Monday Roundup #86

---

Concert announcements:

Ladyfinger [Kayla Milmine/Diane Roblin] / 2022-09-18 (Sunday – early!) [FB event]

Paulapalooza (feat. Biblical / Mother Tongues / Rockford) / Monarch Tavern 2022-09-22 (Thursday). $17 advance, 19+. [FB event]

Zine Dream 13 Launch Party (feat. Masahiro Takahashi / Phèdre / Man Made Hill ) / MOCA Toronto 2022-09-23 (Friday). $15 for ticket / $20 w/ a drink. [FB event]

---

Shows this week:

Track Could Bend #71 (feat. Jelly Ear [Cory Harper-Latkovich/Naomi MaCarroll-Butler/Sara Constant, Flute / Tania Gill & Victor Bateman) / Wenona Lodge 2022-09-06 (Tuesday). $PWYC, masks required. [FB event]

Ghostlight / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2022-09-07 (Wednesday) [FB event]

Cosmic Country For Communists (feat. Janet MacPherson/Kurt Newman/Blake Howard/Andrew Furlong / Nick Flanagan / Cassie Cao) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2022-09-08 (Thursday). $pwyc.

Triio [Six-ish Plateaus CD Release!] (Animatist) / The Tranzac (Main Hall) 2022-09-09 (Friday – early!) [FB event]

Reverberations & Resonances [works for "solo alto saxophone and electronics" by James Tenney and Paolo Griffin] (feat. David Zucchi) / Array Space 2022-09-09 (Friday). General admission: $15, Students/Seniors/Arts Workers: $10. [FB event]

Musica Universalis: Tactile Stories album release show (feat. Colin Fisher/Mike Gennaro / Mark Hundevad [solo vibraphone]) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2022-09-09 (Friday) [FB event]

riverMOUTH (feat. Sharada Eswar/Andrea Thompson/Sheniz Janmohamed) / Oculus Pavilion @ South Humber Park 2022-09-10 (Saturday). $free, outdoors. [FB event]

Ayal Senior & Friends (feat. Ayal Senior & Kurt Newman / The Sympathetic String Band / Nick Flanagan / Floatation Device) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2022-09-11 (Sunday – 2:30 p.m.) [FB event]

Richard Laviolette / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2022-09-11 (Sunday – 5 p.m.)

riverMOUTH (feat. Christine Duncan with The Element Choir) / Oculus Pavilion @ South Humber Park 2022-09-11 (Sunday). $free, outdoors. [FB event]

SynCirSundays (feat. Alex Fournier/Nilan Perera/Rick Sacks / Robin Buckley/Jay Hay/Jim Lewis/Nilan Perera) / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2022-09-11 (Sunday – early!) [FB event]

Icterus [Robert Grieve/Patrick O'Reilly/Mark Godfrey/Stefan Hegerat] / The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge) 2022-09-11 (Sunday) [FB event]

---

Bandcamp corner:

• Humbly described as an "experimental guitar record", this new effort from David Psutka is also an exploration of squidgy synthy sounds and a tasty leftfield pop effort, powered by vocals from Robin Dann (of Bernice) and Alanna Stuart (of Bonjay).

---

It happened this week...

• ...on September 10, 2010 at The Music Gallery.

Chicago Underground Duo - first set excerpt

[Do remember that you can click on the tags below to go back and find the original posts (and often, more stuff) from these artists.]

Recording: Chicago Underground Duo

Artist: Chicago Underground Duo

Songs: Locus + Boss

Recorded at The Garrison ("Wavelength 597"), May 1, 2014.

Chicago Underground Duo - Locus + Boss

Full review to follow. Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor brought their intriguing mix of warm ambience and funky grooves to this Wavelength show. This one-two set opener (which similarly leads off their new Locus album) came as a joined-up mini-suite, so it just makes sense to let them flow together here as well.

Recording: Chicago Underground Duo

Artist: Chicago Underground Duo

Songs: two excerpts^*

Recorded at The Music Gallery, September 10, 2010.

