Recording: Ozone

Artist: Ozone

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at Wenona Lodge (Track Could Bend #85), November 7, 2023.

Ozone - [excerpt]

As Derek McKeon's longstanding (now going for nearly a decade!) project ZONES continues to evole in a group-based, groovy direction, this project fork gives a chance to dig deeper into some the solo/ambient, er, zones that were there from the outset. Taking the time to drift along and examine the possibilities of each sonic warp, this set floated in place in a most pleasing way.

You can check out some the full set over on youtube:

[Track Could Bend will be back at Wenona in the New Year (Tuesday, January 2nd) with sets from SOUP and battle milk.]

Recording: LordAUK & Zones

Artist: LordAUK & Zones

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at The Music Gallery (X Avant XVI – Night 3), October 16, 2021.

LordAUK & Zones - [excerpt]

The Music Gallery's annual X Avant Festival felt like a return and a renewal in all the right ways. Although these weren't the first events presented by new-ish Artistic Director Sanjeet Takhar, they were the first ones in person, with performers and audience sharing space — a long-awaited return from all sides. Each of the nights played off the festival theme "You in Mind", looking for ways to amplify and support the overlapping communities being drawn together. Day Three ("Process") was "dedicated to the global thread of sustained tone as a healing modality" — by way of an eight-hour drone zone, letting the audience lay back on 918 Bathurst's sanctuary floor and watch projections planetarium-style on the high-arched ceiling.

This duo of ZONES' Derek McKeon and Doomsquad's Jaclyn Blumas brought out the serious synths and keybs to head straight for the heart of the planetarium – a move known in the drone game as "bringin' the Tange".

Recording: ZONES

Artist: ZONES

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Smiling Buddha, December 12, 2017.

ZONES - unknown

This night of planetarium drift-bliss from Chicago's Bitchin' Bajas included some smartly-programmed local openers refracting some complementary sonics. Known for a certain kind of murky dub-groove, Derek McKeon has once again tinkered with his project's musical DNA, expanding back to a duo that now incorporates live percussion. That inevitably adds some propulsion to the proceedings, especially in the spots when the rototoms get thrown into the mix.

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!

Recording: ZONES

Artist: ZONES

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Jam Factory (Feast in the East's 6th Anniversary), May 6, 2017.

ZONES - unknown

Another celebration for this east-end institution saw it returning to perhaps the most-loved of its many homes. In typical Feast fashion, besides food (and birthday cake!) there was a diverse range of music with no fewer than five acts helping to mark the occasion. Another syrupy selection of hazed-out dub-funk slices from Derek McKeon, the effect of this this set could be measured by the sight of the crowd up front dancing in their own pleasant cocoons/soft k-holes.

[And in another welcome return, on July 8th Feast in the East heads back to Prairie Drive Park for its second annual Arts in the Parks event. This day out is free, all-ages, and family-friendly and offers a free meal for all as well as live sets by The Cosmic Range, LAL and Saxsyndrum. Not to be missed — last year's event was one of the summer's highlights!]

[Thanks to Brandon Caswell Douglas for sharing his audio from this night — you can check out some his footage over at his youtube playlist for this event.]

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!

Recording: ZONES

Artist: ZONES

Song: VOYAGEUR

Recorded at The Music Gallery (A Night with Pleasence), February 11, 2017.

ZONES - VOYAGEUR

The Music Gallery does an excellent job of using its "institutional privilege" to boost the signal of a wide range of local culture-makers. This night saw the stage given over to local label Pleasence, whose output isn't united so much by genre as its striving-oddball aesthetic. Recently returning to performing as a solo act, Derek McKeon's songs might have been missing the back-and-forth vocals that made the band's duo incarnation such a treat, but there was still an immense sense of dub spaciousness and unstable wiggle-wobble in the music, all enhanced by Vanessa Rieger's lively improvised projection art.

Recording: ZONES

Artist: ZONES

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Sonic Boom (Record Store Day), April 16, 2016.

ZONES - unknown

I was sad to have missed the celebration party for Zones' new album, but with a big sub in place at Sonic Boom, it was an ample reward to hear the band experimenting with some new rhythms. No longer just woozing with their dub-psychedelic layers of echo-haze, there were also excursions like this that skewed more towards mutant disco.

