Scene Report: Tension/Release Compilation Showcase (Errorgrid & Heterodox Records)
Show: Tension/Release Compilation Showcase
Venue: The Midnight PDX + The Sïx
The first big Saturday in Portland, in my opinion, is always the one right before Ēostre, that ancient springtime acid trip dressed up in chocolate eggs and pastel lies. Something in the air shifts. The veil gets thin and the whole damn city starts vibrating. Every venue, warehouse, and backyard with a power outlet suddenly wakes up and says, “Let’s do a show.”
Amidst this glorious chaos was the Tension/Release Compilation Showcase, presented by Errorgrid Records and Heterodox Records at The Midnight PDX + The Sïx. I got there early. Too early. Around 9:15, the DJ Vontimeslip is spinning, the lights are low, and I’m sitting there thinking, “Jesus Christ, is this going to be one of those nights?” That eerie, existential, empty party limbo – when the crickets stop chirping and you realize just how quiet the music is – it’s the liminal hour of unclaimed basslines. And then – boom – down the stairs walks Enzo Caselnova, all positivity and grin with perfectly calibrated hugs. The man moves like he’s friends with you and your parallel dimensional self. Usually Enzo is the tear in spacetime, the rupture in the fabric of reality that always seems to precede the arrival of electronic music’s true believers: synth goblins, knob-turning addicts and modular druids chasing the dragon of the perfect patch or the perfect feeling.
As I mentioned before – though it bears repeating – the whole twisted affair was conjured up by two local independent labels: Errorgrid Records and Heterodox Records. We’ve already gone deep on Heterodox here on this website. They’re Portland’s own sonic agitators, a crew of sound engineers and digital alchemists who’ve been feeding the underground steady doses of voltage and controlled chaos for years. Errorgrid is a slightly different animal – less voltage, more laser scalpel – very sharp, strange, and perfectly tuned to the signal. Not a mirror image, but a resonant echo, the kind that expands the noise rather than dilutes it. Tonight these labels fused, forming a goddamn pulsar: a hyper-dense, magnetized neutron star of collaboration and controlled mayhem. Every set, every transition, every frequency shift felt like it was caught in that gravitational pull.
First up was Production Unit Xero (founder of Heterodox Records) and that alone told me we were in for a ride. I’m not used to seeing PUX open a night – they’re usually the ones lighting the fuse halfway through the show or detonating the end. So putting them at the front? That’s not a warm-up, that’s a fucking gauntlet.
And in keeping with the theme of Tension/Release, that’s exactly what we got – a slow, deliberate burn. The set started low and heavy, all downtempo moodwork, like someone whispering secrets to the subwoofer. You could feel it creeping under your skin, not rushing toward a payoff, just building. And that’s what made it brilliant —because if you’ve heard PUX before, you know they don’t hold tension just for kicks. They’re dragging you toward release, whether you’re ready or not. I asked PUX afterward where I could hear the tracks again, and they told me, “Most of that set was new – stuff made just for this collab. But a few elements came from older sets – like “Melt” at Azoth and the Sanctum set during Lunar Lights Festival.” Which all makes sense, because there’s a signature in there – it’s refracted, like light bent through a fresh prism. It was a shorter set than usual, but those final ten minutes? All hell broke loose. The room snapped into motion. The tension gave way like a dam bursting in perfect time. Bodies moved. People hit that shared, wordless zone where everything is rhythm and sweat. The perfect start.
After the last set, I needed to hit the eject button – I was overstimulated. I marched upstairs like a man on a mission – lungs gasping for some vaguely fresh Portland air. A few minutes later I drifted back down the steps, and that’s when I caught Hemadaxis easing into the next set. Or maybe not easing – emerging, like a strange machine turning itself on in the dark. This one was tense, full stop. Avant-garde, deeply experimental. Prickly, surgical drums slicing through beautiful, cold drones. The whole thing had this hollowed-out elegance, a sad, cerebral quality that made you want to stare at the floor and rethink your life. Depressing as fuck – I loved it. Do yourself a favor and check out their self-titled album from 2023.
