Recently I worked on a collaboration tape with my friends over at Partly which also happens to be one of my favorite stores in Portland.
It's tiny. It's a great spot to not only get items from Martina Thornhill Ceramics (she also has her studio in the space and owns the store along with her partner Drew Steadham), but also great records, tapes, new and used leftist (as well as arts and culture) books and zines and a bunch of other great stuff for living.
For my side I used an editing program for the first time to transition the tracks without silences, layer tracks and add effects. You'll find samples from the satanic panic era transitioning into a freestyle rap from a porch in Greenville, SC with a ballpoint pen and fist smacking the wooden bannister for the kick and snare to an acoustic cover of "What You Want" by My Bloody Valentine and plenty of other stuff covering a handful of sounds. The highlight to me is a Macka B rap about the benefits of broccoli layered over a Marcus Fischer track.
For those far away and those who don't have a cassette player here are links to each side if you want to check them out.
Drew and I have another mix idea cooking that I am looking forward to putting together. I hope you enjoy and stay tuned!
-Niles
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In May of 2019 I was fortunate enough to spend a month in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan with my friend Ryuta Abe and his family. As opposed to traveling around the country as many people do, I decided that I wanted to stay in the region and spend more time in less places... to try to get to know a place better. Aside from a few nights in Tokyo, I slept in my temporary room in the Abe house in Koshigoe every night. I'd spend most of my days figuring out what area of Kamakura I hadn't seen and used the bike Ryuta loaned me to see what I could find in the different corners of the city. Needless to say, a city like Kamakura is so rich with things to do and history that the days flew by.
Before I left I wanted to have some time away from the city. Though going to Mt. Fuji crossed my mind after looking at it in the distance for the month, I wanted to go somewhere below the tree line to experience some time in the forest. Ryuta found a 14 mile roundtrip hike up to the top of Mt. Nabewariyama in the Mt. Tanzawa area. We could get there by train, bus and a little walking before reaching the trailhead. The highlight of this hike is a Sanso at the top serving Nabeyaki Udon using hiked in ingredients, fuel and even water. At the base of the trail there is a stash of water for the day. It is asked that you bring a liter up if you can. Luckily for us they were all gone as we realized upon our ascent that the Sanso was closing early that day. I have never hiked so fast in my life and I felt bad for Ryuta being rushed. But we made it and the reward was great. Please enjoy some photos from that day. One of the best days of my trip. Great company, great food and great views out in the natural world.
Eternal gratitude to Ryuta and Keiko-san for making it possible for me to do a trip like this.
All photos shot on a couple of old point and shoot cameras.
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Summer of 2017 in the Pacific Northwest was a somewhat apocalyptic time. Forest fires surrounded us on all sides. Some were sparked naturally in the heat of high summer, some were sparked fatefully by careless human hands. As ash drifted down over Portland, we took a trip to another ashy, apocalyptic place.
The Mt. Margaret backcountry is a part of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington State. It lies north-northeast of Mt. St. Helens, directly in the 143 sq mile blast zone from the 1980 eruption of the volcano. The eruption blew out the north side of the mountain coating the surrounding area in mud, debris, downed trees, and many inches of ash. Thirty-seven years later the habitat and ecology are still starkly mysterious.
Trees are brittle and prickly like aloof hermits. They’re no more than 10-15 feet high and the rest of the vegetation varies greatly from hillside to hillside. Certain slopes were protected from the blast by ridges and snowfields. These areas have waist-high bushes of salmonberry and rowan.
Other slopes that were more exposed are covered in tough, low-growing heathers and mountain strawberries. Flowers are all around having moved into the open areas: fireweed, lupin, beargrass, pearly everlasting. In every direction you can see the charred remains of the forest. Burned trees that have turned silver over time and have been flattened like splintery toothpicks. A few still act as lone vertical sentinels.
Ecologists agree that progress really started accelerating at the 30 year mark as new growth and vegetation became pervasive enough to sustain itself. Prior to this, seeds blew into the blast zone on the wind and life slowly crept inward from the outer edges.