^* I'm not sure if this a new track, or something that got reworked a bit from its previous form — lemme know if you can work out the title to this one.

Recording: Derek McKeon

Artist: Derek McKeon

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Smiling Buddha – basement (Casual Drones 14), January 14, 2016.

Derek McKeon - unknown

Having outgrown the small-scale confines of its former home at Milk Glass, the Casual Drones music series has landed at Smiling Buddha. Shifting to the larger venue has come with a definite sense of scaling up, with the shows taking place between two stages upstairs and down and the visuals (always a big element of the series) getting amped up even further. The main floor saw most of the stage removed to make way for a large lighting rig that resembled a sort of post-apocalyptic tanning bed and gave Romar L. Johnson a huge range of luminosity to paint with. So, to the good, there's a definite sense of ambition here — and the full house that was on hand showed there's an audience for this kind of experimentation. To the bad, however, this night did manage to live up to the series' derisive nickname of "Casual Bromes", with seven sets (and, by my count, ten musicians) but no women on stage. (And, for my money, I'm not sure why a night with that many acts needed to wait 'til almost ten to get started.)

This solo set from ZONES' Derek McKeon sounded rather like his band's material — except, perhaps, with the "song" element removed, leaving only strata of haze and dub-drift to wobble through.

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!

Recording: ZONES

Artist: ZONES

Song: Two Cans^*

Recorded at Smiling Buddha (basement), September 9, 2015.

ZONES - Two Cans

On a night of mostly-instrumental music celebrating the release of Fresh Snow's new EP, woozewave duo Derek McKeon and Kat Murie led things off in the basement with their tropical abstract grooves. Not instrumental, but as always the vocals were buried and distorted enough to not be the dominant feature of any of the songs.

^* The band has confirmed the title of this one.

Recording: ZONES

Artist: ZONES

Song: Sandglow^*

Recorded at Jam Factory (Feast in the East 44), January 3, 2015.

ZONES - Sandglow

The first weekend after New Year's Eve is often a deadzone for gigs, a gap that Feast In The East has been filling for a couple years now. As the night's best gig in town, this drew a full room to the other side of the DVP, offering a very tasty Dutch meal and a quartet of bands you'd want to stand up and move a little to.

This night was led off by tropical-wooze duo ZONES, who may have sounded better than any of the times I've seen 'em before — there's a delicate balance of haze and clarity that can easily get wrapped up in the former in a live setting. The sound gave some of their newer material a real chance to shine — and on tracks like this one, a chance to see just how much Kat Murie is adding to Derek McKeon's artistic vision. With its vaguely-reggae feel, this tune comes off like a bizarro-world Stranger and Patsy number — you can't really make out what Murie is answering in the back-and-forth vocals, but the underlying idea is still well expressed.

[The next Feast in the East, on Saturday, February 7th, is more of a mellow affair, but offers a no-less-impressive lineup including EONS, Matthew "Doc" Dunn, Jooj (Sook-Yin Lee & Adam Litovitz) and Alex Lukashevsky.]

^* Thanks to Derek for passing along the title to this one.

Recording: ZONES

Artist: ZONES

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Smiling Buddha, December 2, 2014.

ZONES - unknown

In the course of pursuing the glorpy/melting sonics that he prefers, Derek McKeon plays hide-and-seek with pop, experimenting with how deep the hooks can be buried under the murk and still worm their way into listeners' consciousness. Live, McKeon and Kat Murie dish out the structural elements of poptunes through a disorienting haze, leaving the listener with the half-remembered dreamsense of a song they once heard or a beach they once sat on, staring into the setting sun.

[ZONES will be playing Feast in The East tomorrow night (January 3, 2015).]

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!

Recording: ZONES

Artist: ZONES

Song: Not Chet^*

Recorded at The Great Hall (NXNE 2014: Wavelength 602), June 19, 2014.

ZONES - Not Chet

My quick notes for this set can be found here.

^* Given the different arrangement than on the recorded version, I'm not 100% positive this is correct until I get a confirmation.