Jellyfish Brigade (Portland, OR) – “Man The Riverboat” (Diving Lessons)
Portland hip-hop duo Jellyfish Brigade is teaming up with Minneapolis collective Polkadot Mayhem to release their debut full-length album, Diving Lessons, on Tuesday, June 24th. The album will be available as a “pay what you want” digital release at www.jellyfishbrigade.com. An interactive website complete with videos, pictures, lyrics, and a treasure map will be available at www.JFBxPDM.com where the more engaged listener can forage to find the settings of these songs.
Diving Lessons details a two-year period in emcee Lucas Dix’s life that began as his best friend, Gavin Theory, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Theory and Dix began making music together as Hives Inquiry Squad in high school and moved to Portland from Wisconsin to pursue their artistic endeavors. Around the same time his best friend was diagnosed, Dix met a woman who introduced him to many of the scenic places Oregon is known for: the Cascade Mountain Range, Mt. Hood, the Columbia River Gorge, and the Pacific Ocean. These places, this new love, and the difficulties in supporting a dying friend set the backdrop, theme, and plot for the new Jellyfish Brigade album.
Producer Jeffrey Acciaioli (aka The Great Mundane) provides the soundtrack for Dix’s self-exploration with melodic, electronic beats that are sometimes as playful as sun on the river. Other times, they are dark as a midnight hike through mountain fog. Dix’s stories describe the supernatural as normal, the ordinary as magical–detailing times of growth, happiness and hardship. Together, the duo created a debut album of hip hop songs with catchy, R&B infused hooks that explore the process of finding yourself while losing the people closest to you.
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Lucas met Jeffrey in 2008 after they both moved to Portland,
Oregon from the Midwest…Lucas was rapping as part of Hives
Inquriy Squad, Jeffrey was making electronic music as The
Great Mundane. In 2009, Jeffrey was living with Lucas and
sleeping on his couch. One day, when Jeffrey went to work,
Lucas ‘stole’ a handful of beats from Jeffrey’s computer. A
couple months later, Lucas rapped a song called, “Well
Dwellers” that he wrote to one of Jeffrey’s beats. The producer
said, “Hey, that’s not terrible. We should do more,” and Jellyfish
Brigade was born into existence.
Years later, after releasing the EPs Gills and a Helmet and The
Art of Being Pulled Apart as well as the single Sunflowers,
Jellyfish Brigade is continuing to refine its unique brand of hip
hop. Combining elements of folk, R&B, indie rap and
electronica with stories about rivers, mountains, growing up, love,
loss and self-awareness, the duo creates songs that are part
fantastical and part every day normality.
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