Aleks/Eva

This first picture is from another performance in Bridgeport. Most of the time I've seen her were at Empty Bottle. It's not the only place to go to see this band. It's so rare to see cool bands like this in the south side of Chicago.
I took fewer pictures because I was dancing to this. This is already getting played in some local goth nights. Thanks Procession! You guys play this band in just the ideal context for me.


Aleks Eva played a Free Monday at Empty Bottle. I was already a fan since the Aleks And The Drummer days. The five songs on the EP I could not get enough. The EP is absolutely awesome as it is only a peek at what is to come. It was just one keyboard, one crazy drummer, one female operatic voice. That's it. On stage that was it. But what else? So you gotta do more theater, be more other-worldly, because that format is common enough. There are Kristeen Young, Dresden Dolls, and locally Post-Honeymoon. I like them all for their individual reasons. Aleks often dressed up in clothes that suggested that other-worldliness, like a post-punk faerie in casual wear. So I realize I use the ''faerie" a lot and to bands that have nothing to do with each other. In relation to Panda Riot it's in their sense of childlike wonder, songs of innocence. Aleks Eva is about the shadows in that same world; the danger of that wonder, songs of experience. She must have learned her piano skills from that same faerie world. Listen to the music and you know that it demands, evokes the costume. Remember how dramatic classical music sounded as children. It was a roller coaster ride. Every song on the EP is a scene in a movie that we have yet to see, but are dying to see, trailers that kind of stand alone as well. So at first it was mostly the five songs and then some new material. Slowly, the new material became the main thing, and now don't ask about the EP. At first she was locked behind her keyboard most of the time, and it seems that she would rather just go to the front of the stage. And the music just so compels you to move. It's exactly the kind of music that goth clubs play enthusiastically.....or at least should. That sounded terribly arrogant of me. But perhaps it's the context I see this band in, that I can't help but see it so. The new material is awesome. The songs are more elaborate with more instruments. If you are already a fan, you will stay that way. From you the Aleks /Eva subcultural capital will build. This band is our local answer to The Vanishing.