Chicago Reader: The Blog: Post No Bills

A New Record Shop Opens in Logan Square

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:50:00 -0600

Google Maps

Jim Zespy, who bought the Chicago office of Southern Records and launched Chicago Independent Distribution late last fall, has followed through on his desire to take advantage of the company’s zoning and storefront location to open a record shop. Logan Hardware (2410 W. Fullerton) made a soft launch today, offering a limited selection of new and used vinyl and CDs and used DVDs.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Lowercase Locals: Graham Stephenson and Dave Barnes

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:37:24 -0600

As deep as Chicago’s free-improv scene runs, there aren’t too many folks devoted exclusively to what’s usually called “lowercase sound” or “electroacoustic improvisation,” which is characterized by small sonic gestures, collective development, and an unconventional aural palette that gravitates toward tonal extremes. Last year Jon Abbey, who runs the important New York label Erstwhile—perhaps the most visible and tireless proponent of this stuff—sent me a self-released, self-titled CD-R by a couple of Chicagoans, Graham Stephenson (trumpet) and Dave Barnes (electronics). I didn’t get around to listening to it until very recently, but now that I have it’s clear that these two are pushing in a very different direction than most local improvisers.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Medeski, Martin & Wood Flaunt Their Independence

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:34:19 -0600

Medeski, Martin & Wood

I’ve always made time to check out new music from jazzy organ trio-turned-jam band Medeski, Martin & Wood, but it’s been about a decade since the prospect has excited me. Back in the mid-90s the group pushed against all sorts of organ-trio conventions—they employed a bassist, Chris Wood, instead of the requisite guitarist; keyboardist John Medeski looked to organ rebel Larry Young for inspiration; and the band developed a light-footed repertoire that squeegeed away much of the customary Hammond B-3 grease. Led by their sense of daring, MMW pushed further into the realm of improvisation, where around the turn of the decade they made (to my ears anyway) a wrong turn.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Drag City Peers Into the Byways of Marrakech

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:03:55 -0600

Last month Drag City Records released Ouled Bambara: Portraits of Gnawa, its second project on the sublabel Twos & Fews, run by Kentuckian Nathan Salsburg. Salsburg, who also plays music himself and maintains the swell blog Root Hog or Die—which includes a directory of free MP3s of traditional music of all stripes—has worked for the Alan Lomax Archive since 2000, and both Twos & Fews releases have a raw, folkloric spirit. Last year the label debuted with a collection of a cappella singing by Kentucky coal miner Nimrod Workman, and to celebrate its release the label hosted an informal gathering at Intuit Gallery, where it played Workman’s music, screened rare video footage, and served quasi-authentic hillbilly delicacies.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Mexican Pop Sophisticate Natalia Lafourcade Plays Chicago

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:51:11 -0600

Natalia Lafourcade

I remember getting a copy of the self-titled debut album from Mexican pop singer Natalia Lafourcade back in 2003 and thinking it was nice, smart, and stylish but not particularly compelling compared to the work of more forceful Mexican artists like Julieta Venegas and Cafe Tacuba. Lafourcade was only 19 back then, but I didn’t bother to keep tabs on her development—which, as it turns out, was a mistake.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Rita J Finally Drops Her Debut

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:35:46 -0600

Rita J

I don’t know what it is about the hip-hop business that makes a new album so often take years longer than planned to see the light of day. I get it that leaks can screw with a label’s marketing efforts, and I always hear about how artists want to make sure everything is perfect—on Tuesday Chicago’s Kid Sister is releasing her debut album, Ultraviolet, after nearly two years of delays, much of which she spent tweaking its mixes and redoing its track list. Still, it’s a pop record—when perfection takes that long, it can’t be helping an artist’s career. I mean, I’ve been waiting for the second album by the great Chicago MC Diverse for six years now, but I’m not sure how many other fans are still holding out.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Postcards and Rugs by Mark Mothersbaugh

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:06:43 -0600

He's better known as front man for Devo and for his prolific work scoring TV shows and movies, but Mark Mothersbaugh is a visual artist as well. Back in 2005 I interviewed him about his music and about an exhibition of “corrected” antique photography he calls Beautiful Mutants that was happening at the time.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Experimental Sound on Film

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:09:00 -0600

Richard Lerman's "Sections for Screen"

We all know how important the soundtrack is to most films, and scores by certain composers—Ennio Morricone, Toru Takemitsu, Bernard Herrmann, Georges Delerue, and John Barry, to name a few—more than stand on their own. Other soundtracks rely heavily on nonmusical material, such as Walter Murch’s brilliant sound design in the Francis Ford Coppola film The Conversation. Though it’s rare for filmmakers to place as much emphasis on sound as they do on what’s on the screen, a program screening at the Gene Siskel Film Center on Thursday night at 6 PM offers just as much to fans of experimental music and noise as it does to cinephiles.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

The Marvelous Mishmash of the Mumlers

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:13:51 -0600

The Mumlers

The press release that accompanied my copy of Don’t Throw Me Away (Galaxia), the charming second album from San Jose’s Mumlers, cites Bobby “Blue” Bland as singer Will Sprott’s favorite artist. Sprott’s got nothing on Bland, one of the great soul-blues vocalists of all time, but his nimble band has forged its own quirky strain of mush-mouthed soul. It’s hard not to refer to them as “the Mumblers,” considering Sprott’s slack-jawed delivery—when he’s at his most loquacious he reminds me a bit of Andrew Bird.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

What Would Tortoise Buy?