Chicago Underground Duo - first set excerpt

Chicago Underground Duo - second set excerpt

My notes for this show can be found here.

^* I don't know if these are actual "songs" by the duo or purely improvised pieces. If anyone know titles for these, please leave a comment.

Gig: Chicago Underground Duo

Chicago Underground Duo

The Music Gallery. Friday, September 10, 2010.

First night of the concert season at the Music Gallery, and early on a few MG types could be seen milling around in the kitchen, toasting new beginnings to the slightly incongruous strains of "Carry On Wayward Son". Don't let it be said that this is as stuffy an institution as might be imagined from simply flipping through its avant-leaning listings. First and foremost it's one of the best places in the city to go and listen to a show, with respectful audiences paying attention to the lovely acoustics inside St. George the Martyr Church.

Certainly a good space to listen to the Chicago Underground Duo, whose name is adequately descriptive. Consisting of cornetist Rob Mazurek and drummer/percussionist Chad Taylor, the pair are longstanding members of Chicago's avant/improvisational scene, having played and recorded with this project in some different configurations (including the Chicago Underground Trio and Quartet).

Mazurek was wearing a suit, his collar turned halfway up and shirt partially untucked. Under his bearded visage he looked a little like a Scandinavian politician on a bender. Besides playing his horn and working with some electronics, he'd make use of the Music Gallery's piano. Taylor was more dressed-down and looked to be fighting a bit of a cough throughout the night.

The night's first set was comprised of several different "pieces" that segued from one to another in a continuous suite. Not knowing their music very well, I don't know how much of this was based on "songs" in their repertoire, but the night flowed with the spirit of profound improvisation. The first set opened with an introductory segment, a couple minutes of minor-key clusters of notes on the piano and rolling drums before that was overtaken by a synth loop that would drone away, eventually joined by little horn figures. There would be quite a range in the tone of the music — from that blissful ambiance to a raucous drum solo to dramatic piano, but it all hung together very nicely. The whole first segment lasted about thirty-five minutes before a burst of applause and then the band started another one, again with quiet floating trumpet and watery percussion — very In a Silent Way — that melded into a gentle kalimba rhythm from Taylor that Mazurek picked up on and accompanied. Beautiful stuff.

The second set had a very different vibe — starting off more "electronic", with an oscillating squiggling sinewave providing a steady background for several minutes for the pair to groove to. At this point there was a convergence with a certain kind of "Chicago" post-rock sound — that's no coincidence, seeing as the band has been putting out albums on the Thrill Jockey label for years, putting them in the company of bands that are categorized as "rock", but who are converging toward a similar sound.

But the intriguing element is how that was only one element of a set that ranged widely from there, as that beginning gave way to after another piano interlude that became more tunelike and almost "cool", in the jazz sense, as Mazurek picked out a theme that then transformed into harder-edged abstract chords. Then more shifting as Taylor moved from behind the kit to a cajón (I think) and Mazurek pitched in to create a percussion duo.

The next selection returned to ambiance, but came from a different musical direction with Mazurek's processed wordless vocalisations and Taylor's kalimba, in a sweep that ranged from lullaby to roar. Getting loud again, the final movement included a cascading six-note synth figure, sounding like the opening bars of an early 80's newscast theme looped over and over giving a backbone for the drums and cornet before the whole thing ended in another celebratory surge of percussion.

An intense and fully satisfying show. Once again, this is the sort of music that's at the amorphous edge of several strands of things I like, and I'm glad that when I want to take the plunge into something like this that the Music Gallery is there to provide.¹

Listen to a couple selections from this show here.

---

¹ The Music Gallery is special cultural institution, and one of those things that make it worth living in a city like this. For anyone who would like to support forward-thinking music of all kinds, the best first step is to become a member. As luck would have it, the Music Gallery has a limited-time special offer right now, that includes a discounted membership plus a one-year subscription to MusicWorks magazine. And to make it all the sweeter, members always get five bucks off the price of shows. This is a super-sweet deal, and you can learn more here.