CVC’s Underground Rundown 001: mindparade!, Ogden Esl, Tsev Meets Strzal w Kalano
- Spenser Judd
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Every scene has its lore. Sometimes it's a forgotten cassette buried in a basement for fifty years. Occasionally, it's two musicians speaking entirely different musical languages and finding common ground somewhere between the notes. Perhaps it's a Portland band nurturing an art-rock chaos odyssey.
This week's Underground Rundown wanders through all three.
!mindparade — Portland's Avant-Pop Laboratory
Portland continues producing artists who seem less interested in genre than in dismantling these boundaries. Enter !mindparade.
Their latest work, Neon Gummi Jukebox, exists somewhere in the blurry intersection of chamber music, art rock, avant-garde composition, and experimental pop. The project treats songwriting less like a formula and more like a construction site where melodies appear and disappear, textures collide and structures bend without completely breaking.
There's a long lineage of artists who understand that accessibility and experimentation don't have to be enemies. From the psychedelic explorers of the late '60s to the indie oddballs of the 2000s, some of the most rewarding records happen when musicians trust listeners enough to take strange turns.
!mindparade doesn’t shy away from bringing their audience on a voyage through time and space with the way they shape sound waves.The songs feel assembled from fragments of memory, cinema, and dream logic. Familiar enough to pull you in, strange enough to keep you guessing.
In a music ecosystem increasingly built around predictability and convenience, it’s refreshing to take the time to bliss out and let a full album roll.
FFO: Stereolab, The Flaming Lips, and The Olivia Tremor Control.
The Ogden Edsl Wahalia Blues Ensemble Bizzario Band — The Lost Tapes Rise Again
Underground culture is built alongside sonic artifacts. The problem is that these artifacts usually live inside dusty boxes or cluttered closets, lost to the test of time.
For cult comedy-music institution Ogden Edsl, an auditory time capsule has recently brought memories roaring back to life.
Best known for popping off on the absurdist Dr. Demento radio show with hits like "Dead Puppies" and "Kinko the Clown", the Ogden Edsl has unearthed a grip of recordings, previously lost for decades.
A few years ago, the band's original mentor and financial backer, Wade Wright—a former pinball arcade owner and longtime record store legend in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district—was cleaning out the basement of his record store when he discovered a box of recordings from a two-week Ogden Edsl engagement in Omaha. Inside was a snapshot of one of the band's most celebrated lineups: Bill Carey on guitar and vocals, Richie Thieman on bass, Bill Frenzer on vocals and harmonica, Bob Ganey on drums, and special guest pianist Steven Stucker, best known for his unforgettable role in the comedy classic Airplane!
What followed feels less like a reissue campaign and more like an archaeological dig.
The newly launched Lost Ogden Edsl Tapes series captures a band that never fit comfortably into any category. Part comedy troupe, part rock band, part traveling circus, Ogden Edsl built a following through sheer weirdness long before internet algorithms rewarded niche communities.
Listening to these recordings now feels strangely timely. In an era where every joke is instantly uploaded, dissected, and forgotten within hours, these songs arrive from a slower universe; one where underground culture spread through word of mouth, late-night radio broadcasts, and photocopied flyers stapled to telephone poles.
Lucky for us, the lost tapes have finally been found. Turns out they still sound gloriously unhinged.
FFO: Ween, Tenacious D, and Weird Al.
Tsev Meets Strzał w Kolano — Music Between the Cracks
Most musicians spend their lives feeling out where notes and emotions collide.
Tsev and Strzał w Kolano seem more interested in what happens between them.
Released on Random Seat Records, their collaborative debut is built around microtonality; the spaces between the pitches that most Western listeners have been trained to hear. It sounds academic on paper. In practice, it's surprisingly physical.
Greek experimentalist Tsev manipulates custom tuning systems through synthesizer landscapes while Polish guitarist Jakub Majchrzak bends prepared classical guitar into unfamiliar shapes. Together they create music that feels like wandering through a city where the architecture follows slightly different laws of gravity. Music fit to score M.C. Escher’s world.
The result isn't noise for noise's sake. It's exploratory music that rewards patience.
Tracks drift between tension and meditation, sounding at times like a folk tradition from an alternate timeline or a forgotten soundtrack discovered in a museum basement.
DIY culture has always thrived on people building their own tools when existing ones don't work. This record feels like the sonic equivalent of that philosophy.
Instead of following the map, Tsev and Strzał w Kolano redraw the borders entirely.
FFO: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Mohama Saz and Angine de Poitrine.
CVC’s UNDERGROUND GEMS - Newly Released Music:
!mindparade - “Cruise Lyfe”
DCOS x Quadroon - “Dubloons”
Lxs Cochinxs - “Gaitas”
Serotonin - “HUNGER (feat. Paris Evers)”
Pyrenees Love Triangle - “Jellybean Lover”
SUBMIT YOUR MUSIC — GET IN THE NEXT UNDERGROUND RUNDOWN
We’re always tuned in, listening and searching for new sounds. CVC’s Underground Rundown is built for lovers of DIY culture, so you can discover new artists as they rise above, beyond the surface.
If you’re an artist, label, or someone sitting on a release that deserves attention outside the algorithm, send it our way.
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