Saturday was seeming like a strangely slow night when a friend called with news of a party with bands. What bands? I asked.

“Beats me,” she said.

Well, what the hell. With nothing else to do I went. As luck would have it I caught the first set of a band new to Portland who, mark my words, are going to be fucking huge.

They’re called Nurses, and they’re from Idaho. Or Chicago. Or something… They’re living on couches, or in the van… There’s four of ‘em, but there’s two of ‘em, really. Well… Ok. Here’s what I know:

Nurses have two original members, who seem to have been traveling a lot lately. They have two new members, from Portland. They live here now. They came because, “It seemed like Portland was the place to be.” There’s more to this story that I don’t yet know, but it’s not important now.

Here’s what is: This band is incredible. Through heavy reverb all four of them are singing. The harmonies are amazingly welcoming. They’re bopping around, they’re catchy, the song-writing is solid and there’s a beautiful mix between tight and loose.

Nurses, in their newest iteration, have been around for two weeks. As mentioned, the two principal songwriters have been together for some years, but the two new players add a whole new dimension. They don’t yet have any more shows on the books but as soon as they do I’ll be sure to let you know.

There are a bunch of tracks online, and this whole set up is confusing too. You should check them out, but before you do please understand that they’re not quite doing this new line-up, with the four-part harmonies justice.

Ok, so there is Nurses myspace, which features some older songs. Then there is Rocky Mountain Steam, which are demos of newer Nurses songs, then there is a Daytrotter session.

If I were you I’d listen to “Apple’s Acre”, “Technicolor” and “Man At Arms” on the Rocky Mountain Steam site. All those songs found their way into Nurses short set on Saturday.