Aan released their latest album, Losing My Shadow, last month via Fresh Selects. Losing Shadow is frontman Bud Wilson's way of recreating the mental and emotional spaces created by grief, and what purposes these new spaces can serve. The album has clean percussive hits, accented by syncopations that throw the song off just enough to make you really appreciate the way the music shapes itself. The album's first single, "Truly Massive" is the sort of mournful, space-cowboy ballad that could only be made by a psych band. It's hard to explain the feelings that the song evokes, a shadowy combination of pain, longing, and the hope for a reunion. Wilson's voice carries all of these emotions and more. It is touching and sentimental but retains the sort of wistful aloofness that leaves you feeling like something important is just barely out of your reach. The album is an incredibly impressive emotional project, one for which Wilson should be commended. 

-By Avril Carrillo

Out today, the newest record from Bud Wilson's full fledged music baby Aan is perhaps one of if not its strongest release yet. Dada Distractions served as just that - a means to somewhat distract Wilson from all the bullshit that occurred to him last year. 

Amid the loss of two friends and the ending of a six year relationship, Wilson also saw the known incarnation of his band and his home of Portland quickly changing. Like most with creative outlets to deal with the darker feelings, Wilson channeled his ills into Dada Distractions, where songs bounce between droning heavy hitters and softly scuzzed out pop. 

The current embodiment of Aan sees the band's touring sound engineer turned member Gabriel Nardin, Dana Valatka and former Deli Portlander Travis Leipzig aiding in expressing Wilson's musical journey through lost love and the acceptance of death. Dada Distractions is definitely an album of expression, that can be witnessed live during the album release show this weekend for Rontoms' Sunday Sessions. Helping Aan celebrate the album's release will be Minden and Kelli Schaefer. It'll be Papi Fimbres' last show as Minden's drummer, giving even more of an incentive to turn out.

Stream Dada Distractions in its entirety below.

Treefort Music Fest 2015 was an absolute whirlwind. In their biggest and unarguably most successful year yet, the festival had non-stop fantastic musical curation throughout the entire long weekend. Waking up each morning with a gnarly hangover, the only admirable thing to do was to pop into Big City Coffee for a heartstopping breakfast burrito and a few cups of coffee while checking out the festival schedule to figure out your show and drinking route for the day, then, hit the ground running. Check out our photo recap, including shots of Viet Cong, Foxygen, Built To Spill, Yahct, And And And, Aan, The Domestics, Bed., Wooden Indial Burrial Ground, Grandparents and more. Photos by Drew Bandy, Adam Smith, Jessica Pierson and Grahame Bywater.

This weekend, the Red Bull Sound Select concert series continues its reign of killer showcases featuring some of the best local music any of us can find. This time around, the show is part of Portland’s long running music festival, MusicFest NW. Because of outdoor noise ordinances (boooo!) the festival will shut down at 10PM leaving a lot of room in the night for music. This is where the Red Bull team comes in to save the party.

Saturday night, at the Star Theater, RBSS have aligned two local acts to open for Com Truise (yes, you read that right). The first is the dreamy, electronic indie rockers, AAN. They are an extremely versatile band that can end a long, slow build up with thrashing guitars and high pitched vocals. Also opening the show is one of Portland’s favorite electronic groups, Hustle and Drone. This duo bases their music in electronic beats and heavy synth use, but play their tunes with a rock 'n roll, high-intensity that few electronic acts can pull off. The entire night is heavily based in electronics as the headliner all the way from Brooklyn is a synth wizard that mixes together music most appropriate for unnamed TRON sequels and robot porn. But I’m into that kinda stuff and will hopefully see you there. The show starts at 10pm, RSVP here to secure $3 entry. 

- Colin Hudson 

Despite the arguably volatile conditions that have developed around the Portland music community as of late – hyper increased development in inner urban areas displacing low-income artist types and forcing venues to close; increased noise curfew enforcement; obtusely racist police interference with hip hop shows – there is still one beautiful, unalienable force that is overflowing throughout our tired and artistic collective: FRIENDSHIP.

PALS FEST 2014, taking place August 9th through 15th, is the perfect celebration of the friendship that ties together Portland’s musical community, and back for the festival's third year, the lineup couldn’t include any better best-bud-bands. This year, the celebration offers seven crazy nights of music, each at a different venue across town and curated by different local tastemakers, and all free or $5 entry. However, if you’re like most day-job slaving humanoids and don’t have the stamina to take in seven nights of live music in a row, here is our abridged list of shows you probably don’t want to miss: