Panda Riot

Panda Riot will be playing Hideout this 22nd February. It will be in support for their new LP on Saint Marie Records Northern Automatic Music. It will be their release night.  This will be the first LP since She Dares All Things in 2007.  There is the work in between, Serious Radical Girls and Far And Near EP. And in between that are all the songs these shoegaze workhorses have yet to record but play a lot. This might come off as over stated but I'm a fan. When I'm putting the words Chicago and shoegaze in the same sentence its often because of them. They are the subtext. Yes that name was first weighted down with its baggage by many others previous. What I'm usually describing is what I saw live with my own eyes in my home town. This is Panda Riot. To follow them also is to have had exposure to a lot of other bands in and away from the shoegaze circle.  So with them you get to see a lot of what plays in Chicago early enough before it blows up and can sell out Metro, Riv. etc. This is because they perform a whole fucking lot, period. They have played with bands from their native Philadelphia to Brooklyn, NY. In chasing them around I discovered Warpaint, School Of Seven Bells....I've said that bit quite a few many times. I guess what I'm saying is that they provide a good  clear window into what plays currently live and what you will be seeing on as relative household names later. All this local and trans local subcultural capital you get exposure to while in a Panda Riot gig. And now they will be releasing the music that I believe they have been playing live already. A faster more assertive cardio replaces their once leisurely gait established by She Dares, songs of innocence. They are still urban faeries forever in a state of wonder. In becoming familiar with the common surroundings, a quicker pace naturally develops. So it seems to me with Northern Auto, the songs of experience.  They sound faster like Ringo Death Star. There's also one or two songs that sound .....darker like when faeries go driving to the south side looking for weed. Dark is not what they normally do and so its nice to see it come out of them. Until things are brighter, they are the band in black. I look forward to seeing them at Hideout.
Zig

http://whenthesunhitsblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/interview-panda-riot.html

Magic Key

In one name or another I've known of Magic Key for a long time, I think since 2007 when I saw her in a show with The Dials and Walking Bicycles under the name Aleks And The Drummer.  That was on a Free Monday at Empty Bottle, and far and away it's the place I've seen her the most in. That night felt like a weekend. It did not feel like a Monday. And they were all local bands. Anyway I don't tire of listening to May A Lightning Bolt Caress You. And I don't tire of listening to her live. Deric Criss was the drummer and can that guy go off. His drums were always urgent and dramatic and so was Aleks with her operatic power vocals and farsifa keyboard. This last time was Wednesday 9 Jan with Gel Set. The other bands that played I was too late for. They are local and I hope to see them again.
  So Magic Key.....the new songs have had years to evolve with live gigs. It used to be just her and a keyboard. Those early songs now recorded in amber. So we have a solid point of departure, a road to follow to and from. Now more instruments are being included and with the same authority as when I first saw her. And this authority projects many years older than she actually is. I don't feel a casual moment within her music. There's no patience here for your casual shoegaze gate, slacker! Magic Key has a naturally faster blood flow. It will have us goths dance like we did in the 90s. What?! I'm not taking the piss.....It was us goths that told them gazers their music was dance-worthy to begin with. I took the wrong detour........There is always a tension, that keeps you listening to Magic Key. She has this massive stage presence. What I was happy about that Wednesday night was the huge crowd she got to play for. The Bottle is the most home among home crowds. I don't know how many were there for Gel Set, she was next. I can say with conviction it's Magic Key is who got me at the Bottle. And I stayed for Gel Set.

  I can't identify MK songs by name. It's all one massive piece with pauses in between. Even as they have slowed, they still have that punk impatience, that punk urgency. A feeling that something is behind you and you can't turn around. You know that something is around that corner and your reaction time is dream sequence slow. A fierce intensity is intact.  You just feel that you are being told a greater, richer story, even in songs when instruments are minimal and its just her voice. All the focus in the room is on her like a candle in a blackout, when its just her voice....except that one night at Whistler when I can hear every asshole hipster behind me.......sorry. I'm letting it go..... Aleks voice is always front and center no matter what else used, electronic or otherwise. It's the first but not only source of her stage presence. Everything is in the service of her operatic power vocals. I don't even recall many instrumental solos. Anyway, I believe the recorded work that will come out I look forward to and perhaps you should as well.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06wgGvphlZw

