Recommended Agenda Early Warnings (Music) Soundboard Member Picks

Freakwater, Nora O'Connor

The music industry is notorious for chewing up artists and spitting them out—starting a band rates pretty low as a career decision. That’s why bands built on friendship, fun, and love of the craft often last the longest. Janet Bean and Catherine Irwin, who both grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, started singing together in their late teens for the joy of it—they’d break into song while, say, washing dishes—and in the late 80s they formed Freakwater. They haven’t released a new album since 2005 and both are active to varying degrees with solo projects, but they still come together every now and then, and this week they’ll perform in Chicago for the first time in more than seven years, supported by longtime bassist Dave Gay and guitarist Jim Elkington (Bean’s partner in the Horse’s Ha) and focusing on material from 1994’s Feels Like the Third Time. In all likelihood the distinctive weave of their voices, broken in after so many years like a favorite pair of jeans—Bean’s is refined, Irwin’s relatively coarse—will make it feel like no time at all has passed. Old friends just fall back into their groove. —Peter Margasak Nora O’Connor opens.

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Johnny Young, Michael Vallera, MT Coast, Double Morris

In the duo Cleared, multi-instrumentalist Michael Vallera launches surges of jagged guitar chords and looming electronic fog banks against Steven Hess’s unyielding drumbeats. In solo settings Vallera sticks to an electric guitar and pedals, but his music hardly sounds limited; without another player to establish a rhythm or set boundaries, he stirs up masses of sound that feel as big as weather systems. Tone and texture can vary drastically from one set to the next; I’ve heard him drone like a squadron of WW II bombers and swirl like he was auditioning for the Cocteau Twins, and on the upcoming EP Dead Suns (Nihilist) he lets fly with some shredding that sounds like someone fed steel girders into a lumber mill. —Bill Meyer Johnny Young headlines; Michael Vallera, MT Coast, and Double Morris open. $8, free with RSVP at rsvp@emptybottle.com

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Cross Record, Great Life, Nat Brooke

As Cross Record, Chicagoan Emily Cross tiptoes along the line between experimental ambient drone and soft-spoken acoustic indie folk—assuming there’s a line there in the first place. Though the south Florida transplant has a delicate, soulful voice that most singer-songwriters would sell their Martin guitars for, her ambition makes her much more than just another ignorable cafe strummer: she often contorts and layers her singing to create a dark, tense atmosphere that’s more likely to elicit a chill down the spine than a gentle sway of the hips. On last year’s Be Good (Lay Flat), she seamlessly shifts from the fluttering, mostly acoustic “Maybe I’m Crazy” to the gloomy, trudging “Dirt Nap,” a goth-touched epic that would turn Michael Gira’s head. The album’s nine haunting songs are more expansive than much of her earlier work, perhaps because she recruited a host of other players to help build her labyrinths of hard-to-identify creaks and galunks. Whatever comes next is going to be good, I promise. Cross performs with a backing band tonight. —Kevin Warwick Great Life and Nat Brooke open. $6

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Brooklyn Rider

It’s no longer unusual for a classical group to have a name that doesn’t include a word like “quartet” or “ensemble,” or for it to focus on new compositions or on music that draws on pop, jazz, electronica, and the like. All of which means New York string quartet Brooklyn Rider isn’t an oddity these days—but it’s one of the best of this new generation. Violinists Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen, violist Nicholas Cords, and cellist Eric Jacobsen (Colin’s brother) formed the quartet in 2006, while playing together in Yo-Yo Ma’s expansive Silk Road Project. In Ma’s group they adapt music from all over Asia, and in Brooklyn Rider they’ve done likewise—for the excellent 2008 album Silent City (World Village), they collaborated with Iranian kamancheh virtuoso Kayhan Kalhor. That’s not to say Brooklyn Rider restricts itself to Asian music: last year they released a double CD collecting the complete string quartets of Philip Glass, plus an album called Seven Steps (In a Circle) that collides a dramatic rendering of Beethoven’s meticulous String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp Minor (with heavy use of glissando and less vibrato than is traditional) with the dense 2008 work Together Into This Unknowable Night by New York composer Christopher Tignor (who leads the rock-flavored new-music group Slow Six). The real oddity on the album, though, is the title track, a response to the Beethoven quartet composed collectively by all four members of Brooklyn Rider, who write in the liner notes that they were “guided by a spirit of free play rather than the heavy hand of the auteur’s pen.” It’s just 12 minutes long, in contrast with the 40-minute Beethoven quartet, but its scratchy textures, extended techniques, and rapid-fire movement make up for in impact what’s missing in duration and exposition. For tonight’s concert the group will play Seven Steps, but the centerpiece of the program isn’t the Beethoven but rather another classical warhorse, Felix Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 1 in E-flat. Also included are John Zorn’s The Alchemist, Colin Jacobsen’s “Three Persian Miniatures,” and works by Christina Courtin, Dana Lyn, and Vijay Iyer, all from a series of commissions called the Brooklyn Rider Almanac, for which the group asks composers to use any artist from the past 50 years as an inspiration. —Peter Margasak $35, $5 students

