Oracle

Staring into computer monitors and manipulating technology while shrouded in semi-darkness when they perform, most electronic musicians are virtually indistinguishable from the sound engineers working in the back of the club. Except that the sound crews tend to be more charismatic and dress flashier.

Advantage Oracle.

Although the Portland outfit operates the usual laptop plus gizmo boxes in performance, they can allow the music to expand or contract depending on the evening's mood with the addition of live instrumentation and vocals, lending distinctly human elements to what would otherwise be a seamless sonic machine.

Originally a brother/sister duo (siblings Michael and Orianna Herrman) that trafficked in lush vocal arrangements ladled over spare guitar work, the addition of noted Portland producer Keith Schreiner paved the way for a big jump forward in the layered richness and sheer depth of Oracle's sound.

Hired as a producer for the band's second CD, Schreiner, formerly of Dahlia as well as numerous sideman gigs, liked what he heard so much in the middle of the project, he decided to sign on for keeps. It wasn't the first time he'd encountered Orianna.

"I had auditioned Orianna when I was looking for a singer for what eventually became Dahlia, and I was blown away with her expressiveness until I found out her (then-minor) age, which would've been a nightmare for booking purposes," Schreiner recalls.

Fast forward a few years, and when the producer was brought onboard to interpret the duo's sound, he found himself intrigued by the possibilities. "While the producer is never any better than the song he's working with, things just started to click when they handed me the keys and trusted that I'd drive the car right."

Having completed that journey, the finished product, "Wake," is an album that deserves to be heard over headphones. Repeated listenings reveal "Wake" to have layers of nuanced detail held together by Michael's restrained guitar contributions and Orianna's smoky vocals and Annie Lennox-like phrasing. As Orianna puts it, "It's a very cinematic kind of music."

Their Thursday show part of Dante's 10th-anniversary celebration, which features a range of local and national acts performing on the downtown club's jewel box of a stage. Along with being the CD-release party for "Wake," the show will include a guest performance by Storm Large and the debut showing of the video for the album's title track directed by Portland filmmaker James Westby. - Oregonian

According to Plutarch, in ancient Greece, a priestess, or oracle, would dispense wisdom and the answers to questions put to her by seekers of both knowledge and direction after inhaling vapors from a fissure in the mountain. While I can’t speak to the power of Oracle’s music in helping you find truth and understanding, I can attest that their music does provide the same heady high that comes from inhaling mysterious fumes emanating from beneath the Earth’s crust.

The current iteration of Oracle represents the joining of forces of Michael Herrman, front man for the folk-pop outfit Buoy LaRue, and Keith Schreiner, the DJ and beat wizard who co-founded the group Dahlia. Together, the two concoct steamy downtempo grooves and slinky melodies that, like obvious influences such as Curve and Portishead, hint at a darkness just below the surface of their sleek, glassy creations. Much of what saves the music from falling too deep is the vocals of Michael’s sister, Orianna. Her sexy tones push and pull at the strictures of R&B and pop to create a throaty, intoxicating sound that is all her own.

The trio are gearing up for the release of the second Oracle album – but the first with this lineup and sound – Wake. They’ll be celebrating the album’s release with a show at Dante’s on February 4th. Oregon Music News was lucky enough to catch up with Orianna and learn more about the earliest incarnations of this musical endeavor and the influence of her acting career on her singing career.

How did this project get started?

Oracle started as a duo with my brother Michael and I. We had grown up playing music as a family, so this was not unusual for us. I had just come back from college and Michael wanted to give me an opportunity to play some music. I was kind of searching for what I wanted to do at that time. So, without any songs, he just booked a gig for us. He and I came out with an album a couple of years after that, but we both felt that there was something missing from the sound. We weren’t exactly sure what that was, but we knew it needed something. But I suggested Keith as a possibility. I had met him when I was a senior in high school. He had just moved to Portland was looking for a vocalist for this electronic music project he was starting. So, we got together and I improvised some stuff with him. He really liked it but I was only 17 and going off to college, so we knew it wasn’t going to work. We shook hands and said, you know, “Maybe we’ll meet again.” And so when we were looking for something or someone to help us fill out the sound, I thought of Keith. Who knows? Maybe life really is cyclic in nature.

How different was the sound of your first album as compared with this one?

Incredibly different. There aren’t any electronic music elements at all. It’s all played with guitar, bass, organ and drums. They were also songs that, lyrically, I had written years before the album came out. And the lyrical content is definitely…less mature, I should put it that way. It’s still honest and raw as I usually try to be, but not as mature.

That album came out in 2005. What was going on in the years between that album’s release and working on this one?

We did a lot of writing together. A lot of the music that we brought to the table with Keith was stuff that we’d already written. This record took some time to put together as well. It was the same thing with the last record: save and spend, save and spend. So, writing music filled up a lot of those years. I’m also an actress so I’ve been pursuing that career as well.

Was a lot of the material on the new album brought to Keith fully-formed for him to add his stamp to or were you creating material as a trio?

A little bit of both. We brought full songs – songs that were completed in our minds but ones that we wanted to change. Keith understands our aesthetic, and we all have a similar aesthetic. So, musically we trusted his opinion and were open to stretching and changing. Initially, we brought in songs and played them for him and together we’d find the textures to add: the beats and sounds and basslines. Sometimes we’d come into the studio with nothing and as the trust grew we could collaborate and improvise and find something to be inspired by. As the trust grew, as a trio, we took more risks together.