Zig

Gel Set

So on Wednesday     December off I went to Empty Bottle to go see Laura Callier of https://soundcloud.com/gel-set Gel Set. Actually what got me there was Magic Key and I just stayed for Gel Set. I did not get there in time to see the other two performers that night. So Gel Set was there to promote her new cassette.....yeah I said cassette. It's called Microsoftcore XXXCell.The crowd was large at the Bottle, and I can tell that when parking the car. This was my first time seeing GS and the room made me feel like I was the only one that can say that. It's a different experience seeing others enjoy it, while I'm barely discovering it. This is not a complaint on my part, just a recognition that I need to catch up. I can see people dancing in the front. They knew what they were dancing to, and so that helped to get me into it. Esta Fiesta Apesta  I recall hearing live and dancing myself. I couldn't just take pictures dispassionately. Yet this is Empty Bottle. They do things differently there, including what we dance to. So if your definition of "dance music" does not stray far from house music perhaps you may be disappointed. All the common trappings of electronic dance music are evident here, a part of it at least and apparently repurposed for the darkened fog. Just listen to the spark, the first ten, twenty seconds of a Gel Set song, and the urge to dance is roused. We usually don't question the purpose of dance music, right?  The movements just come.  But this is not just straight up dance candy. That draws you in first, then comes the mysterious to surround you. But still like a kid doing some serious urban exploration in some abandoned building like in Ghost Adventures.  There is mystery here, perhaps something dangerous, but your childlike wonder can't help it.  So in you go, past the threshold of what is familiar. That warm exciting, electronic spark that got you dancing turns cold and minimal. The gritty beats that got you there drift into the background. There is lots of space between all instruments used, voice, synths, beats. Hmm, like a haunted house, not much needs to happen for it to make you believe it  to happen. My sister when she was a kid randomly woke up one time in the middle of the night and saw one of her creepy dolls wink at her. So you don't need lyrics to make sense for them to feel significant, just listen to Perfect Place To Dump A Body. Just a few phrases repeated and thats all you really need. Everything that normally is out in front, especially the dance music element (for lack of a better way of putting it) hovers in the background, or is not over used. She keeps the most vicious dogs on a tight metal chain, but she does have them and we know it. OK, no real dogs were harmed in the use of this metaphor, and I don't believe that Ms Laura would harm any real dogs either.

Zig

Breath Of Life. A random review

 Breath Of Life. These are from when I saw this band at a Whitby Gothic Weekend. I believe I bought like two CDs based on seeing this one performance. I also bought a shirt with brilliant art work that I need to replace. I had since lost one before being able to download it. The one I did not lose and so I have it downloaded, saved and archived is Lost Children. Thinking about this band carries a lot of baggage. This is in my Traveling To Whitby soundtrack.  So this band if you like, comes with with a windows view of a subculture.  That is not to say that BOL need and are dependent of it. This is just how I found it, all dark and lovely. You can choose to close the windows, but there they are and what a view I had into the gothic subculture. This is for you if you miss the days of The Shroud, Mors Syphilitica, This Ascension, Collection D' Arnell-Andrea....and a bunch of other bands from Projekt. This is the music that invited a costume, made us pull out all the frilly ornate movements. It was at just the right pace for goths to dance their elegant best. A parallel world separate but similar to shoegaze. But 'gazers are too busy looking at their Adidas down to notice the frock coat you're wearing. Every bit as mysterious and often dark. If you're a goth, its all one continuum. So lets just say this is on the gothic end of the spectrum....right. And with the right kind of sweet. The voice is not juvenile girly, but mature, like you're being addressed by a contemporary.

Noamina is a song on the Lost Children CD and is likely to stay in your mind a bit. Its the one that hooks, if at all. Its this one that brings to the surface This Ascension at least to me.  This one I recall live as well. It made us dance. It got me to spend money that I don't regret spending to this day! If that one song does not do it for you then that takes the gas out of me wanting to sell it to you. If Noamina does it for you then you got a lot to catch you up on. They are consistent without sounding like they are just retreading familiar ground.http://www.myspace.com/thebreathoflife/music

