The Dead Air Fresheners are a Portland, Oregon-based experimental and post-punk musical group with a somewhat fluctuating membership. They have been described by Portland's KPSU as "A long-time mainstay of the Experimental Rock Scene." They count Sun Ra, John Cage, Sonic Youth, Sun City Girls, and Jandek as influences.

Band history

The band formed around 1996. They claim to have first formed "in a dilapidated beachfront mansion on the Eld Inlet in Thurston County, Washington" (Eld Inlet is the site of The Evergreen State CollegeCampus Master Plan 1998 , The Evergreen State College. Accessed online 17 September 2007.); in any event, they first performed publicly in 1997 at Olympia, Washington's annual Olympia Experimental Music Festival.

Their instrumentation has been known to include Moog synthesizer, and tape samples, drums, ambient vocals, distorted feedback, electric guitar, computers and digital toys, and digeridoo. The Dead Air Fresheners state in interviews and on their My Space page that they do not play improvised music despite frequent perceptions to the contrary. Rather they use a process of Chance Music composition influenced by the work of John Cage (also called Indeterminate music) and their Myspace page provides several examples of scores from past performances.

They have done several live radio performances; portions of their hour-long session with poet Chuck Swaim on KEXP's "Sonarchy Radio" were included as songs in the self-released album Pleasure Is Where All Labor EndsDoug Haire discography , accessed online 17 September 2007. Swaim's name is incorrectly given there as "Swaims". and two performances on KPSU are on that station's archives.Recordings by Dead Air Fresheners on the KPSU archives , accessed online 18 September 2007.

Band members The band has consisted of members based in Bellingham, Olympia, Seattle, Salem, and Portland. The three core members are located in St. Johns, Portland. Because of their penchant for anonymity, masks, and costumes,The Dead Air Fresheners... LIVE! , KPSU, 25 April 2006. Accessed online 17 September 2007. quotes one member as saying, "Our goal is to completely lose all identity within the Dead Air Freshener experience... While we have nothing against pop culture per se, or groups built around the cult of personality, we are trying to achieve the total opposite.", page 3 . there is no definitive list of the group's membership. Nonetheless, several publications covering either the experimental music scene or entertainment in the Pacific Northwest have reported them to have included at various times members of such bands as Olympia's now defunct Karp, Austin, Texas' ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Bellingham, Washington's Noggin, and Portland, Oregon's Nice Nice.Rate Your Music Dead Air Fresheners Band Page, . In Signum magazine, writer Tiffany Lee Brown implies strongly that Olympia Experimental Music Festival founder Jim McAdams is one of the anonymous musicians in the group., page 2 , page 3 . Matt Driscoll of the Weekly Volcano (South Puget Sound) states this outright. Emily Pothast in The Wire states that Ricardo Wang, host of the "What's this Called?" program on Freeform Portland Radio is a member.Review by Emily Pothast from The Wire magazine March 2023, accessed 2023-03-08. This was confirmed in a 2023 St. Johns Review article. Wang's two sons are also considered regular members.

McAdams's wife, Deanne Rowley McAdams, died 3 August 2011. Her obituary in The Olympian indicates that she was a member of the group, and that she had also played with Texas and Pacific Northwest bands Plain Jane, [...And You Will Know Us By the] Trail of Dead, Pro-Ex Marauders, and Cherry 2000, and that she had a band of her own called Leopards.Deanne Rowley McAdams, The Olympian, 2011-08-09. Retrieved online 2011-08-15.

