Portland’s reigning “Best New Band” (so says the Willamette Week poll) is set to release its excellent new album, Animals in the Median, on May 21. In our review, music writer John Chandler calls it “a highly polished gem, glittering with a bossa nova whimsy that provides the pulse for a dozen sophisticated pocket-orchestra pop songs that never venture past the five-minute mark.” It’s been on heavy rotation in our offices, like a herald trumpeting in the 70-degree weather.

Radiation City has honored us with the premiere of a video shot under the awe-inspiring span of the Astoria–Megler Bridge by local music-video-verite masters Into the Woods. It’s the third in a series of videos celebrating Fort George Brewery's Tender Loving Empire Northwest Pale Ale (local song-lovers TLE is RC’s record label). The song is “Foreign Bodies,” and if you don’t want to wait a month to get the album or two months to go to the record release show (June 28 at the Wonder), you can catch some of the songs live at the band’s performance on Live Wire! on Saturday.