Ironically, one of Cascadia’s newest electronic ambassadors has been around for a decade but is only now making waves
internationally. Portland’s Let’s Go Outside is about to embark
on his first major European tour in support of his debut album on Soma
Records, A Picnic with the Hunters, a sprawling work with only a
dark, spacious aesthetic as the glue binding its stylistically diverse
tracks.
Unlike many electronic music producers, Let’s Go Outside works as a
catchall moniker for Steve Schieberl, who eschews the popular approach
of developing different personas for each production style. The result
is an album that successfully includes a wide range of electronic
music, creating intersections between techno, electro, and
abstract production. “When I went through to pick out the tracks
for the album, I started with about a hundred,” says Schieberl during a
rushed call from the airport. “I wanted to get the point across that
I’m not just making dance music. I narrowed it down to tracks that
didn’t sound like the others so there was no way to confuse any of the
tracks for each other.”
Needing to whittle down from a hundred only hints at how much
Schieberl generates. He’s also a DJ, with a record collection that
reaches back to when he first got into electronic music in the early
’90s. He regularly posts mixes of whatever he’s into at the moment, in
addition to producing a track “every few days.” He admits that there’s
a lot of chaff to sift through, but he can’t help himself. “I’m not
trying to be prolific; I’ve just got a lot of ideas in my head and
I have to get them out,” he says. “Not all of it’s good. I only keep
about half.” Schieberl estimates he’s got “around 540” masters on his
hard drive.
The tracks chosen for A Picnic with the Hunters illustrates
the variety of Schieberl’s tastes. Album opener “I Keep on Trying”
evokes classic Detroit tones with its warm, bouncy bass and futuristic
synths. “Peripheral” is a clicky, disquieting slow burner. One of the
album’s (many) highlights is its first single, “I’ll Lick Your Spine,”
a “lust” song that treads on the darker side, with Christina
Broussard’s breathy vocals telling just how she’ll make you hers. The
chugging “My First Time” and the ghettotech-informed “Girls Don’t Like
Me” are the album’s first bangers, each begging for as much volume
as possible. The album closes with the blissful “My Friend,” a
track buoyed as much by Cotton Jenny’s longing voice as it is by
Schieberl’s sparse atmospherics. Throughout, A Picnic with the
Hunters flows with remarkable ease considering its seeming
scatter.
Reaction to the album thus far has been overwhelmingly positive even
prior to its late-January release. Schieberl initially planned to tour
Europe for three weeks, but the response to promo packages encouraged
him to extend that to two and a half months. It’s Schieberl’s return to
the continent after a mini-tour in 2006, and he’s excited to show off
what he can do now that he’s shaken the jitters he had last time
around.
“It was weird going from playing to 20 or 30 people to playing in
front of 2,000,” he says. “This time I’m a little more prepared for
it and will be able to enjoy it more.” 