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Circuit des Yeux, Rabid Rabbit, These Wonderful Evils, Nad Navillus

When Robert Fripp broke up King Crimson in 1974 (for neither the first nor the last time), he explained that he didn’t want to work in an unwieldy, dinosaur-dimensioned formation but rather operate as a “small, mobile, independent, and intelligent unit.” Fripp may not have foreseen what four decades would do to the price of gas (and thus the feasibility of touring in a group with a big pile of gear), but he looks like a soothsayer when you consider the current wave of performers who take the stage with just one instrument and some electronic augmentation. These Wonderful Evils is Zak Boerger, an artist from Bloomington, Illinois, who like Chris Forsyth and Steve Gunn plays solo guitar music informed by eclectic influences and a rock ’n’ roll mind-set. The inexorable flow and slow-burn drone of the long pieces on his most recent LP, Little Church (Sparrows & Wires/Horror Bag), make them sound like what would’ve happened if Pete Cosey had traded licks with Davey Graham over a beat laid down by one of Brian Eno’s drum machines; on a live recording from last month that’s available on his Bandcamp page, a loop pedal provides an undulating foundation for Boerger’s lyrical fingerpicking and thoughtful, fuzz-coated extrapolations. This concert is part of a series of benefits (here and in Barcelona, Madrid, and New York City) to help musicians and artists Dan and Letha Rodman Melchior pay for Letha’s cancer treatment. —Bill Meyer Circuit des Yeux headlines; Rabid Rabbit, These Wonderful Evils, and Nad Navillus open. $10 donation requested

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Erin McKeown, Jenn Grant

Erin McKeown shows off the malleability of the songs on the new Manifestra (TVP) by including a bonus disc that acknowledges her coffeehouse roots with ten acoustic-guitar versions of the polished full-band tracks on the album proper. McKeown has always seemed to me like a pop polymath trapped in the body of a protest singer, but here she approaches politics with a heavy-handedness she’s previously kept in check. “The Politician” helpfully points out that corruption is bad, and “The Jailer” notes that current border policies are fucked-up. “Baghdad to the Bayou,” which channels the swamp-rock grooves of CCR and ties the war in Iraq to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, was cowritten via text message with Rachel Maddow. I’m down with what McKeown is saying, but I’d personally prefer to find such opining on the op-ed page. Thankfully her delivery—with the exception of the horrible rapping on the title track—redeems these lapses in judgment. Like the proverbial spoonful of sugar, her effortless singing and charming melodies help even bitterest lyric medicine go down. McKeown is joined here by Marc Dalio on drums and Matt Douglas on horns. —Peter Margasak Jenn Grant opens. $12

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Ultraista, Prefuse 73

Between them British producer Nigel Godrich and American drummer Joey Waronker have been intimately involved with some of the most popular and influential music of the past couple decades: Godrich has worked with Radiohead, Pavement, and the Flaming Lips, among others, while Waronker has played with Beck, Nelly Furtado, R.E.M., and a zillion more. But they’re finally calling their own shots in Ultraista, a trio rounded out by unremarkable British singer Laura Bettinson. Unfortunately, though their self-titled debut for Temporary Residence shows off many of their trademarks—densely percolating polyrhythms, overlapping synths playing terse licks and colorful washes, and metronomic bass lines, here by Gus Seyffert—too much of it feels unfinished. Bettinson tries to caress the modest melodies, but she lacks the charisma and range to bring the songs’ skeletal blueprints to life. And because Godrich and Waronker are both members of Thom Yorke’s Atoms for Peace—who release their first album on Tuesday and will likely follow that with loads of touring—I’m thinking it’s unlikely we’ll ever hear Ultraista evolve their approach to the point that they’re writing real songs. —Peter Margasak Prefuse 73 opens. $18

