During the group’s visit to the Tate last May for the No Soul for Sale exhibition, Portland-based art collective Oregon Painting Society participated in some interviews and photo shoots – one of which is posted here: http://www.vogue.it/en/magazine/l-uomo-vogue/2010/12/oregon-painting-society

Oregon Painting Society has a ton of content on their site, from photo documentation to audio downloads to video links – check it out.  You can even download their Gift Tapes cassette, released last June.

Short and sweet, Buffle leads the listener into an odd, multicolored world where things happen in reverse.  This is strange music that moves like a lone opossum in search of her lunch… and maybe that lunch will consist of green-glow earthworms?  Here, the trio recreates the consciousness of a malformed creature operating on a pile of ancient mechanical devices.  Guitars, tape manipulations, miscellaneous percussion and toy-sized electronics bounce along in a quirky happy-time fantasy-world.  These semi-randomized improvisations sputter and pluck about, occasionally landing in a miniature forward moving jam – but only momentarily.  Packaged in a clear front/blue back case with a single sided cover and a crazy-cool sticker -  this is a great tape to add to your Belgian weird/positive music collection.

Italian tape label Relax Produzioni is responsible for releasing this tape by the Brussels-based band in 2008.  Find out more info about Buffle here: http://www.myspace.com/buffle AND http://buffle.tk/

And to get a taste of what this music sounds like – take a look at this youtube video (I think this track is on the tape): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrzC1gFjW5E

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcSZE-4q_yA&eurl=http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=ravi+shankar+sitar&www_google_domain=www.google.com&emb=0&aq=0&oqiurl=http://i3.ytimg.com/vi/rcSZE-4q_yA/hqdefault.jpg

Loosing touch on Lark in the Morning’s site where I found that video. I’ve really grown to love the sound of the sitar. And that reminds this dude:

David Parsons.  Former ad exec turned new age after seeing Ravi Shankar perform. He quits his job, goes to India, studies sitar, then buys a synth. Bouncing tracks back and forth on a tape machine, he came up with Sounds of the Mothership. Thanks Jeff! Actually, you should check out his blog: Avant Ghetto – it’s still there, dubbed from cassette.