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:02:04 -0600

To my knowledge no record store in the world matches the Amoeba Records location in LA, a sprawling supermarket housing every conceivable stripe of music, run by people who know and care about what they’re selling. I’m not alone in feeling this way, and almost everyone I know who really digs records makes sure to visit the shop on any trip to the city. In fact, the store gets so many visitors that it’s started tracking and reporting on musicians who shop there, posting silly promo videos that reveal who bought what. John Herndon and Douglas McCombs of Tortoise recently spoke about their purchases, and they’re so unhelpful that it’s actually rather entertaining. The video is after the jump.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Locust Music Hosts an Eclectic Saturday Showcase

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:04:40 -0600

Starless & Bible Black

I haven’t had time to fully digest it, but Shape of the Shape, the new second album by British trio Starless & Bible Black, sure seems like a winner. And since the band is playing Saturday night at the Empty Bottle as part of a showcase presented by local label Locust Music, I don’t think I should wait to post about the band till after I’ve listened to the new album as thoroughly as I think I ought to. I remember liking the group’s self-titled 2006 debut, also on Locust, but it certainly didn’t impress me right out of the gate like Shape of the Shape did. Now I feel stupid for not giving the debut more of my attention when it came out.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Matthew Shipp on His Own

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:43:40 -0600

Matthew Shipp

New York pianist Matthew Shipp, who plays solo tonight at Elastic as part of the Umbrella Music Festival, didn’t release his first solo recording, One (Thirsty Ear), until 2006, 18 years into his career. That record signaled a shift in his music. Though he hadn’t stopped working with his most famous collaborator, titanic tenor saxophonist David S. Ware, he’d been spending an increasing amount of time experimenting with electronic musicians and hip-hop artists (DJ Spooky, Anti-Pop Consortium, Spring Heel Jack)—but One signalled the start of a shift back toward acoustic sounds. One thing that Shipp never altered, though, was the rigor of his compositions and improvisations, regardless of context.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Bold Pianists Kick off the Umbrella Music Festival Tonight

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:54:37 -0600

Achim Kaufmann

In this week’s paper I write about a couple of the international artists performing at the Chicago Cultural Center tonight as part of “European Jazz Meets Chicago,” the opening celebration of this year’s Umbrella Music Festival. But don’t take my focus on Liudas Mockunas and Martin Brandlmayr to mean the other musicians on the bill aren’t worthy. In fact, the two visiting pianists tonight would merit special attention any day of the year. (So would the other two guests, Swiss reedist Hans Koch and Swedish guitarist David Stackenas.)

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Tobin Summerfield Pares Down His Sound

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:22:29 -0600

Tobin Summerfield

If you know the name Tobin Summerfield, that’s likely due to the sprawling large-band works the local guitarist and bassist has made in the past few years under the name Never Enough Hope—he assembles upwards of 20 musicians from the jazz and rock worlds to bring to life his minimalist epics. But on Thursday night at the Hideout Summerfield celebrates the digital release of a much more modest piece of work, a solo outing called Working Up to Full Reflection (Contraphonic).

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

The Visual Music of Swiss Director Peter Liechti

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:51:00 -0600

Hans Koch

The Umbrella Music Festival officially starts Thursday night with the six-act “European Jazz Meets Chicago” mini fest at the Chicago Cultural Center. But several visiting artists are getting an early jump by playing shows on Wednesday night. The Hideout presents two ad hoc groupings of top-notch European players, among them guitarist David Stackenas, drummer Martin Brandlmayr, and reedist Liudas Mockunas, and Swiss reedist Hans Koch plays a solo set presented by the Renaissance Society at the U. of C.'s Bond Chapel.

(Koch also plays a free solo set Friday at 4 PM at Corbett vs. Dempsey that isn't officially part of the festival.)]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Soulico Brings Its International Flavor to the Empty Bottle Tonight

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:14:30 -0600

Soulico

A bunch of high-profile cameos festoon the U.S. debut album by the Israeli production crew Soulico—including Ghostface, Rye Rye, Lyrics Born, and Del the Funky Homosapien—but frankly, they really aren’t needed. The music on Exotic on the Speaker (JDub) traffics in club-oriented hip-hop bangers, with the Tel Aviv foursome liberally drawing upon samples of Middle Eastern sounds, you know, for that regional flavor. The various singers and MCs who have a connection to the Middle East—Balkan Beat Box front man Tomer Yosef, Oren Barzilay, and Axum, who’s performing with the group tonight in their cover-free Chicago debut at the Empty Bottle—pack the most punch, fitting in easily with Soulico’s Mediterranean party vibe.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