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Sera Cahoone, Ryan Jeffrey

Sera Cahoone named her recent third solo album, Deer Creek Canyon (Sub Pop), after a park near where she grew up in Colorado; in the mid-90s she moved to Seattle, where she still lives, and played drums in Carissa’s Wierd, Band of Horses, and other groups. Almost every song on Deer Creek Canyon expresses a longing for home, familiarity, and companionship, whether she’s literally yearning for a place (on the title track) or struggling with the pull of romantic nostalgia (on “Rumpshaker” she sings, “But now that I’m here I don’t know why I came at all”). As with her previous records, Cahoone’s sometimes wispy, sometimes twangy folk-rock flirts dangerously with ethereal fluff a la Sarah McLachlan, but she saves her songs with the directness of her writing and the leanness of the arrangements. —Peter Margasak Ryan Jeffrey opens. $10

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Casket Lottery, Maps for Travelers, Sweet Cobra, Jar'd Loose

If you’re a forlorn thirtysomething susceptible to nostalgia and still partial to early-aughts emocore—the kind that’s heavy on thick, twangy bass and doleful, out-of-key vocals with syllables drawn out like thiiiiiiiiisss!—the past five years have been pretty kind. Midwestern staples such as Small Brown Bike, Braid, and the Get Up Kids have re-formed and released new material, and just last year Kansas City’s Casket Lottery (who broke up in 2006) did the same, reintroducing their relatively proggy brand of emo with last fall’s Real Fear (No Sleep)—piano and second guitar now included. Having evolved into their present shape from that of a metalcore pillar a la Coalesce (who also exist again), Casket Lottery have a knack for playing potent, intricate guitar licks and getting as tough as the raspy vocal harmonies of Nathan Ellis and Stacy Hilt allow. Their 2000 release Moving Mountains stands toe-to-toe with anything from that era, and despite 2013’s expanded lineup and the visible gray hair on the heads of the band’s front men, the mature and thoughtful Real Fear can match the spirit of the best material in Casket Lottery’s catalog—aches and pains and all. —Kevin Warwick Maps for Travelers, Sweet Cobra, and Jar’d Loose open. $10

Recommended Soundboard All Ages

Action Bronson, Calez, Alex Wiley, Impala Sound Champions

Queens rapper and former chef Action Bronson spent most of last year supporting Blue Chips, a Reebok-sponsored mixtape cut with Brooklyn producer Party Supplies. It was one of the most celebrated rap releases of 2012—the Reader’s Miles Raymer praised its boldly sloppy subversion of NYC hip-hop—and a wave of year-end best-of roundups that mentioned it began right around the same time Bronson released the Alchemist-produced mixtape Rare Chandeliers (Vice/Warner). Though Rare Chandeliers doesn’t have the rule-breaking, free-for-all aesthetic that helped make Blue Chips a hit, Bronson preserves the playful energy he demonstrated on the earlier recording, delivering lines about his lothario-foodie lifestyle with a just-blazed attitude that smooths out his rough, sometimes piercingly nasal voice. Alchemist’s beats recall 70s exploitation-film soundtracks, their dramatic horn melodies, burning guitar solos, and buoyant bass lines bolstering Bronson’s outsize rebel-without-a-cause character—together they’re as much fun as a midnight screening of a grindhouse flick with a half dozen rowdy friends. —Leor Galil Calez, Alex Wiley, and Impala Sound Champions open. $22, $20 in advance, $40 VIP tickets

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Ital, Chrissy Murderbot, Hieroglyphic Being

According to a Village Voice profile by Michaelangelo Matos, San Francisco postrocker turned Brooklyn dance-music producer Daniel Martin-McCormick considers Malcolm X his primary fashion inspiration and says that he tries “to exclusively wear Bob Marley shirts”—in other words, he’s either a completely radical guy or the worst kind of obnoxious smirking ironist. But I don’t care which—Dream On, the 2012 album he released under the pseudonym Ital on incredible British label Planet Mu, is so good that I’d forgive behavior more egregious than fake Marley fandom. Martin-McCormick also plays in noisy experimental group Mi Ami, where his work has grown increasingly electronics-based, but nothing he’s done there has suggested that he was developing into what Dream On has revealed him to be: a full-blown techno producer with one foot in the form’s Detroit roots and one in its wiggy, art-damaged fringe. The album is full of odd sounds and challenging ideas, but more crucially it’s also the sort of thing that can get a crowd moving. —Miles Raymer Chrissy Murderbot and Hieroglyphic Being open. $8

