Aleks/Eva...no...Magic Key

So I saw Ms Aleks under the new band name Magic Key at Whistler this Thursday 29, September. Whistler is such a small venue, it's easy to fill the bastard to capacity. It looked that way as I was looking for parking. There was a line in front. Normally that is discouraging enough to have me go home, but I did not put on my dwindling supply of rose oil perfume for nothing. The intimacy of the place is worth the wait. I make it inside and on time, yay! Magic Key....Aleks continues to play all new songs I think including one that she wrote yesterday. I say Aleks because the rest of the band was not on stage with her. That can be a drummer.... formally known as The Drummer and perhaps one or two other musicians. For the moment we still only have the CD May A Lightning Bolt Caress You. It's just 5 tracks and so you know there is more. Rarely does she do anything from that CD. They still point in the direction of what she is doing now, you still see a distance. They can barely speak about what is to come. The new songs are as dark and urgent and more elaborate with multiple layers of sound that still carry you in a rushing current. Well, that's with a full band. On stage that last Thursday of September Ms Aleks went solo. After this performance I put her in the same company as Fielded and Telepathe. Huh? So what if I've seen them all at Empty Bottle? Fielded, in it's most ambient never bores, too tense. Aleks in this solo show has this and so the comparison. As many times as I've seen her, it's always been with a full band. The idea of a solo show at Whistler is not the same thing as Empty Bottle. I think Aleks felt a little outside that comfort zone as she seemed shy to me at first. I always go on about how cool it is that Whistler is small, but sometimes that means you can hear people talk when you don't want to, and that can bother the artist sometimes.

To this day my father listens to the classical music station, and so since my childhood I acquired this high you get from listening to classical piano. There is a rawness, a sincerity that contemporary rock and pop lacked during periods of my childhood and classical piano often was this border-less refuge. There's a point. Yes, it relates to Aleks.....before I forget. Classical piano had this singular authority in how it articulated emotion. Just with the music you felt with the weight of a narrative. The composer knowing how to weave different scenarios for conflict, and breathless climax. There is some of that in Magic Key. And where some bands seek to put you in a state of innocent wonder like some sweet shoegaze does. Magic Key seems to warn about the margins of that wonder-land, colorful but dangerous.

architecture

Ok, so these pictures are actually from when they played as Panda Riot in the summer of '09 I think. I did not take so many when they came back as architecture. I've seen this band perform in one way or another so many times I'm familiar with the clothes they wear. The shirt that Rebecca wears I see it on her all the time. It's not a bad thing. You see a band a few times, your going to notice some things. And I like having this familiarity with the music that I like.

Late....I know. Way after The Reader reviewed it. But I've been meaning to write about them since learning of them earlier in the year. They are Rebecca Scott and Melissa Harris. Yes class that Rebecca....from Panda Riot and Melissa briefly was in the band herself. So they are local and both musicians have a long term relationship with the Chicago music scene. I've been a fan of Panda Riot for a number of years. I've seen them gig a lot. They have a full CD and EP available, and have a good two CD's worth of material in the works. And so briefly was Melissa Harris as part of Panda Riot. As architecture they carry on this urban faerie take of dream pop with the CD when we were young. The CD has 6 songs, all brilliant. Brian Cook of PR mixed and mastered. The lyrics are clear, easy to follow, much like in Scott's other band, and so one can feel included in the mystery evoked. The other-worldly yellow brick road is paved most effectively with the girls' voices. They register just above haunting. If you are already a fan of Broadcast, Cranes..Arrghh!!!! Look them up....architecture can be for you. They sound perfect for dancing at Shimmer at Latebar, Scary Lady Sarah's monthly shoe-gaze night.

We Are Hex 2007-2011

I needed an excuse to upload these, and the break up of the band is as good...or bad as it gets.

I got a facebook message saying that We Are Hex broke up and that made a lot of people sad including myself. One might roll the eyes and say "Zig there are real problems and then then there are pretend problems..... there's a recession and the unemployment rate is at over 9%. " And China may be wearing the next shoe to drop. Perhaps, but I just became aware of them this May. Somehow there is comfort to draw from the music you encounter during these dark times. Their existence more delicate still. They are of the same world and so are subject to it's whim. All three times that I saw WAH were within a span of four months, in quick succession. The sadness comes because when you like something you feel like you have liked it for ever. I've had the time now to further both CDs to find their place in the mind. The music I hear always carries with it the time-stamp of what was happening around it. The best have that long shelf-life, and I trust WAH to have it. Music is not created in a vacuum. It responds and reflects the world around it. So We Are Hex broke up and that is a sad, sad thing. That's a lot of gigs between them gigs. The last two times they did mostly new songs that were not recorded yet and apparently will remain so. I got pictures and video for all three times. And youtube has a lot of documented performances. They sounded abrasive and weird, but with a New Model Army-working-class appearance. Eerie and familiar. I love how Jilly danced. At first her movements seemed so chaotic at first, still are but now I know her movements. The energy of the music allows for no rest between sprints from gig to gig. This is not saying I know why they broke up. I do not. But they played a lot. They played everywhere, but with still a lot of nation to cover. The furthest west they went I think was SXSW.