Discography

I Try To Show My Love, Plastic Duck Records, 1999 Verses of Echo, Bastard Customer, and Pleasure Is Where All Labor Ends, with poet Chuck Swaim, (self-released) 2001–2003 An Ulcer is a String of Pearls, 2006, Kill Pop Tarts (CDR-ep) a Slip Inside the Quiet Room, 2007, Icky Recordings Separated by Commas, 2010, Dubuque Strange Music Society (collaborations with various other artists; CDR)DSMS024 Dead Air Fresheners - Separated by Commas Extension Cord Symphony 9, (Postmoderncore, 2016)Extension Cord Symphony 9, Postmoderncore, 2016, accessed 2016-10-02. Fast Radio Bursts, Personal Archives (Dubuque, Iowa, 8 August 2016)Fast Radio Bursts, 2016, listed on bandcamp.com, accessed 2016-10-02. Evidence of Superstructures II (Postmoderncore, 2017)Evidence of Superstructures II, Postmoderncore, accessed 2019-12-26. Brother Calls (Postmoderncore, 2019)Brother Calls, Postmoderncore, accessed 2019-12-26 Come On Get Happy (Kill Pop Tarts, 2021)Come On Get Happy, 2021, listed on bandcamp.com, accessed 2022-05-17. Here’s to Letting Go, Bob Bucko Jr. with the Dead Air Fresheners (Kill Pop Tarts, 2021)Here’s to Letting Go, 2021, listed on bandcamp.com, accessed 2022-05-18. A Collection of Drone & Noise Sea Shanties (Personal Archives, 2021) A Collection of Drone & Noise Sea Shanties, 2021, listed on bandcamp.com, accessed 2022-05-17.Review in A Closer Listen experimental music webzine, accessed 2022-05-17. The Last Asteroid (Kill Pop Tarts, 2022)The Last Asteroid, 2022, listed on bandcamp.com, accessed 2022-05-17.Reviewed in The Big Takeover Issue 90, Spring 2022 tape hiss is the blow job of lo-fi (Kill Pop Tarts, 2022)tape hiss is the blow job of lo-fi, 2022, listed on bandcamp.com, accessed 2022-05-17.Review by Raymond Cummings from The Wire magazine August 2022, accessed 2023-03-08. Noise + Air = Noir, Noisepoet Nobody & Dead Air Fresheners (Kill Pop Tarts 2022)Noise + Air = Noir, 2022, listed on bandcamp.com, accessed 2023-03-08. World premiere on KAOS 89.3 FM (Olympia, Washington) on the Freeform Northwest Program hosted by Tom Dyer 2022-07-24. Unfriended (Personal Archives 2022)Unfriended on Personal Archives, accessed 2023-03-08.Listed in most played albums of December 2022, WFMU, accessed 2023-03-08. Tales from the Elusive Hangar (Kill Pop Tarts 2023)Tales from the Elusive Hangar, 2023, listed on bandcamp.com, accessed 2023-03-08. Forbidden Secrets of the Elusive Hangar (Kill Pop Tarts 2024)Forbidden Secrets of the Elusive Hangar, 2024, listed on bandcamp.com, accessed 2024-02-05. Moon, with Jennifer Robin (Green Monkey Records, 2025)Leslie Snyder, A Big Ruckus, Jersey Beat, accessed 2025-11-23. The Process of Elimination Will Find You In the End (Kill Pop Tarts 2025)The Process of Elimination Will Find You In the End, listed on bandcamp.com as released May 18, 2025, accessed 2025-11-23. Astral Wildlife, (split release with Four Dimensional Nightmare, Kill Pop Tarts 2025)Astral Wildlife, listed on bandcamp.com as released August 1, 2025, accessed 2025-11-24.

Also included in compilations: Infamous Polywogs Vol. 1?, Inlet Recordings, 2002 Infamous Polywogs Vol. 2?, Kill Pop Tarts, 2004 Reek of Influence, Icky Recordings, 2006 "Five Minutes in Dog Years" track on compilation Winter Copulation 2016 (SDM-032), SadoDaMascus Records (Portland, Oregon, 2016)SadoDaMascus Records: Winter Copulation 2016 (SDM-032), 2016, listed on bandcamp.com, accessed 2016-10-02. Source for discography (except as noted):

Notes

References . . . . .

External links

Dead Air Fresheners MySpace page Recordings by Dead Air Fresheners on the KPSU archives. KMLP archive including a 2002 performance by the Dead Air Fresheners. Archived on the Internet Archive February 10, 2006. Dead Air Fresheners on Hollow Earth Radio, Seattle, Washington, October 13, 2014 Dead Air Fresheners on Midvalley Mutations with host Austin Rich, KMUZ, Salem Oregon, May 17, 2019, Dead Air Fresheners on Top Dollar Hour with Tunacan Jones, radionope.com, Spokane, Washington, June 21, 2019 Dead Air Fresheners on Backyard Deep Dive with host Eric Muhs, KBFG, Seattle, Washington February 2019.