Rachael's Surrender

I haven't seen RS in many years. To give you an idea as to how long I was still using a disposable camera with film back then. That is a fucking long way back. I'm lucky to have the CDs I do. This show I caught was at Live Wire Lounge way north on Milwaukee Ave. Fortunately for me the gig was running late due to so many bands playing that night. Ruben Surrendr I'm glad to know for many years. I learned about his project Rachael's Surrender way back during the internet's early adolescent years. I didn't even know this was Ruben's until we both went to Whitby Gothic Weekend with Scary Lady Sarah. The name of the band I just found intriguing. Then I finally heard the music. RS has been through many changes since forming in 1996. They briefly had Elysabeth Grant before she went with Black Tap For A Blue Girl. These days and for a long time it's singer-songwriter Liz Nickrenz.  Unless I'm wrong, that's who I photographed on film and now on my digital camera. The voice of Liz is immaculately angelic and clear. In fact, everything is clearly heard, the drums, guitar, keyboard, like a house compulsively cleaned by a synth-pop staff. It's no strain to listen to lyrics. They are actually a fun and interesting read especially after having listened to the songs. You become personally invested in exploring the various and varied motifs all neatly and individually packaged in this beautiful synth-pop wrapper. As I write that I'm thinking about Prohibition Suit, Pirates, and Shadowloss .
  Every song has a well thought out....something to hold you to it, words to identify with, a narrative to follow. All three of these mentioned songs are from the LP Asteroid Love Song which can be downloaded right from the website which I will post at the end when I exhaust this rant. That works for me because I do have some of the CDs and my iMac had a problem downloading from one of them. And this band is local, from Chicago. It was stupid luck to have all three time, place, opportunity collide to provide the physical product...and shirt. As they say in Sound Opinions, this is a buy it, if you are there to see them play.  And it being synth-pop it also compels you to dance on top of everything. Goths love to dance.
  Live Wire Lounge is a small venue that I've been to three times to see bands loosely tethered with homemade gothic string. Most of the time, there is no cover. This place is on a north-west end of Milwaukee Ave. Street parking can be good to...fuck all.  It's not as bad as...say Wicker Park. This end of Milwaukee feels like a lonelier stretch, less congested with competing venues. So the parking thing is mostly better.  Live Wire Lounge is the kind of place that makes feel at home the various subcultures that like to wear black...metal, rockabilly, punk and goth. And yes they are all different. So Rachael's Surrender was right at home. It's mostly goths that listen to synth-pop leaning music. The bands that played there that Friday night were very different from each other, no real common tether. I left soon after RS finished their set. I think there are more live gigs to anticipate from this band and to know me is to know that I will try to make it to every one.
Zig.
Oh, here's the link to them!

Rachael's Surrender

Cross Record

It was not too long ago when I became a fan of Cross Record, the project of Emily Cross. I met her at a Killer Moon show and that lead me to see her band play Hungry Brain on Belmont Ave. She was kind enough to give me her double ep, and I was hooked when I heard Loyal Dog. Somehow that one stops me in the middle of 87th when I go jogging with the ipod. It makes me think a lot, and not always about what the song says. It just places more weight on my random racing thoughts, lets me know that they are important too. It snowballs from there to Black Cat...that one sticks out for it's sightly faster pulse, but still makes you think "what's goin' on?"  I actually thought it was Festival when I heard it......don't make me explain Festival. Emily Cross does beautiful, pensive rock. One can say that you are gently invited into her mind, but it's more my own that I feel invited to, and it is just her music that provides the flashlight. So for me its as much about pondering the mysteries of what you think, the interior castle as well as where you physically are at the moment you're listening. So 87th and Central feels a little more like a random corner of Twin Peaks...at least to me. The common place is wondrous again. And each time I hear this I'm pondering something different . One may argue that this is what all music does right? I guess I'm pre inclined to like music from CR. I also like Emily's breathy vocals.  This road leads backwards to bands like Ruby Throat, Bone And Bell, Angel Olsen....only with less weight on the sad, and more on the wonder. I haven't even begun on the new LP Be Good. It does not disappoint. If you like shoegaze eventually you may run into Cross Record. It's a permeable bubble the Chicago shoegaze subculture is. Songs like Cups in the Sink have that sound if not deliberate. I'm not quite calling it that...hmm mostly because I have not found CR through the usual shoegaze channels, but I can see how someone would at first listen, especially Cups. If I may venture to guess, I do not think it's what Emily Cross would call it. What she does I think is separate from that identity. Fuck it. If you are a shoegazer you will like Cross Record, you will be a fan of Emily Cross. Just don't brand her with the hot iron. That's not the shoegaze way, right?  I was not expecting Em to have new work when I saw her gig at Schubas on the second to last Sunday of December. And like the last time, she just gave me the download code for this new LP. That was tremendously sweet and generous of Emily Cross, and I am grateful for her kindness. . Dirt Nap is easily a favorite because it has this slow deliberate pace of a ritual being performed before you, a deeply felt personal ritual. Alright, whenever I say "slow". I don't mean boring or why would I write about it. I forgot who Cross Record was opening for that night I saw her play. There seemed to be a good receptive crowd for her. I did not get the feeling she was being ignored at all. Emily played with a full band. Anyway I look forward to seeing her perform again at Township 24 January at 9pm. 
Zig

http://www.crossrecord.com/index.html