DJ Vontimeslip kicked back in – deep cuts, warm transitions – and that’s when I spotted Occurian floating through the room, soaking up the rythm. But here’s the real shocker: he wasn’t wearing a black t-shirt – practically a revolutionary act in Portland.
The next act was Womb – a duo consisting of NUNDALE (founder of Errorgrid Records) and Sombre Lux. The moment their set began, I felt it – a sudden influx of bodies, like someone cracked a portal open and let half the city pour in. Where the hell did all these people come from? It was like the room inhaled. I’ve seen NUNDALE perform before, and I’ve reviewed their album Nothing, Nothing, a slow-burn apocalypse of an LP. Their last set was less of a performance and more of a “a wall of sound where I felt like the last sea captain on an ocean filled with dead things, clinging to my broken ship as endless waves rose and crashed around me.” But Womb? This was a different beast. Still steeped in dread, yes – but it wasn’t drowning. More like stalking. Brooding, bottomless drums, each hit landing like a signal flare in a fogged-out war zone. The bass was punishing – just relentless. It didn’t need to move quickly, even when it did, because it already knew where you lived. There was a moment midway through where I genuinely felt like I was being swallowed whole, not by the music, but by the collective mass of energy in the room. Great set.
Right after the dust settled on that set I noticed the enigmatic Todd once again. Without a word, he fiddled with his shoe and instead came up with a handful of those Malcolm X socks firmly in his grasp (I did say prophetic) but this time, he was in full Occult-O-Bro regalia – part mystic, part streetwear flower child.
Also, we’ve gotta talk about the visuals. You can’t just glaze over something like that and pretend it was background noise. No. The whole night was soaked in this hallucinogenic light bath, courtesy of Arson Rivvers, who was out in the open with their control station like some unbothered technologist. Glitched textures, bit-crushed light trails, collapsing grids, and pixel storms that looked like the last frame of a dying video game played on a haunted console. If the music was the ritual, his visuals were the smoke. Here’s an example of some of their work.
Next up, bringing the fucking heat was Vyger. No warning. Just boom – industrial techno at its most raw and relentless. It’s modern, but there’s something very familiar about their sound or maybe the word I’m looking for is haunting. Lots of swinging basslines – and by swinging I mean swinging blades, pendulums if you will, made of rusted steel, slicing through the room in wide arcs while your bloodstream gets hijacked by a kick drum moving at unsafe speeds. And then there was Vyger themselves – a true sonic hunter, standing in front of the stage, back to the crowd, bathed in the blinking, biofeedback glow of a modular rig. No fanfare. No pretense. Just a wall of lights and wires and pure, uncut intent. Definitely check them out when you get a chance.
Next up was the immensely talented duo known as Family Trust – a perfectly deranged partnership between The Set of Arsonist and Spednar. Their set was a cheerful ritual – dance music for ghosts, built on beautifully fractured arpeggiations and dark hi-hats. It was precise and chaotic. Breakbeats dropped in like tactical strikes, each one landing with a kind of low-key satisfaction that makes your bones twitch. I caught up with them afterward – brief chat, lots of grins – and asked about an album. They said they haven’t made one yet. Not yet. And that’s fine. Because whatever they’re building in the shadows, it’s worth waiting for.
The final set of this gloriously dark descent into electronic madness came courtesy of Eric Schlappi—and holy hell, where in the Experimental Modular Techno underworld did this man come from? I mean, maybe it’s just my own ignorance, maybe I’ve been asleep at the wheel, but by the time most shows hit their final act, I’m usually a spiritually scorched husk clinging to the last drops of hydration and sanity. It wasn’t just high energy—it was high-density. It sounded like high BPM, but in reality it felt like the guy figured out how to fold time in on itself and cram twice as much music into the same measure. The engineering was absurdly on point. Even the distortion—which by this point in the night should’ve felt like a cheese grater to the eardrum—was clean, controlled, and deeply satisfying. A perfect ending to a night that never really ended.
Make sure to check out the Tension/Release 2 album out now.
