“This next song is by one of the greatest modern composers, Kanye West.”

The first time Douglas Jenkins says this on stage during a Portland Cello Project performance, there is usually a ripple of quiet, skeptical laughter from the crowd. But after hearing the Cello Project perform  ”All of the Lights”, no skeptics remain. One of the many great things about a PCP show, is you can’t tell what’s a “classic” and what’s contemporary and when Jenkins told us our favorite takes from this Session were by Kanye and Pantera, we were astonished and delighted.

The Portland Cello Project were the first band we emailed when planning this year’s Sessions. The set up of the band, with no singer, no guitar and no beards, made them unlike any band we’d ever filmed before. Sitting the cellists and trombone player of Portland Cello Project alongside a quiet trail at a slight incline, it appeared as if the cellos had sprouted from the ground alongside the foxgloves and moss. With the trombone echoing back from the Bay, each bowed note singing from the trees and a crow cawing with excitement at the end of Pantera’s “Mouth for War”, I couldn’t help but exclaim from the sidelines “this is fucking amazing.” The session and Portland Cello Project really were everything and more than we hoped for and we hope you think so too.

Portland Cello Project’s next shows are September 21st and 22nd at the Aladdin Theater in Portland where they will be performing Radiohead’s OK Computer in its entirety.  Washington will have to wait until January to see PCP, they’ll be playing January 25th at the Rialto Theater in Tacoma and on January 26th in Edmonds with Zoe Keating.

And we’ll be sharing the next Doe Bay Session, a week from Tuesday. But first things first, the Portland Cello Project and the first Doe Bay Session of 2012: