Scene Report: Live in the Depths 94

LIVE IN THE DEPTHS 94: Official Website

Venue: Mississippi Pizza & Atlantis Lounge – Mississippi Ave, Portland, OR

^{Disclaimer: Time is a slippery drunk bastard – reliably unreliable, belligerent, and prone to slipping out the back door when you need it most. What you’re about to read happened in some kind of order, though it may refuse to line up in this reality. Conversations and dialogue have been trimmed, warped, and occasionally shoved through a meat grinder for clarity. Reality remains mostly intact.}

From Dhug: Season 10 of Live in the Depths begins with a benefit for our good friends over at Portland’s Social Justice Action Center after terrible thievery! All door monies will be going directly to Social Justice Action Center!

Being a goblin works fine in isolation; in fact it’s sometimes beneficial to the universe. But add a second goblin to the mix and time often turns theoretical, which means anything can happen at any moment. Minutes stretch, intentions seem to drift and further soaking in an isolation stew doesn’t sound so bad after all – enticing even. But once I came to my senses, it was mad dash to Live in the Depths for the first show of 2026. I got there about 20 minutes into Nova New Chorus’ set, but luckily I have S.P.A.Z. Radio to help fill in the void.

It’s 2026 – the value of precious metals and bitcoin are in freefall, but you can’t put a price on the feeling of scarfing down a slice of fancy meat, grease slicking your hands, as Live in the Depths surges at your back. Bass in the spine, heat in the room, trickle down economics replaced by community and noise. This is the only economy that’s holding steady. We’re back, baby.

S.P.A.Z. Radio Listening Note From the Future: I had a chance to listen PsychoTropika’s DJ set in it’s entirety at the beginning of the show and it was an absolute banger. I really need to check out more of their work – they’re self described as a fusion of Latin rhythms like cumbia, blending traditional elements with deep baselines and punchy beats. Very danceable. Check out their BANDCAMP HERE.

Up first is Nova New Chorus. Intertwined in all the quasi-ambient-techno madness is a sample of Barry White that slips through like a velvet ghost, so I’m a happy camper. Give me a thick, arpeggiating polyphonic ’80s chord spiraling upward and I’ll follow it anywhere. The set stays cool and controlled, but there’s an unease humming underneath it – a soft tension like that ever welcome ache of anemoia. I love that feeling. Somewhere in the blur I swear I caught a Venetian Snares-adjacent drumline peeking through, like a PG-rated hallucination of Will Ferrell Wednesday. Yes, I know it’s Welfare Wednesday, but the first time I heard that track I thought Aaron Funk was saying, “Will Ferrell Wednesday” and honestly, he might as well have. Great set. I need to review one of their albums.

It was about that time when Occurian locked eyes with me and sat down at my table. I asked him how the Wesley Snipes journey was going and he confessed, without shame, to being zero percent through said journey. Occurian needs more Drop Zone in his life. However, I did find out that his new album is coming out in May or soon sometime in the Spring and will be released by Heterodox Records. We look forward to that release.

Next up was B Grade and honestly I haven’t heard much of their work in the past, yet the lesson arrived swift and clear. I’ve used the phrase “meat and potatoes” before to describe music, but nourishment is the real word for it. I’m a huge fan of nourishing music. What stood out was a particularly chonky chiptune waveforms, thick and square of edge wrapped in a digital churn, folded naturally into some really soft, but fat drum and bass. Lots of nice quick delays and fat beats that leapt forth like sparks from a flint – again, meat and potatoes. Really good set – check out some of it below.

As that second slice of pizza started to settle in my belly, occupying the table next to me was Soup Purse aka Todd unfurling an anecdote wrapped in a historical fact on top of a slice of magical realism, as Casual Decay and Solenoid watched on. Don’t forget to check out Todd’s set at the Valentine’s Show on, you guessed, Valentine’s Day at the Wyrd Hut. bagonia will also be playing, so it should be a fun night.

Joel Noct’s set was next. We love Joel Noct’s work at Micro Genre Music, but to my surprise we got a little bit different side of the waffle from Joel tonight. A crispy and savory waffle. It was an ambient techno delight. Very warm and deceptively complex – a lot different than the Dreadcore (I just made that up) I’m used to from him. Crisp sequencing, savory tonal choices with no real rush to overwhelm. Joel Noct continues to shape-shift slightly with his music and I look forward to his next release. Check out some his set below:

So I finally get a chance to listen to motherfucking Rob play some music. Electro-Skronk Classics is Rob’s collaborative project with the amazing All The Stores Are Closed. For the uninitiated, Rob and Jason operate on that rare frequency where improvisation is less of a gamble and more an inevitability. And they were imbibing on the sweetest of nectars – improvisational skronk fuck. Sudden pivots, elastic grooves, tones that feel pulled rather than programmed – it’s skronk – electro-skronk. Trying to diagram it misses the point – so just check out some of the set below:

The great cultural blind spot right now is this fantasy that politeness will save you and your tech bro friends when the fascist walls finally cave in. When they come for your head it won’t be inspirational slogans and laminated kindness that save you from the fire. Destruction recognizes its own language, and it laughs at anything that shows up unarmed in spirit. You’re going to need the people who already live in the margins – like the ones at this venue and in this scene. The gremlins, the goblins, the shamans, the chaos and psionic warriors – the monster slayers. When forces set out to burn everything down – culture, community, collaboration – you meet that heat with equal intensity, or you get reduced to ash while congratulating yourself for staying polite. Fire with fire doesn’t mean becoming the thing you hate – it means refusing to be extinguished and making sure those fucks can’t ever hurt you or your community ever again.

Also, don’t forget to check out the Social Action Justice Center website and donate anything you can.

You can listen to LITD sets on S.P.A.Z. Radio here: https://spaz.org/