Mmmm, Menomena, nom nom

I kind of hope you tried to say this post's title three times fast. It's tricky.

So, to kick things off on a Monday, I have a band from Portland that has been on my mind recently.

Menomena (pronounced like "phenomena," except with "men") is three dudes from P-town who have a refreshing approach to recording their music. They record organically, beginning with something simple being looped, and building from that. Their biography on http://menomena.com paints a picture of the band crafting each song like old ladies carefully quilting patches together for a blanket.

"First, we set the tempo of the click, which is played through a pair of head­phones. We then take turns pass­ing a sin­gle mic around the room. One of us will hold the mic in front of an instru­ment, while another one of us will lay down a short impro­vised riff over the click track. We usu­ally start with the drums. Once the drums begin loop­ing, we throw on some bass, piano, gui­tar, bells, sax, or what­ever other sort of noise­maker hap­pens to be in the room."

In this case, the old ladies are gnarly, bearded dudes and the quilt is a song called "Muscle'n Flo," which is a good starting point for introducing these fellas.

Meet Menomena and nom on my money, men!