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Time of Rivers returns

REEL-TO-REEL INSTRUMENTALISM: Cian Nugent.

The surprising success of the Time of Rivers Festival — held this year from October 10 to 12 at SPACE Gallery and organized by local guitarist Edward Gibbs and Nemo Bidstrup of the Portland-based label Time-Lag Records — can be credited both to shrewd marketing and Portland’s increasingly robust presence in a niche music scene. In advance, the event was covered by the independent radio stations that most avidly promote such music, most notably New Jersey’s venerable WFMU; and Time-Lag’s notoriety on outsider music Web sites and blogs ensure further notice. (Many of these acts have little or no Internet presence outside of the few sites that devoutly follow them.)

The Time of Rivers sessions I attended last year were immersive and unexpectedly diverse. Visiting acts ranged from the improvised instrumental folk and ragtime of JACK ROSE to the steel guitar and hypnotic raga of the Pakistan-born, Oregon-based ILYAS AHMED, both of whom return to the Festival this weekend. Experimental sounds more familiar to contemporary indie-rock listeners, like the sing-along psych rock of Vermont’s MV & EE and Portland’s CURSILLISTAS, spring up here and there. In their youthful but soulful energy, these ambitious young acts bridge the gap between classical masters and the Devendra Banharts and Animal Collectives that dot today’s indie-experimental folk landscape. The cumulative effect of any given session is dizzying, trying to absorb 80 or 300 years of cerebral guitar sounds. It’s both informative and undeniably trippy.

Fortunately, each night ends with a cathartic bang. The days again conclude with crowd-pleasing (thanks in no small part to a sudden injection of sheer vocal might) sets by local standouts in the field. Saturday night wraps with the chilling and magisterial 12-string guitar of MICAH BLUE SMALDONE, and Friday’s session caps off with an eagerly anticipated performance by his five-member acoustic folk group FIRE ON FIRE, who haven’t played out since June. Sunday night’s intended Festival headliners Earth abruptly cancelled their national tour last week, but the day offers a large used-record fair from 11 am to 5 pm and an evening set from the entrancing Lewiston duo ARBOREA.

A few more visiting musicians to take note of (set times are approximate):