A Snapshot—Musical and Visual—of the South Side in the 70s

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:25:49 -0500

Chicago’s invaluable Numero Group label has always complemented its superb collections with beautiful packaging—thorough, fascinating liner notes, rare archival photographs, lovely slipcases. In fact, over the imprint’s history it seems as though the physical presentation of each release has become more important and more elaborate, which makes sense considering how easy it is for most folks to simply illegally download something for free. For the label’s next knockout release, Light: On the Southside, the music is actually a complement to the art: a stunning 12-by-12, 132-page hardbound book featuring gorgeous black-and-white photographs shot by Michael L. Abramson at a handful of south-side blues clubs and lounges between 1975 and 1977.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Iceland's Hildur Gudnadottir Puts the Cello in Front

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:23:29 -0500

Hildur Gudnadottir

Cellist Hildur Gudnadottir has been working with the Icelandic band Mum since the late 90s, both live and on record—and she’ll be performing with them tonight at the Logan Square Auditorium—but she’s never been a full-fledged member. Which is probably for the best, because she’s got so much else going on.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Fred Lonberg-Holm: Cellist, Entrepreneur

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:33:41 -0500

Fred Lonberg-Holm

Chicago cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm is a busy guy, playing in countless ensembles (Frame Quartet, Vandermark 5, the Horse’s Ha, Fast Citizens, and his own Valentine Trio, among many others) and apparently pretty open to improvising with any player with a good idea or two in his head. He’s anything but a careerist—but he’s found his own low-key ways to make more of his music available over the years.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

ICE Cofounder Claire Chase Steps Out With Debut Solo Recording

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:59:25 -0500

Claire Chase

Is it just me, or is the killer new-music group and Chicago-New York presenting force International Contemporary Ensemble responsible for an inordinately large proportion of the exciting new music shows that happen in the city? A few weeks ago I saw violinist David Bowlin give a knockout performance of rarely performed work by Luigi Nono, and I’m super pumped about a program of works by the brilliant Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho happening next month at the MCA.

From the very start one of the key forces behind the organization has been the remarkable flutist Claire Chase, who plays a record release party at the Velvet Lounge tonight.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Belated Recs: The Atlas Sound, With Broadcast Monday at the Bottom Lounge

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:31:56 -0500

Bradford Cox (Atlas Sound)

Tonight the superb British duo Broadcast performs at the Bottom Lounge. When I wrote my recommendation for the show a while back, I hadn't yet gotten a copy of Logos (Kranky/4AD), the terrific new album by headliner Atlas Sound, the solo project of Deerhunter singer Bradford Cox. So consider this a belated double recommendation.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Radical Sound Artist Maryanne Amacher Dies

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:55:00 -0500

Maryanne Amacher

The singular sound artist Maryanne Amacher died yesterday at age 66; she’d suffered a stroke a couple weeks earlier. Although the one-time Stockhausen student released two stunning albums for John Zorn’s Tzadik label in the last decade—including last year’s remarkable Sound Characters 2—her work was really about the direct experience of sound through installations, where its psychoacoustic and deeply physical properties could be properly felt. Unfortunately, that discipline and purity relegated her to obscurity in most circles.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

You Weren't There (and Neither Was I)

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:45:00 -0500

Jeff Pezzati of Naked Raygun

This Saturday night at the Portage Theater filmmakers Joe Losurdo and Christina Tillman present another screening of You Weren’t There: A History of Chicago Punk 1977-84, their lively documentary about the early days of Chicago’s rock underground. (Miles Raymer reviewed the movie in his column when it came out in 2007.) On Tuesday, October 27, it will be released on DVD by Factory 25—and there will also be a limited-edition package that includes an LP compilation with tracks by most of the bands featured in the movie.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

The Chicago History Museum Wants Your Lounge Ax Stuff

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:40:04 -0500

Lounge Ax

Recently on its blog, the Chicago History Museum sent out a call for objects, photos, documents, and other ephemera pertaining to the well-loved Lincoln Park rock club Lounge Ax, which closed back in 2000 after years of licensing hassles and trouble with neighbors. The museum wants to better chronicle the venue's history, and to that end there's a donation form at the bottom of the post for those of you with something tangible to offer. If all you've got is memories, you can leave a comment. There are only 16 so far—I'm sure there are more people out there with something worth saying.

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Tribune Critic Julia Keller Plays Dumb

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:39:08 -0500

Julia Keller

In her review in Sunday’s paper, Tribune writer Julia Keller looks to be using her hatred of jazz mostly as a straw man—a way to give extra luster to her praise of David Hajdu’s new anthology, Heroes and Villains: Essays on Music, Movies, Comics, and Culture (Da Capo). Her angle is more or less “he makes jazz sound so good in theory, I almost forget that I can’t stand the shit.” I’m not about to argue with her taste, but it was hard not to cringe reading the piece. Right off the bat she writes, “[Chicago] is a city that runs on jazz, that thrives on it. Jazz is the gas in our tanks. It’s the fizz in our drinks. Jazz is always just around the corner.”

What say?

]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]