chicago
PREMIERE: Mike Tafoya kicks off his next chapter with a new band and debut EP slated for June
You may be familiar with Chicago native Mike Tafoya – he’s certainly been around the block a bit, an active musician for more than three decades with Tafoya’s Lost Boyzz among others; certainly what you’d call a rock lifer, and he’s nowhere near done. Quite the opposite, in fact: he’s moved on to the next …
Track: Chicago’s Horsegirl fuzz their way back into our grateful ears with the melodic shimmer of ‘World of Pots And Pans’, and unveil US and European tour dates.
Fast becoming one of my favourite outfits, the inestimably cool and unlimitedly suave Horsegirl have just released another laid back fuzzy pop single ‘World of Pots and Pans’. Complete with a lyrical nod to The Jesus and Mary Chain, this band is releasing some of the most satisfyingly scuzzy pop material that positively shines with …
News: Chicago’s coolest trio Horsegirl announce debut album ‘Versions of Modern Performance’ through Matador Records and unveil the utterly brilliant single ‘Anti-glory’.
With an attitude that recalls The Jesus and Mary Chain and scuzzy, fuzzy drone attack, Horsegirl have just delivered a stunning single ‘Anti-glory’ – filled with a certain cognitive and sonic dissonance, brutal drums, sweet doo wop backing singing straight from the sixties and a raw visceral guitar attack. This is utterly compelling and marvellous …
PREMIERE: Chicagoan Safety Town is ready to ‘Bloom’ as he announces debut album for November
A song whose chorus is, ‘It seems like everything runs on repeat’ could be a little too on-the-nose as a covid-era track, but it suits our current times so well that it comes as a relief to learn that it was finished pre-pandemic, not to mention the album it’s the lead single from. Say hello …
Album review: Mind Maintenance – ‘Mind Maintenance’: Chicago rhythm masters produce a deeply contemplative, mantric set to guard against the world
TAKE one of the finest and most intuitive leftfield-into-indie jazz rhythm sections of past decades, Chicago drummer Chad Taylor and bassist Joshua Abrams, who between them amass waay over a couple hundred performance credits to their name on Discogs: for artists such as the Chicago Underground Trio and all its various spiralling iterations, Brokeback, Sam …
Track: Mind Maintenance – ‘Valence’: further cognitive hygiene for mbira and guimbri calls you to the hearth
WHEN Chicago rhythm section masters Chad Taylor and Joshua Abrams get together to play, you know the results will be intelligent, off-kilter, crisp; intuitive. The pair have worked together in the engine room on so, so many great and cred records down the past coupla decades, including for the Chicago Underground Trio and all its …
Track: Mind Maintenance – ‘The Ladder’: Chicago legends Joshua Abrams and Chad Taylor bring percussive African contemplation
IF YOU’RE at all a follower of the Chicago music scene that erupted in so many directions back at the turn of the century, then the rhythmic adepts Chad Taylor and Joshua Abrams will probably need no introduction; given how, they were so deeply woven into intelligent, seminal albums by the Chicago Underground Trio and all its various …