Buy Tickets
Doors 8pm / Show 8:30pm
$17 / free or discounted for members

The Tenses—comprised of Ju Suk Reet Meate and Oblivia from Smegma, the legendary “band without musicians” founded in 1973—held a tradition of weekly jam sessions with MSHR (Brenna Murphy & Birch Cooper) beginning in 2012. The jam room AKA “Smegma Studios” AKA “purple planet room,” was a longtime anchor of the Portland underground music scene with a rotating cast of weirdos and noise musicians coming through over the decades. Lifelong archivists, The Tenses would record and catalog every session, occasionally releasing highlights on labels such as their own Pigface Records, including a collaborative release with MSHR in 2015.

The two duos converge for a rare west coast tour, with The Tenses’ collection of cassette recorders, plastic water jugs, pocket trumpet, Ciat-Lonbarde synths, and occasional surf rock riffs. MSHR’s new work, Negative Flower, combines their signature physical controllers and light feedback with a digital system constructed in the SuperCollider programming environment. Sung Kim joins for an opening set with his expertly crafted handmade musical constructions drawing on kotos, lap steel, and various other stringed instruments.