Portland experimentalist Ethan Rose finds inspiration at the skating rink.

Ethan Rose can’t help but look out of place when he steps into the main room at Oaks Park Skating Rink. He’s one of the few people in the room not wearing a loudly colored, sparkly outfit, and he’s not a senior citizen strapping on a pair of well-worn skates to get a little exercise in before the end of the day.

But take a stroll around the rink with Rose and you see how at home he actually is here. Wearing his signature leather flying cap, the Portland experimental musician greets the staff warmly as he passes the shoe check-out. When he reaches the far side of the rink, he gets an affectionate smile and nod from the rink’s organist, Keith Fortune, a middle-aged man in a short-sleeved shirt and polyester pants who’s sitting in a glass booth, playing a bossa nova-tinged version of “Mr. Sandman” on an 86-year-old Wurlitzer organ.

This instrument, a four-level keyboard encircled with flat, colored switches, was brought to the skating rink in the ’50s after it spent the first 30 years of its life scoring silent films at the long-gone Broadway Theatre (which sat downtown on Southwest Stark Street and Broadway until its demolition in 1988). The organ is what we’re here to see, and Rose is happy to show it off.

“This room here,” the 30-year-old Chicago transplant says, pointing to a long window next to Fortune’s booth, “is full of electromagnets. Each one corresponds with the different keys and sounds on the organ.” He turns my attention to a large platform suspended above the rink, packed full of discolored metal piping. “And there’s a huge bellows in there that pumps so much air to feed those pipes up there.”

Rose is a geek for antiquated instruments like this. His 2006 album, Ceiling Songs, featured the sounds of automated instruments like player pianos and music boxes that were manipulated either by hand—taking out key pieces that would change the songs—or in post-production using computer effects to create gorgeous washes of sound and lovely ambient drones.

His latest effort, the appropriately titled Oaks, is made chiefly from the Wurlitzer organ we’re investigating at Oaks Park. With some assistance from Fortune, Rose set up a dozen microphones around the inside of the rink—which sits directly beneath the organ’s piping system—recording the organ’s tones and chintzy artificial percussion. Back in his home studio, these sanguine noises were elongated and turned inside out, then stitched into long pieces that can evoke melancholic and nostalgic feelings in the listener. On “The Floor Released,” Rose uses a chime that sounds like the “celeste” setting on the organ, warping the tone in and out of focus, chopping it with brief samples of the standard reedy Wurlitzer sound to haunting—and surprisingly warm—effect.

Rose says he chose this instrument as the bedrock for his new album after visiting the rink for a friend’s “fifth grade-style” birthday party. “I saw the organ and heard Keith playing it and I knew it was just going to be a matter of time before I put it to use for my own music.”

Luckily, Fortune was receptive to the idea of having someone draw some attention to his chosen instrument—not to mention being able to have an extra set of hands around to do some repair work.

“That was kind of an unspoken part of the deal,” says Rose, drinking a small soda from the snack bar. “I mean, I offered to do it, but I think Keith knew that I was going to be willing to help. There aren’t a lot of people willing to get intimate with instruments like this.” So, Rose put in a few hours lying on his back underneath the framework of pipes above the rink, helping to re-solder corroded connectors and keeping the instrument’s air flowing properly.

The more intimate that Rose became with the Wurlitzer, the more he realized what a rare kind of person Fortune was, playing an instrument and a style of music that might disappear in another 30 years or less. It makes Rose’s efforts to breathe new life into the inner workings as well as using it for modern music a strangely noble pursuit.

“It’s a really liberating way to express myself,” says Rose as we watch the skaters circle the rink to the sounds of “Hernando’s Hideaway.” “I feel like it’s a collaborative experience with me and the instruments. And I get really excited about these sounds and the ideas that come from them.”

SEE IT: Ethan Rose plays Oaks Park Tuesday, Jan. 27. 8 pm. $10 (includes skate rental). All ages.

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