Get To Know Radiation City

I love it when music channels a different era and takes the listener back to a time and place that they never experienced, that lives only in their imagination.  My newest obsession is Radiation City, a Portland OR band that does just that.  The music transports me to a strangely magical place where the 1960s and 2010s are happening concurrently - where my parents' generation and my own are one in the same.  The band's debut The Hands That Take You is vividly cinematic, and the images it creates are mostly grainy, black and white home videos found in a dusty box.  The Color Of Industry sets a saccharine doo-wop melody against a twitchy digital sound field.

The Color Of Industry by Radiation City

"Construction" is more straightforward in its approach to channeling the past.  A smoky, soulful song that brims and overflows with emotion.  Here's the beautifully shot black and white video:

Radiation City, Minneapolis from Ryan S. Johnson on Vimeo.

I highly recommend getting the full-length debut here (cassette or vinyl) - or wait for the upcoming re-release (including CD I assume) on September 27.  The band just finished an east coast trip but sadly skipped Boston...here's hoping they'll be back this way soon.  Thanks to Sound On The Sound for the tip on these guys (and many others), there is no finer blog around than what those folks are doing out in Seattle.