Portastatic

Mac McCaughan earned his reputation as an indie rock hero by leading Superchunk and by launching and running the thriving Merge Records label, while Portastatic functioned as the dedicated platform for his solo work and material that fell outside his main band. The endeavor started in 1992 after Tom Scharpling of 18 Wheeler Records requested that McCaughan issue some of his lo-fi four-track home recordings, resulting in the singles “Sandals with White Socks” and “Starter.” McCaughan issued the first full Portastatic album, I Hope Your Heart Is Not Brittle, in 1994; the Scrapbook EP came next, followed by Slow Note from a Sinking Ship in 1995 and The Nature of Sap in 1997, each release moving steadily away from its lo-fi origins. The 2000 EP De Mel, de Melão honored classic Brazilian figures such as Caetano Veloso and Arnaldo Baptista. In 2001 McCaughan supplied the score for Looking for Leonard, a film written and directed by Superchunk devotees Matt Bissonette and Steven Clark.

With Superchunk entering semi-retirement around that period, Portastatic shifted into McCaughan’s principal outlet and developed into an actual ensemble that drew from a changing roster of players, often featuring Superchunk’s Jim Wilbur on drums. Summer of the Shark, a complete studio album, surfaced in 2003 and was joined later that year by Autumn Was a Lark, a set of covers and live recordings. As Merge’s standing rose across the indie landscape and farther afield—marked by Arcade Fire and Spoon reaching high on the Billboard charts—the strength of Portastatic’s output rose in tandem. Bright Ideas (2005) and Be Still Please (2006) stand as strong collections that display McCaughan’s top-tier songwriting, while his 2006 soundtrack for Who Loves the Sun underscores his skills in arranging and composing. In 2008 the band assembled Some Small History, a wide-ranging anthology of singles and unreleased material.