Feelin’ fresh?

During the first weekend in February, Branx is hosting a two-day music celebration that draws from a wide range of styles. The event is sure to please even the snobbiest Portland scene-ster.

The two-day soiree known as Superfresh 3 features 14 bands, two DJs and costs only $14 dollars if one decides to buy both days’ tickets separately. However, a slightly more economical approach involves going to Floating World Comics (400 NW Couch St.) and picking up an event pass for a paltry $10.

Cutting right to the chase: What’s a multi-day show without a good lineup? Superfresh 3 has packed the weekend with quality acts, some of which are selling out venues like the Doug Fir Lounge these days.

Day One of Superfresh 3 features Wampire, Strategy, Truckasauras, JonnyX and the Groadies, Litanic Mask, Vice Device, Light House and DJ Maxx Bass. Day Two steps it up with Radiation City, Brainstorm, Operative, Tunnels, $kull$, Toning, Bruxa and DJ Linoleum.

Although the lineup, like most Portland festival shows, is heavy on “female singer with ambient ensemble” and “one guy with two Casio keyboards”-type acts, the bulk of it is filled out with quality from Portland’s beloved undercarriage.

Take, for example, JonnyX and the Groadies. There isn’t much that can be said for the group’s hyper-intense electronic-infused metal that hasn’t been said a hundred times already. The band has been around for over 15 years, an eternity in Portland’s musical ether. While JonnyX is not headlining the first day, it certainly has the seniority and the superior draw (the band sells posters on its website, for God’s sake!). However, at a festival like this—full of swirling, overly extended spring reverb tanks—perhaps JonnyX’s abrasive grindings will begin to grate sooner rather than later.

Paul Dickow, better known as Portland electronic fixture “Strategy,” will be making a rare appearance. Considered the grandfather of the burgeoning Portland ambient-cum-electronic scene, there isn’t a purely electronic act on the entire Superfresh 3 bill that doesn’t owe him something. Combining a sense of honest, heartfelt emotion with massive swirling soundscapes, Strategy is Portland’s answer to Brian Eno, and he’s an incredibly detailed blueprint for impressionists of all genres.

Rounding out the first day’s lineup is Portland fixture Wampire. Having shared the stage with bands like Dum Dum Girls and Portland’s own Thermals, Wampire is a staple of Portland’s feel-good indie scene. Wampire fans will likely scoff at my description, but cutting away all the glitz leaves you with just that: good vibes and good times.

Tunnels can best be described as a darker, grittier version of Kraftwerk. The sparse electronic bloops interact with heavily effected vocals and trashy drums in a very interesting synthesis.

If you’re in the mood for synth-lines that meander all over the fucking place (in a good way), you’d best be on hand for Operative. Imagine, if you will, the Edgar Winter Group, but everyone in the band took a hike except Edgar Winter. Indeed, the group sounds like the solo from “Frankenstein” if it were extended indefinitely. If nothing else, Operative will show the crowd (and hopeful Superfresh 3 participants) a thing or two about dynamic synthesizer playing.

However, the final two bands throw all that newfangled mumbo jumbo out and get right to the point. For them, songwriting is paramount, and let’s face it: The finely written song will never go to waste when it makes the listener simply feel.

Brainstorm takes a rock band, strips it down, takes what’s left and then strips it down again. With a real ear for multi-part harmonies and a no-frills approach to songwriting, the band exhibits a real flair for the craft that makes entire venues want to get up and dance. Brainstorm shuns the current flavor of the week and connects with the crowd in ways that other bands simply cannot grasp.

The festival’s big-name band of 2012 is Radiation City. Seemingly on everyone’s tongue these days, the folks in Radiation City have been doing huge things, having signed to Tender Loving Empire (home of Typhoon, Jared Mees, et al.) after just a couple of shows. The band embarked on its first successful U.S. tour shortly thereafter. Before the band left, it opened a show at the Doug Fir, playing first. Upon its return, the group headlined the same venue, and the show quickly sold out.

That’s all well and good, but what does the band sound like? Like Brainstorm, the band plays impossibly soulful dreamy rock. One part Low, one part Beach House, one part The Penguins’ “Earth Angel,” the group plays beautiful, pared-down rock music that immediately evokes images of a dried-up, inhospitable Chernobyl, but with the palpable empathy that comes from former habitation.