream
3. The Khamsa
4. We've Been Here Before
5. Belly
6. Downpour
7. The Mystic
8. First Gen Pisces
9. Na Change / See Clear
10. Final Ceiling -
Bells Atlas’ latest offering the mystic digs further into their soulful buoyancy to explore both sound and storytelling. Sandra Lawson-Ndu, Douglas Stuart, Geneva Harrison, and Derek Barber stumbled upon a new, more production-oriented process for songwriting-- which included sampling grainy phone recordings-- that elevates Bells Atlas’ already unique approach to psychedelic R&B. The spontaneity of the mystic’s creative process results in a raw, cosmic sound that is mirrored in its lyrics. The record can be seen as sci-fi fantasy of two first-generation Nigerian American women coming to terms with a mental health diagnosis, and at the same time, a very universal exploration of how we make sense of reality. “It’s about a truth seer and a skeptic trying to make sense of what’s mystical and what’s clinical,” frontwoman Sandra Lawson-Ndu says. The listener is made to consider the possibility of magic. Is it possible, for instance, that someone who navigates the world differently may have a deeper understanding of the universe? The mystic is a spectrum of deep emotionality, impulse, and even humour; a tool to explore the full dimension of our reality.
The Right Time
$ 14.00
-
Listen to the song "Vibrations"
It’s one thing to make a 60’s throwback record. It’s another thing to have been there in real-time singing backup alongside legends Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding and James Brown, to name a few. In the case of 78 year old Ural Thomas, it’s never too late to find The Right Time.
TLE-077 (2018) - 1. Slow Down
2. No Distance (Between You & Me)
3. Vibrations
4. You Care Very Little
5. Smoldering Fire
6. The Right Time
7. Gotta Say (I Love You
8. Time
9. Show Ya
10. Eenie Meenie
11. Smile -
If life was at all fair Ural Thomas would be a household name, his music slotted into countless sweet, seductive mixtapes between James Brown, Otis Redding, and Stevie Wonder (all of whom Thomas has performed with.) Straddling the line between hot soul shouter and velvety-smooth crooner, Thomas released a few singles in the late 60’s and early 70’s; most notably “Can You Dig It”, which featured backing vocals from soul luminaries Merry Clayton, Mary Wells and Brenda Holloway. Thomas played over forty shows at the legendary Apollo Theater before turning his back on an unkind business and heading home to Portland, OR. It goes without saying that a man practically built out of rhythm would never stop playing music. Thomas began hosting a regular Sunday night jam session at his home that ran for nearly twenty years. A de facto mentor to many of the younger players, Thomas reminds us all that “If you care about what you’re doing, you need to build those muscles and do the work. Don’t get discouraged, do it for love. Even if you’re digging ditches, do it with passion.” In 2014, local soul DJ Scott Magee sat in on drums. The two became fast friends and at Magee’s urging Thomas decided to give his musical career another shot. Magee became the musical director, they put together a band, and in 2016 released a self-titled album on Mississippi Records. In 2017 Thomas signed with Tender Loving Empire and began work on what, in many respects, will be his debut full length. Diving deep into lifetime of melodic creativity, Thomas and his band got to work. Recorded in Magee’s studio Arthur’s Attic, The Right Time features the air-tight work of Magee on drums, percussion, and backing vocals, Bruce Withycombe (The Decemberists) on baritone sax, Portland jazz scene fixture Brent Martens on guitars and vibraphone, Arcellus Sykes on bass, Steve Aman (Lady Rizo) on piano and organ, Dave Monnie on trumpet, Willie Matheis (Cherry Poppin’ Daddies) on tenor sax, and Jasine Rimmel, Joy Pearson, Sarah King, Rebecca Marie Miller on backing vocals. The Arco Quartet performed the strings, and the record was engineered and mixed by Jeff Stuart Saltzman (Blitzen Trapper) and mastered by JJ Golden (Sharon Jones, Ty Segall). One might think after a sizeable taste of early success Thomas would be more than a touch bitter – yet the opposite is true. “We have to be positive if we want the world to get better” Thomas advises. “We’ve come a long way, but if you carry a grudge with the whole world you’ll stop your growth. We’re a family, all just brothers and sisters, descendants of Adam. You can’t get anywhere without an open heart.” A developing artist at nearly eighty years old, for Thomas music has always been about bringing people together. “If we play for twenty people we cook it like it’s twenty thousand” says Thomas. “If we make someone smile we’re satisfied. They’re ain’t no difference between us. It’s all love and brotherhood. If folks listen to my record and feel that I’ll feel very blessed.” Standing in bold defiance of the idea that aging is a reason to slow down and stop living, for Thomas the right time to get down is the next time someone plugs in a guitar or puts on a record. Ural is ready – are you?
Happening Now
