TORTUNE: It’s PonderPop!

Lex Allyson and Hilary Hanes deliver crisp, off-kilter, darkly comedic, bourbon-influenced music and live shows with an ear always tuned toward refreshing and inspired melodies. 

Lex's songs are carried by her literate, sometimes literary, playful, and often starkly personal lyrics (PonderPop!).  Her songbird vocal range will keep you wondering how high she can go, until you hear Europa Europa (finally recorded on Little Machine after a long life on stage), with a chorus you can't get out of you head (a "tortune" if you read the Urban Dictionary!), and which you can't help trying out for size in your own lungs. 

The duo is in it for the untainted, uncynical love of music, their prize in hand every time they hold a room in thrall, surprising unsuspecting audience members with how musical and yet genre-less they are, and with a bond between them that expands into an embracive stage presence.  Tortune intuitively mixes genres in every song, expressing in two to three minute lyrical tales their diverse range of influences, and love of the art of storytelling in song form. 

Hilary began his professional bass-playing career in San Francisco in the late ‘70’s -- most notably with Pearl Harbor and the Explosions, whose meteoric rise as the region’s most popular club band led to an album on Warner Bros. They played shows with The Clash, The Police, Talking Heads and many others, as well as headlining their own national tour.  Hilary’s playing can be found on several albums by the seminal Industrial band Chrome, as well as a rock band project led by celebrated avant-garde guitarist Henry Kaiser. Hilary’s work with Providence, RI, band Lucky 57 contributed to their earning a 2006 Boston Music Award for Best Americana Band.

A flutist for 20 years and guitar-based songwriter for 13, Lex's skills combine fluidly with Hilary's legendary melodic bass playing and driving drumbeats, creating a warm, full, electric sound, sui generis.  They take full advantage when they record, playing several instruments each and allowing Lex to do what she loves and does best--layering her vocals with rich harmonies.  When Hilary's harmonies kick in, they match Lex's timbre in a seamless vibration that only blood can create.  On Little Machine, you get all the juicy extras: Lex on flute, piano, melodica and tambourine, Hilary's slick lead guitar, and interludes overlaid with sound clips, bits of inspiration they found on the streets, on the beach, and in arenas.  Though you may hear 7 instruments in a song and triple that in tracks, they only had one other musician record on the album; David Gerow on fiddle for "the epic song," Surety Upon You. 

Torturous Fortune?  Fortunate Torture?  The name was a happy accident, but being Portland, Oregon’s only father/daughter PonderPop duo is no mistake!


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