Kelli Schaefer with Mt. Fog and Long Drive Theater
For more than 10 years, Portland artist Kelli Schaefer has tapped into the emotional pulses of an ever-changing pop culture landscape. On 2013’s experimental EP 601, Schaefer shed the skin of her folky muses, inviting electronic flourishes to glaze her avant-garde pop gems. Her evolution continues on her follow-up, No Identity, produced by Modern Kin’s Drew Grow on local label Amigo/Amiga. Schaefer leaked the wholly appropriate track “Underground” on November 9, 2016, that confounding day after Donald Trump was elected president. The song’s art-pop mechanics bore deep amid that disorienting haze as Schaefer coos, “We are all waterfalls slipping through the cracks downtown/I will meet you underground.” The song unfurls steadily, building urgency until the four-minute mark, which is full-on revolutionary revelry. It’s another reminder of why Schaefer is one of Portland’s best and most inventive artists.
by Ryan J. Prado