William Ingrid

"William Ingrid – Where Are You? (Self Release) If you're into Beach House, Phantogram, Wye Oak, Cold Cave, or The Postal Service, check out this husband and wife duo. Most of the time, they lay down some female vocals over simple electronic beats and folky riffs. Some tracks (3) have off putting male vocals, so you can probably skip those (the same way I skip most Cold Cave track with Wesley singing) and play the rest. " - Tan Doan, KUCI 88.9FM

In which the powerfully delicate melodic labyrinth of William Ingrid play against the dark, thundering steam engine of The Tempers (29 July 2013, at the Portland’s Hebesha Lounge)
William Ingrid are old favorites of mine. Their first (and, so far, only) album, 2009’s Where Are You?, is a regular soundtrack to my road trips and airplane journeys. Somehow it is perfect at speed, in transition. Yet this sense of transition is perhaps paradoxical, as William Ingrid is the nom de plume (and middle names) of wedded duo Derek & Kristen Larson.
Where Are You? is, essentially, an outward-facing manifestation of their inner relationship. Kristen’s voice (the dominant narrator) shimmers along the fine edge of the line where two people interact: their doubts, foibles, worries, affections, and simple happiness. (One of my favorite songs is ‘Sleep Here Forever,’ whose one-minute length is only this: ‘I like the feeling when we wake up / the sun is shining on the two of us / blankets around us forming our cave / we want to sleep and we want to stay all day / we want to sleep here forever.’)
Musically, William Ingrid captures a similar fine line. Theirs is a kind of melodious minimalism: notes that are just barely a waveform, spread carefully across the space of each song, with plenty of space left between. Kristen’s powerful voice is a rich and mellifluous sauce over Derek’s complex, bitty, glitchy synth work: eight-bit digitization overlaid with analog soul.
Live, Derek & Kristen weave a tantalizing fabric of delightful electro-pop out of a sizable array of keyboards and effects (plus a guitar & harmonica). Costumed respectively in a tuxedo and a hoop dress of illuminated, sound-triggered electro-luminescent wire, they somehow rise above the usual bland triggered electronica. Instead, they weave these devices with their emotions — human mixed with digital — and out comes love.
But it is over far too early. This is my biggest frustration with William Ingrid: they stop before they’re truly done. If there is a band out there who wins the lack-of-self-confidence award, it is William Ingrid. The world is waiting for you, guys: get out there and connect.
The Tempers reject their native Seattle’s unfinished fascination with grunge, rock, and folk, and instead wear their synth-glam influences proudly and explicitly. (For further insight, see Mute Magazine’s interview with the band.) To me, as someone who lived in that city, it’s a logical outgrowth: since its discovery by the rest of the world in the late 1990s, the leading edge of its culture has been trying hard to create a new identity, one far removed from the middle-aged Seattle, whose aesthetic was inspired more by dying logging towns and a skeletal Boeing than the current modern, shiny, Amazonian city on the hill.
Even as a fairly young trio, The Tempers broadcast an inky and inexorable passion and power. Chalia Bakker brings forth a constant, roiling boil of sound pressure from her drums. Her sister Corina masticates her warbly lyrics into the microphone, often processing her vocals through a vocoder or other electronification. With a small rack of keyboards, their brother James somehow glues all this into something close to a melody.
But calling the songs ‘melodies’ is misleading. As I listen to them in the tiny Hebesha Lounge, The Tempers scare the fuck out me. Out of their dirge comes a sense of invasion, a terrible gutting of the soul. There is nothing delicate here, nor does the band leave room for such trifles. They claim their songs are about love, and I’m sure that’s true: but this is not the slow, weepy, needful love, nor the crowing of successful love. Instead, we hear a writhing, reedy, pounding moan. Yet The Tempers is no noise band; oddly, it reminds me more of a jam between Kraftwerk and Nico. Modern Seattle meets pre-wall Berlin?
But ultimately their passion turns to tedium. I suspect their long-term songwriting effort is largely in the lyrics — heard live, the incessant and unvarying drums, the growling vocoder processing, and the muddy sound of the synths leave little meat on the bones. It’s an obvious danger of being inspired by the repetitious-by-design electronica/EDM. Their dark-sequin-glam look feels forced, overly theatrical, almost fashionable, as if inspired by a modern Malcolm McLaren. Simply, they seem like they are trying too hard. Indeed, there is something wriggling out there in the dark, but The Tempers have not yet grabbed ahold of it.
(Note: I was unable to stay for the third and final set by Daniel Rafn, whose inscrutable show notes claim that ‘his humble bling are pop agates.’) - John Labovitz

It’s that time of year again, when the sun comes out and the people in Portland start emerging from their carefully crafted lairs like so many hip cicadas. Luckily for all of us, Sunday nights in Portland are not the stereotypical dead-zone, for we are largely a godless bunch, and Sunday is just as good a night to party as any other. With that in mind, there is some music that will inspire happy thoughts down at East End.


William Ingrid. Photo courtesy of the band’s Facebook.
Headlining the night is William Ingrid, a band comprised of Derek and Kristen Larson. They sling a mixture of rock and electronic music reminiscent of bands like Phantogram or a more electronic Bagheera. Their last full length, Where Are You?, blended the rock/electronic elements with a nice balance, though their newer material suggests a heavier reliance on the electronic parts of the composition. Either way, in my experience East End is the realm of sweaty, beer soaked crust kids rocking out to largely unknown Portland thrash metal, so some dancing and head bobbing in the basement will be a nice change of pace. - Aaron Sharpsteen SSG MUSIC

There’s something charming and nostalgic about bands that make music that could have been the soundtrack to a classic video game. But Portland’s William Ingrid takes that to the next level: overlaying plinky video game music with genuine, folksy female vocals. It’s unlike anything else you’ve heard before. - Spokane Inlander

I'll be honest--when I saw the artist and album title, plus song names like "Rock Bottom" and "Premonition," I assumed the worst: another bland acoustic guitar-and-vocals folk record. Imagine how pleasantly I was surprised, then, to hear the opening bass-and-synth line of "Move On," followed up by soulful female vocals. As it turns out, William Ingrid isn't some run-of-the-mill singer/songwriter, but rather the creative electropop project of the husband-and-wife duo of Derek and Kristen Larsen; Where Are You? will appeal to fans of Passion Pit and The xx. The album opener is the best track, but also try "Let's Play Pretend" and "Before That." - Jememy - WLUR FM