Tag: Novalima

Music Festivals by William Ruben Helms

Generally speaking, the music festival experience is pretty much the same — whether you’ve been to one or dozens of them, like myself. Reinvented last year, Pickathon redefines the music festival experience as an immersive choose-your-own-adventure experience, where attendees can discover music, arts and culture perfectly integrated into the natural wonders of Happy Valley, Oregon‘s Pendarvis Farm, located 16 miles outside of Portland.

Late last month, festival organizes announced that the 2023 edition will take place August 3, 2023-August 6, 2023, along with the festival’s music lineup. This year’s edition will continue the festival’s reputation for eclecticism and its ability to spot the next breakout band across a variety of genres while featuring: indie roots outfit Watchhouse, the legendary Lee Fields, alt-glam band Dehd, rising singer/songwriter Madison Cunningham, Zambian psych rockers W.I.T.C.H., Thee Sinseers, The Altons, the acclaimed Mailian artist Vieux Farka Touré, desert blues outfit Imarhan, rising bluegrass banjo and Venezuelan harp duo Larry & Joe, Bay Area African psych rock outfit Orchestra Gold, post-internet jazz project MonoNeon, the Native American powwow-meets-electroinc music-meets-Bon Ives-like soundscapes of Joe Rainey, Yot Club, Columbian psychedelic cumbia outfit Meridian Brothers, Peruvian electro pop group Novalima, Mexican punk rockers Sgt. Papers, acclaimed Canadian rapper TOBi, Tampa-based experimentalists They Hate Change and jazz funk outfit Butcher Brown.

As always country and honky tonk still holds a strong presence with acts like Nick Shoulders, The Kernal and Courtney Marie Andrews on the bill. Rising indie rock artists Wednesday, MJ Lenderman and Florist are also on the bill. The full lineup and festival playlist are below.

Pickathon 2023 Full Lineup

  • Watchouse
  • Lee Fields
  • Dehd
  • Madison Cunningham
  • Vieux Farka Touré
  • Florist
  • W.I.T.C.H.
  • Wednesday
  • MonoNeon
  • Ocie Elliott
  • Butcher Brown
  • Yot Club
  • Courtney Marie Andrews
  • Imarhan
  • Say She She
  • MJ Lenderman
  • Madison McFerrin
  • The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys
  • They Hate Change
    Andrew Marlin
  • Pachyman
  • Wine Lips 
  • Nikki Nair
  • GA-20
  • Nick Shoulders
  • Wayne Graham
  • Mike Dillon’s Punkadelic!
  • Rich Ruth
  • The Altons
  • Thee Sinseers
  • Novalima
  • Logan Ledger
  • Meridian Brothers
  • TOBi
  • Emily Nenni
  • Mikaela Davis 
  • Joe Rainey
  • Riddy Arman
  • The Mountain Grass Unit
  • The Kernal
  • Larry & Joe
  • Hooveriii
  • Gel
  • Jackie Venson
  • Nat Myers 
  • Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves
  • Sgt. Papers
  • Orchestra Gold
  • WHIMZ
  • Sprig of That
  • The Shivas
  • MØTRIK

“Reinventing Pickathon last year around the concept of integrating music, arts, and culture into the natural settings of Pendarvis Farm was an incredible endeavor,” Pickathon founder Dale Schoenborn says. “2023 not only presents our best lineup ever, but now we understand the new Pickathon Neighborhoods even better, and we’re excited to refine all the details to make this year our most immersive experience to date. I can’t wait for everyone to join us at Pendarvis Farm!”

Early bird tickets end today. Camping, parking, shuttles and everything else you need to get to the farm is on sale now, too. That information can be found here.


Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Peruvian Septet Bareto Returns with a Cosmic Take on Traditional Cumbia Paired with Satirical Visuals

The album’s latest single “La Pantalla,” will further cement the Peruvian septet’s reputation for pushing the sonic boundaries of cumbia as a looping guitar line played through gentle amounts of reverb are paired with soaring organ, electronic bleeps and bloops, an infectious hook with call-and-response vocals — and as a result, the song possesses a subtly psychedelic and cosmic feel. And along with that, the band manages to play with a coolly swaggering, self-assuredness.

The recently released music video is a rather satirical take on Peruvian TV shows, featuring shows hosted by grotesque talking heads, violent and absurd situations, spliced with footage of the band performing the show on a shitty late night talk show and footage of dancers splashing, sloshing and getting even filthier in the mud; in fact they get so filthy that they manage to spread their filth on to a nearby child.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Bareto’s Mischievous and Breezily Futuristic Take on Peruvian Cumbia

Impredecible’s slow-burning yet buoyant new single “El impredecible,” possesses a languorous and looping rhythm, intricate and dexterous guitar lines familiar to Peruvian cumbia; however, the song manages to be simultaneously angular, as the looping rhythms are paired with complex polyrhythms and beats, ethereal electronics, warm blasts of horns coming out of the ether and earnest vocals to craft a sound that feels and sounds simultaneously traditional and futuristic.

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Afrolicious has developed a reputation for being both one of the premier weekly dance parties in the San Francisco area, and one of that area’s top sound system crews/electronic acts heavily inspired by the sounds […]