Crib Notes

Port O’Brien recently explained the concept behind their latest video for the song “My Will Is Good,” saying:

“The song is very rhythmic and packs some punch. Timbaland inspired us. We wanted a video that could match visually the rhythm in the song,” frontman Van Pierszalowski tells Spinner. “We took the idea of double dutch to [director] Raul Fernandez, and what he created was beyond our expectations. The intensity of the girls — and the one brave boy — in the video match the meaning and intensity behind the song.”

The San Francisco pop tarts are on the road in support of their third album, Threadbare. The record tussles between moods of quietly haunting and more endearing, uptempo indie rock anthems.

Port O’Brien plays the Earl with Seawolf and Sara Lov. Fri., Oct. 23. $10. 9 p.m. 488 Flat Shoals Road. 404-522-3950.

Also on Fri., Oct. 23 at 6 p.m. Port o’Brien will play a free in-store performance at Criminal Records.

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Fresh off her appearance on Timbaland’s massive hit “The Way I Are,” Keri Hilson’s debut album was originally slotted for a mid-2008 release. But three videos, massive publicity and multiple delays later, the album still shows no signs of coming out.

Though release-date bumps are common — especially in today’s increasingly hostile sales environment — Hilson’s story is a noteworthy one. Many believed she was poised to be Atlanta’s next R&B superstar. She still could be, but further delays of her CD, In a Perfect World…, could irrevocably damage her career.

“They should have put her album out last year,” says Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, executive editor of influential music magazine the Fader. “It just keeps getting pushed back and pushed back. It’s possible she’ll just get lost.”

Hilson herself grows defensive when asked if she’s concerned about her album’s status.

“Absolutely not, absolutely not,” she said in a late January phone interview. “I’m not worried. Timbaland is completely not worried. Polow’s not worried. It’s not a bad thing. It’s not a bad thing.”

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The music industry is going ape shit over Keri Hilson, the young songwriter who absolutely set off Timbaland’s electro-urban “The Way I Are” hit. This month, she’s featured on the cover of the Fader. (She’s the woman on the left; the lady on the right is the equally awesome Brooklyn artist Santogold.) And although no one has heard her upcoming album, In a Perfect World, many expect it to be as fabulous as “The Way I Are.”

The 25-year-old Hilson got her start as a member of Atlanta songwriting crew the Clutch (more on the Clutch very soon). Here’s what MTV.com wrote about her in a news story July 2, 2007:

While on deck for her solo turn, Hilson has been writing prolifically. Either on her own or as part of the five-person songwriting/production team the Clutch, Hilson has penned tunes for Britney Spears, the Pussycat Dolls, Diddy, Ciara, Usher, Chris Brown, Mary J. Blige, Ruben Studdard, Ludacris (”Runaway Love”) and Omarion (”Ice Box”).

“The Clutch is a new thing, it’s still a baby,” she said. “We are responsible for some major hits: ‘Ice Box,’ ‘Take Me as I Am,’ ‘The Way I Are,’ so many. ‘Anonymous’ by Bobby Valentino, a whole bunch of new artists. Beyoncé … the Clutch is everywhere. Co-writing makes it a lot faster, and you’re more open to other ideas. It opens you up creatively. Everyone brings more color to a certain situation, to a certain song, [which] makes it a lot easier. Sometimes we take it section by section or line by line — it’s fun either way. Work is play for us.”

Meanwhile, the Fader story calls Hilson part of Timbaland’s “Black Pop 2.0″ movement — with 1.0 being the Missy Elliott/Aaliyah/Ginuwine explosion of the late ’90s.

Hilson is a black princess from the upwardly mobile mindstate of Atlanta, and her dad is a real estate mogul who happens to own the subdivision where Akon lives. By her own description, a straight R&B chick more likely to be listening to Groove Theory or Babyface than anything current, her soul nevertheless has a futurist musical and emotional timbre; that computer love thing that connects her with Danja and makes her sound like a logical progression of Timbaland’s urban new wave.

You can download a free PDF copy of the Fader at TheFader.com.

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