How did this play into your lyric writing? Were you finding yourself writing material to fit a song or did you have to change the tone of lyrics you had already written?

“Both” seems to be the answer of the day. [laughs] Definitely both. A lot of rewriting inspired by the sounds from the day. But even when we started playing music together, Michael would be playing guitar and I’d get lyrics and melodies coming to me pretty instantaneously. But there were a lot of rewrites on songs that I’d bring in too. There would be times where Keith and Michael would be hashing out a bassline and I would be rewriting lyrics.

There seems to be a real sense of longing – both romantic and spiritual – in the lyrics of this album. Was that intentional?

I tend not to hold back. I’ll write as raw and as honestly as I can at that given point in time. Songwriting is a way of communication that I appreciate because I can’t always articulate the feelings that I’m having with just spoken words. There’s a depth that I can’t get across when I’m trying to talk it out with someone. So, a song like “Wake”, the title track, is a reflection of my grandmother’s funeral and a reflection on life and death and the past that others have created and how that helps you for the future.

You’re working as an actress as well. Do you find the practices of your dramatic work influencing what you do musically and vice versa?

Absolutely. It’s funny because I attempted to pick one over the other at one point in time. I thought, I needed to put all my energy into one art form. Initially, I chose music, but acting crept back in a little bit when I started to get some work in town. So, I got back into classes and I realized as I was working in these acting classes, my performing, musically, was getting better. A lot of what acting is is being really honest and truthful in imaginary circumstances. So, the acting has given me an opportunity to explore more of who I am and what I have to give in any art form.

What ambitions do you have for Oracle?

All three of us have talked about wanting to pursue getting our music in film and commercials and TV. The music we create has a naturally cinematic feel to it. And it’s the easiest way to get our music to reach people without touring nonstop. You know, Keith has a family and Michael and I would like to start families some day. So, that’s the next place we’d like to take it. Keith and I have been hired to write music for a movie that I’ll be acting in and shooting this year. We’re creating the music for the character that I play. So, that’s been the path that has been unfolding for us. Being in the acting community here in Portland, you meet people that need music in their films. So we’re going to keep pursuing that and hopefully see more of that happen in the future.
- Oregon Music News

Cross-genre artists plan tribute to Billie Holiday for Siren Nation.

By Special to The Oregonian
April 08, 2010, 1:43PM

Billie Holiday may have been a jazz singer by genre, but she was every inch the iconoclast.

And that makes her the perfect focus for not only a tribute night of cross-genre artists performing her music, but also for a fundraiser for Siren Nation and its mission to inspire and empower women.

Founded by December Carson and Natalia Kay, Siren Nation is a nonprofit organization started five years ago to bring women-based arts to Portland. The Siren Nation festival in the fall is largely funded through five fundraisers throughout the year, including the popular Dolly Parton Hoot Night.

Holiday challenged herself, her art, and the music community in a way few others have. The artists at this year's fourth annual "Lady Sings the Blues" tribute, who all donate their performances, bring that same boundary-pushing attitude to the stage.

Featured this year will be New York-based jazz singer Pamela Means; the folky-jazz of Carley Baer; the joyous funk and soul of the Price sisters and their band Acoustic Minds; the country-esque stylings of Marisa Anderson and the Evolutionary Jass Band; sweet and gentle-voiced Audie Darling; Tasha Miller; the smoky jazz of Holly Cole; and electro-acoustic trio Oracle, featuring Orianna Herrman.

Herrman, a Portland singer with serious acting chops, represents the night's intent to push envelopes. Her new band, Oracle, as she puts it, is "the cinematic meeting of Portishead and Tricky, influenced by Annie Lennox's Eurythmics style."

A former board member of Siren Nation, Herrman fully embraces what Siren Nation and the Holiday tribute night are all about.

"I appreciate their support of local music and women in music," she says. "That's an important thing. I believe in the mission that Siren Nation has started. Portland is a great place to have a festival like that. I've always been really excited for them in that pursuit and wanted to help in any way I could. I feel like they're bound for success."

Herrman's electro-trip-hop trio will perform Holiday's "Don't Explain," a song that's found its way into Oracle shows, and "Crazy He Calls Me" -- but listeners should be prepared for a major departure of form and genre.

"They won't sound traditional," she says. "If someone is going to hear it the way she would do it, they're not going to get that from us.

"It's definitely going to be more heavy beat, ambient, kind of moody, which tends to be what we do anyway."

Holiday once said, "If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all."

This group of women knows just what she means. - Oregonian

Feb. 11
Eye in the Sky

Portland electro trip-hoppers Oracle, featuring vocalist Orianna Herrman and guitarist Michael Herrman, are debuting some new songs during this show. The siblings have been jamming with electronic engineer and producer, Keith Schreiner, who’s worked with Dahlia, Sheryl Crow, Suckapunch and Auditory Sculpture, among others. The group is reportedly going in a more poppy direction, away from the low-key sound for which they’ve become known. Orianna – who you may have seen pop up in the TV series “Leverage” – has one of the more distinct voices in town, a full-range set of pipes that can whisper sweet-nothings in your ear, then utter mournful cries of realization.

Oracle, Natasha Kmeto, DoublePlusGood, 9 p.m. Friday, Feb. 11, Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E. Burnside St. $7. Info: 503-231-WOOD, dougfirlounge.com. - Portland Tribune