The trail and much of the open ground was still ashy, and the silky cinders poofed up in little plumes where we set our feet down. It was a hot weekend and with barely any tree canopy the experience was hot, dry, and dusty. The smoke from the forest fires all around Oregon and Washington obscured what would otherwise have been a majestic view of Mt. St. Helens and the surrounding ridgelines. It felt both slightly oppressive and as well as expansive. We were closed in on all sides by smoke, but we knew there was more out there- massive cliffs and plunging valleys- if only we could see them!
Walking amongst the ashes was eerie. The knowledge that in our lifetimes the earth below our feet had been charred by boiling winds, smothered in silt, or encrusted by lava made us check our jaunty assumptions that each day would bring blissful strength and hardiness. It deepened an already existing note of reverence for the looming mountain hiding in hazy obscurity.
With reverence there comes a renewed feeling of responsibility, of conscience. From greed and the flawed design of the empire economy comes human destruction- eradication of natural habitat with parking lots, subdivisions, and multi-lane highways. It's this type of irresponsibility that perpetuates man-made natural disasters: disease, displacement, and destruction exacerbated by human-fueled climate change.
If we have the option to do right, shouldn’t we? Because really: What is the difference between a hardened 6-mile pumice flow and a never-ending expanse of paved parking lots to a herd of elk? Either way the herd loses. We won’t stop a volcano. Can we stop ourselves?
Leaving Burns, Oregon for the Alvord Desert felt like shedding off the dead skin of civilization. It was meaningful to forge ahead into a never ending expanse of open sagebrush bound by distant mountains. It felt like embarking on a journey based only on trust. Trust that the car wouldn’t break down. Trust that we had enough water. Trust that the desert was dry enough to drive on and we wouldn’t get stuck in mud.
And trust paid off. The absence of amenities (aside from the milkshakes at Fields Station), made the world feel bigger; like our consciousness could extend out further than normal, unhindered by obstructions or distractions.
The trip was only a few days but we packed it in: We soaked in hot springs, we watched the full moon rise over the iris and bluebell colored desert, we took photos of ourselves jumping-poised in midair- over the hard, flat earth of the playa, we trekked up a buckle of the Steens Mountains where a creek created a fragrant and lush oasis, we watched hawks and vultures circle overhead, we brewed coffee with hot water begged from gas stations. In the car, we listened to Slowdive, Derrick Harriott, and Elizabeth Cotten. We flipped off a drone, we ate overpriced ice cream from a town with a population of less than 50.
The drives were long but not unpleasant. Open stretches allow the mind to wander. What happens in the high desert where no one trespasses? Are there places where the ground squirrels and rattlesnakes have never had to hide from a human? But even on the most remote stretches of the road there were signs of the carelessness and irreverence of man. After driving without seeing a single car for an eternity we pulled over to stretch our legs. There, caught in the gnarled branches of a sage bush was a Lays bag. And half buried in the sandy ground, a dark beer bottle lay forgotten.
These signs of ingratitude beg some deeper questioning about selfishness. The person who tosses the bottle out of the window is acting selfishly: “I’m done with this and I don’t want it near me anymore.” And further, “I don’t care to consider what happens to this item after it passes from my hand.” An inability to see beyond one’s body and one’s moment is a sad and pervasive trend amongst humans.
Stewarding the land is something we should act on more. I take inspiration from the memory of a gray-haired man off highway 30- no car, driveway, or bus stop in sight- ripping invasive ivy off a hillside to make space for native ferns and sedum. Such a simple idea, a selfless act, an ongoing movement.
]]>We took a short, two day, backpacking trip up to Olympic National Park. One thing you can never be sure of there is road closures. With our original plan thwarted by washed out roads we settled on a hike that would provide us with some wonderful views and not a lot of extra driving. We found ourselves camping in the Royal Basin. Please enjoy the photos from my 35mm point and shoot camera.
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