Portland-based band Blitzen Trapper may remind listeners of Radiohead, not because of their sound but because of their penchant for self-released albums. The sextet, playing tonight at the El Rey Theatre, has self-released three albums of fractured alt-country on their own label, Lidkercow Ltd., after forming officially in 2000.
“The thing is with the record label, they pour a bunch of money into it and you don’t really have any say in how it’s marketed and how the money’s spent,” Blitzen Trapper keyboardist/vocalist Marty Marquis explained. “So I think when you’re doing it on your own, you can be a lot smarter about that, and you can cut a lot of corners that record labels just don’t do because maybe they’re just used to doing it a certain way.”
The band credits the fertile music scene in Portland, Ore., for fostering their development as musicians and for cultivating a small following that allowed them to independently release and distribute their 2003 self-titled debut and the 2004 follow-up “Field Rexx.”
“The first few years we were together, we played three times a week at different clubs,” Marquis said. “It was a pretty brutal performance schedule … because there are so many bands, it’s a competitive scene. If you’re doing something that doesn’t sound fresh, people are going to get bored. Even if you are doing something fresh, people still may get bored and leave. I think having that many bands around helps raise the bar for everybody.”
Blitzen Trapper gained more exposure outside of Portland with this year’s genre-defying “Wild Mountain Nation.” In July, the band earned a spot on the influential independent label Sub Pop, where they share roster space with indie mainstays The Shins, The Postal Service, and Wolf Parade, among others.
“(“˜Wild Mountain Nation’) is maybe a little bit further out there because a lot of the songs were just recorded as demos ““ we didn’t really think we were going to release it, necessarily,” Marquis said. “So I think there was a lot (more) freedom in the recording process than when we were releasing the other two albums.
“Sometimes you can overthink things. With “˜Wild Mountain Nation,’ it was a lot more doing whatever we felt like doing.”
The album brazenly stomps through various genres, ranging from jarring classic-rock reinterpretations to deceptively sweet alt-country to The Who-inspired power pop, with little regard for cohesion and unity.
Blitzen Trapper also utilizes idiosyncratic arrangements and structures, mainly the brainchild of vocalist and guitarist Eric Early, to toy with listener expectation. Synthesizers share space with bluegrass harmonicas and jaw harps. Rhythms hastily stop and start and breakdowns seemingly occur at the band’s whim.
The album can certainly be credited with expanding awareness of Blitzen Trapper on their current tour.
“It’s definitely nice to have people come out to your shows when you’re on the road,” Marquis said. “(Though) we don’t want the traditional sense of achieving some level of comfort ““ a house in the suburbs with a few cars and that kind of thing ““ just paying our bills playing music would be pretty significant.”
Their latest album also recently earned them the coveted “Best New Music” title the from Internet taste-makers at PitchforkMedia.com.
“Any kind of added exposure helps the band. And, I think, if you’re committed to working together as a team and touring and doing that kind of thing, it’s definitely nice when people do agree with what we’re doing,” Marquis said.
As can be expected with a band that experiments with a variety of genres and ideas, Blitzen Trapper invites comparisons to myriad bands including Pavement and the Grateful Dead, something Marquis dismissed.
“It doesn’t really register,” Marquis said. “I like Pavement some of the time, but I’m not really that into them. (We are not) consciously was trying to do anything like Pavement. … A lot of people talk about the Grateful Dead, too. I really don’t know where that came from, either. No one really listens to the Grateful Dead … Eric’s voice maybe sounds a little bit like Jerry’s, maybe? I don’t know.”