Band : Port O’Brien
Album title : Threadbare
Label : City Slang
Distributor : V2
Release date : 05/10/2009
Release : CD

Founded as a Folk-ish duo by Van Pierszalowski and Cambria Goodwin in early 2005, when Cambria still lived in the small coastal Californian town she sharesher name with, and Van was living in a small flat in Oakland. The band takes its name from a bay on Kodiak Island (Alaska) where Van’s parents used to meet at a now abandoned cannery. I’m not sure where the two knew each other from. As it turns out, the story relates of Van spending his summers working as a fisherman on his father’s commercial salmon fishing boat Shawnee around Kodiak Island, while Cambria works on land, not far away, as the head baker in a local bakery, and providing pastries, breads, and deserts for the complete seasonal fishing community. The duo would write their songs seperatedly, and then arrange ‘em together when Van comes ashore.

Then Cambria moved closer to Oakland, and during 2006 the duo added rhythm section composed of Caleb Nichols and Joshua Barhart. A first set of self-recorded and early songs was released in July 2007 on the American Dust label as the album The Wind And The Swell. In Summer 2007, Caleb joined Van on the Shawnee, and it’s the trio’s combined efforts (because what else can one do when one is out for days on end on a fishing trip) which eventually led to the creation of the All We Could Do Was Sing album. Recorded partially at the Pan-American Recording Studio (big name for a livingroom studio) of their friend Jason Quever (of the band the Papercuts) and in part recorded by Aaron Prellwitz at the legendary Tiny Telephone Recording Studios (where the renowned engineer also recorded with the likes of Death Cab For Cutie, the Mountain Goats, and Sun Kill Moon to name but a few), the joyful collection of songs attracted the attention of the critically lauded M. Ward, whom called POB his favourite band at Pitchfork Media. This ensuid in the band becoming a touring machine, and led the band to roam the US with some of their prefered bands, touring with Rogue Wave, skimming the West Coast with both Bright Eyes and Cave Singers, and England with Modest Mouse. In fact, things went even further, because following the use of their single “I Woke Up Today” as backing music for several Dulux Paint advertisements on Australian television, POB spent 10 days in early February 2009 touring Australia (as part of the St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival). In the Country Of Oz, POB albums are distributed/ licenced by Dew Process (just some extra info, in case you’re interested – I mean, you know, we dó have some readers from Down Under as well!). On their return to San Fransisco, the band self-released the 7-inch single Winter featuring new versions of older songs, re-recorded with Jason Quever during Fall 2008, and envisioning to release a such single each season during 2009 to document the seasons.

As stated on their MySpace page, Cambria’s younger brother died under tragic circumstances in early 2009, and this turned part of the work the band had started on for their new album into dense, introspective songs, which they recorded in the more intimate livingroom studio of their friend Jason Quever. Once their demons (partially) exorcised, the band felt apt to move their more uplifting songs into the “more open space” at Los Angeles studio the Ship, where they recorded with engineer Aaron Espinoza (of Earlimart). For a background on a couple of the songs, myspace.com/portobrien is where I wanna direct you to. It is also the place where you can listen to some material from the band (alternally, there’s also portobien.com).

Compared to the jump-in-the-fields material the band has gotten known for in the past, Threadbare is certainly an overall more introvert album, but that doesn’t mean the songs aren’t beautiful as such…and apparently this has also not deminished the band’s ascent into higher regions of the corporate music business. This year, the Summer trek to Alaska in order to make money was postponed (or at least shortened), as the band had the chance to do a tour with Papercuts, and starting half August (up to the end of the month) POB was over in Europe (with a line-up to which they added drummer Tyson Vogel of Two Gallants and Rogue Wave’s Gram Lebron on guitar and an assortment of other instruments), making a run of some of the Summer festivals (including Belgium’s own Pukkelpop) as well as performing a couple of headlining non-festival gigs…and I’m sure that they left a positive and lasting impression with those who got to see the band’s shows. Yeah, this band is well under way of becoming a group of professional musicians, and one listen to Threadbare will make you understand how comes!

86/100

Tony.