Recommended Early Warnings (Music) Soundboard Sold Out (Music) All Ages

Ellie Goulding

British singer-songwriter Ellie Goulding first released the song “Lights” near the end of 2009, but it wasn’t till last year that it found its proper audience—and in the process exploded unexpectedly into a global hit that reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100. “Lights” is a big, generous anthem with a tasteful but ecstatic techno bump and a massively epic chorus that almost demands to be screamed along to on a dance floor by drunk girls. But Goulding isn’t afraid to challenge her listeners. Last year’s Halcyon—which she released while its predecessor, Lights, was still charting—has some genuinely aggressive sounds and a nice spooky vibe that recalls Kate Bush and Tori Amos in equal measure, but it doesn’t sacrifice the mega hooks that rope in casual fans. She’s toured with Katy Perry and with Grimes, proving that she works just as well with a pop idol as she does with a more experimental musician. And the way her own musical ambition has paid off has probably helped close the gap between the two. —Miles Raymer St. Lucia opens.

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Jose James

R&B singer Jose James isn’t a known quantity in the jazz world, though tastemakers such as British DJ Gilles Peterson have done their best to make him one. James has made it clear to anyone listening that he doesn’t consider himself a jazz artist, even though early in his career he worked with the likes of Chico Hamilton and Junior Mance and in 2010 he recorded an intimate album of jazz standards with pianist Jef Neve called For All We Know (Impulse). With his rich, malleable, expressive voice, though, he’s an artisan compared to current R&B practitioners such as Frank Ocean or Miguel—and that’s apparently enough to persuade some people that he must be singing jazz. To my ears it’s obvious that James’s focus is on modern R&B, with a heavy dose of D’Angelo. He does little to disrupt that comparison on his newest and best record, No Beginning No End (Blue Note), which succeeds in large part because he’s no longer searching for his sound. It features bassist Pino Palladino (who also coproduced), a key player on D’Angelo’s Voodoo, and its terse, velvety horn charts and stuttery hip-hip grooves also recall that paradigm-shifting album. The influence of hip-hop-producer J Dilla is audible too, heightened by the presence on several tracks of keyboardist Robert Glasper, whose current project is steeped in Dilla’s sound—tightly coiled rhythms, compressed frequency range, gut-thumping bass. Unlike D’Angelo, whose singing is fiercely focused but reserved, James uses the full range of his powerful voice; it can be silky, gentle, and imploring, but every so often he really pours it on, a move that’s all the more powerful because he uses it so sparingly. An undercurrent of the blues in his style connects him to jazz (he admits that jazz is a part—but just a part—of his sound), and his writing covers more turf than D’Angelo’s does—the lovely “Come to My Door” could be a coffeehouse staple rather than a slow jam. He’s supported by a lean band featuring bassist Solomon Dorsey, keyboardist Kris Bowers, trumpeter Takuya Kuroda, and drummer Nate Smith (a Dave Holland sideman). —Peter Margasak $18, $15 in advance

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Soundgarden

Very few reuniting bands get the kind of high-profile opportunity to show off what they can still do that Seattle grunge legends Soundgarden did—their first new single in 16 years, “Live to Rise,” played during the end credits of The Avengers. Their first new album in just as long, King Animal (Loma Vista), makes the most of that exposure: though there’s no way it could sound as fresh and wild as the band did in 1989, it’s a great gift to their fans, as well as to anyone who needs a little schooling in just how incredibly influential they were in their prime. It’s 52 minutes that never let up, with a refreshing variety in theme and tempo, and Chris Cornell’s snarly rock-god pipes are as strong as ever; founding guitarist Kim Thayil is here too, as are drummer Matt Cameron (who joined in 1986) and bassist Ben Shepherd (aboard in 1990). The band’s songwriting star might never have burned as bright as Nirvana’s did, but there’s something to be said for a band that’s built to last—and Soundgarden sounds surprisingly indestructible. —Monica Kendrick

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Alfonso Ponticelli & Swing Gitan