Purling Hiss

1. The Greg Foat Group
2. Jeffrey Martin
3. Purling Hiss

Bandcamp is an online music platform used largely by independent artists and record labels to stream songs and sell merchandise. It’s also a vibrant virtual community teeming with interesting sounds just waiting to be discovered. Each week, I’ll highlight three releases available on the site that are well worth your time and attention. If you find something you dig, please consider supporting the artist with a purchase.

The Greg Foat Group

“Girl and Robot with Flowers”

Currently, London is home to the hottest jazz scene on the planet, thanks to adventurous artists like Shabaka Hutchings, Theon Cross, Nubya Garcia and Moses Boyd. The latter plays on the latest album (“Symphonie Pacifique”) from British pianist and composer Greg Foat, but today we’re going to rewind back to Foat’s excellent 2012 effort, “Girl and Robot with Flowers,” which takes jazz to space. The result is a set of gleaming songs that tell a story without words, thanks to their sci-fi vibes and their cinematic feel. Who knows if England’s new school considers him an influence, but Foat’s sophomore album feels like a forerunner to the now sound.

Jeffrey Martin

“One Go Around”

Jeffrey Martin should be a familiar face for many local music fans; the Eugene-raised and Portland-based folk singer has played live in Central Oregon many times over the years, including a few stops at the Sisters Folk Festival. He fits in quite nicely there, thanks to his outsized talent as a guitar picker, a distinctive singer and, above all, a storyteller. Martin’s 2017 album “One Go Around” is packed with incredible tunes and you should listen to them all. But be sure to hear “Poor Man,” a song about the emotional toil of barely scraping by. It’s a stunner that still stops me in my tracks, even after what must be 100 listens.

Purling Hiss

“Hissteria”

If non-stop electric guitar heroics is your thing, this early album from Philadelphia shredder Mike Polizze may be for you. However, if you prefer your non-stop electric guitar heroics to sound all cool and crisp and hi-fi, you might want to keep moving, because “Hissteria” is … not that. These four tracks put the “noise” in noise-rock, with Polizze running his bluesy jams through a gauntlet of fuzz and hiss and squeals, and maybe a wood chipper. He’d go on to clean up his sound on a series of great rock records, but “Hissteria” taps into something positively primal. It’s one of the best unbridled rawk records in recent memory.