2007:

Sublime Frequencies
Multi-talented Portlanders wow crowds
“Wow and Flutter” sounds like two words slapped together by bored hipsters searching for a band name, doesn’t it? Well, this Portland trio, playing their first show in Seattle in two years tonight, actually has one of the catchiest band names that actually mean something. A wow and flutter measurement quantifies the amount of “frequency wobble” on analog playback devices. So when you’re listening to Whitney on a shitty old cassette player, the “Wow” can be heard when “I Want to Dance With Somebody” starts to sound, er, cracked out. This Wow and Flutter, known as a mild-mannered band in P-town for a decade, has undergone some fluctuations of their own as they finish their sixth full-length album. They’re more raucous than before—a Willamette Week writer recently saw front man Cord Amato playing guitar, keyboards, and a tambourine with his foot while singing at a house party—but with the same pleasing, energetic sound. Seeing them in possibly the best free music venue in all of Seattle may just set your heart aflutter."
–RACHEL SHIMP, Seattle Weekly

At a house show last month, Wow & Flutter's frontman Cord Amato played a tambourine with his foot while also playing guitar, keys and singing. The guy was flipping out and having a blast, but the wild demeanor would come as a surprise to fans of the band's 10-year catalog of patient, gentle indie songs. In a response on the W&F website to a German fan asking "Why the change?," Amato explains: "I guess I got tired of taking it so seriously. I'm 37, Jack's 44, Ryan's 34...I think age has something to do with it too."
--Jason Simms, Willamette Week

Folks always seem to have problems with change (myself included), but–as WOW & FLUTTER's Cord Amato explains in MySpace blog titled "Not the same as it ever was"–change is sometimes necessary in the name of survival. Such has been the case with longstanding, Portland-based rock outfit, which has gone through a number of members over its 10-plus year existence (and has even had longstanding members switch instruments over time). But, by the sound of WOW & FLUTTER's more upbeat recent material, the process of stayin' alive has been good to them: "Fly Dragon," for instance, includes stretchy-sounding guitars, male/female a capella "doo-doo" breakdowns and a damn solid beat. In contrast to the more brooding, drawn out, meloncholic tunes of WOW & FLUTTER's past (which were often beautiful, too), the bands new songs make it sound like Amato and company are having more fun, which in my book, is a change for the best.
--Amy McCullough, Willamette Week


2006:

Portland sleep-rockers Wow & Flutter have been around the Portland music block a few times, most recently amping up their sound to a less drowsy, more aggressive level. While the droning sounds of 1999's Pounding the Pavement, with its winding and weaving guitar lines and unenthusiastic vocals, were kind of comforting in a perfect-for-rainy-weather way, it's a welcome change to see this somewhat stagnant band reinvent itself.

--Willamette Week, Jan, 2006

Wow & Flutter
At twilight cafe, 9 pm
Portland's tireless (now) trio Wow & Flutter brood and subtly break between the perilous expanse of Lee Ranaldo's Sonic Youth contributions circa 1989 and the Chicago collective circa 1996. Which is to say, in good company.

--Portland Mercury

2005:

Wow & Flutter friday, dec. 2
Portland trio agrees with Bush on one thing: Restraint is overrated.
[ROCK] The first time I saw Wow & Flutter could very well have been the perennial Portland band's final show. It was July 2003 at the old Blackbird, and the band, at that time 7 years old and recently diminished from a five-piece to a three-piece, was in the grips of complete chaos. The band had been noted for pairing a paced restraint with its rock 'n' roll, its songs stretching out into languid compositions that resembled Sonic Youth on downers. Beautiful stuff. But that night, you wouldn't have guessed it. Sans drummer, the trio of Cord Amato, Amy Turner and Jack Houson stalked the stage, churning out a single, grating, 45-minute song that ended in disarray. The band, I thought, was on the verge of complete disintegration. I was wrong. Rather, Wow & Flutter, which hasn't released an album since 2002's Names, was in the early stages of a transformation. More than two years into that metamorphosis, the band has released "Elements"/"Leave It Alone," a ballsy 7-inch that proves the band has chucked that beloved restraint out the window. I sat down with the trio at the Belmont Stumptown to find out what happened.


PDX POP FEST '05: "Maudlin with a pulse, the near decade-old trio
Wow & Flutter sound roughly like a Midwest indie take on the Cure's grey period. Over five full-lengths, W&F have perfected a sort of languid angst that's not altogether dissimilar to late-period Unwound."

--Portland Mercury, August, 2005