Portland (Vinyl)

After several years under the more cumbersome brand name the Watery Graves of Portland, this trio fusing post-rock and cool piano jazz shortened their handle to the Watery Graves and left the namecheck of their hometown to the album title. Led by pianist Curtis Knapp, the Watery Graves are the midpoint between the forbidding chamber pop artsiness of the Rachels and the playful modern jazz of EST: there are a handful of moody, son of the son of Erik Satie solos here, such as "What You Thought Was the World," but the rhythm section of bassist Davis Lee Hooker and drummer Adrian Orange know how to swing and/or groove as the occasion demands, and melody is rarely far from Knapp's immediately accessible soloing style. It's hard to get away from the sense that the Watery Graves are indie kids playing at their own approximation of modern jazz more than they are anything close to the real thing, but questions of "authenticity" miss the point: Portland is a mellow but highly enjoyable piece of instrumental music for hipsters of various subcultures.