Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
This band has no press
Discography
Adelaide--PDX Pop Now! '04; What-The-Heckfest Compilation, '04.
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
Per Se is a band of contradictions and precarity. Watching Per Se play is like watching a kitten play on the edge of a cliff. There's a sense of wonder, but also some suspense and vertigo.
The band has yet to release an album, but even without a discography, the music seems to sell itself. In 2005, the band was a frequent guest at Portland's prestigious Doug Fir Lounge, even landing a gig at Musicfest NW, opening for Viva Voce. Per Se's demo single "Adelaide" was also featured on the PDX Pop Now! '04 compilation CD, alongside tracks by The Decemberists, M. Ward, and The Shins.
A Per Se song has peculiar properties: it will stick in your head, but you can't sing it back. It hangs there, like a spell that's been cast on you, that you're powerless to undo. As for the lyrics, they range from the stridently cliched (e.g., "Heart and soul long to be free,") to the impossibly esoteric ("Vertebrate life is a cinch in a bathosphere.")
Meanwhile, in live shows, singer/songwriter Anne Adams delivers a surreal juxtaposition of ethereal loveliness and creepy, faltering humanity. She wears fairie wings when performing, and sings in a soothing, flutey voice—but she sometimes transmits an electric, desperate energy, and has been known to stare audiences down, or even burst into tears mid-song.
Go see Per Se. If the songs don't floor you, the suspense will kill you.
Links
