Moritat

  I'm trying to have written posts about the bands I intend to see. Moritat will play Empty Bottle Tuesday 2 December. Aside from saying when I've seen them, its always hard for me to describe them, well...... at least when you are trying you are also thinking about them.  I've seen them a lot....that presumes that I know how to describe them.....Hmmm, like Panda Riot. And as many times as they orbit locally, they only shared a stage once. Anyway, Moritat....They are from Chicago. They are Venus on keyboard, Corey on drums, and Kon on bass. And they all sing. None of the usual tags work....none. Shoegaze....the only way I can stick that here is to say that it does not belong in a description of this band. I don't even pick that crayon up. Goth....hmmm, it has its dark moments yeah but that's another crayon I don't really use here. Dark, yeah, goth no. I don't really think punk when thinking of them. There is a neatness to them,  a sophistication....no, not punk. I've heard Avant rock applied to them....it kind of works. There is a tension, a muscle car drive, and that clean sophistication, and still sharp and cool. What makes all this more clear because they have a bass guitar, but often no lead....and that means more space for the other instruments to find expression. 
  Wheelin' from Clill Blanzin' comes mind. They can be spacey and introspective even as they can make you move and turn from that. Thats Kon's bass that does that. Noise has me leaning trip hop again. Has steps of tension, build-up and crashes, and that has you listening well into their jam session segments. When they play live their songs seem to go into this jam session is as good as I can describe it. Those are really cool moments to witness because I already know they are coming and the rest of the audience is caught off guard with this bend in the coolness. I Forgot To Kiss Her has this steady march in the middle before one last verse. Money comes out of nowhere sounding like PJ Harvey.  An accordion would be helpful in describing them but they don't use one either. Its not any of these yet if you are attracted to any of these .....leanings, I think I can sell you on Moritat. My very first take on seeing them play Yellow House way in 2009 was to call them trip hop.....hmmm. That term is already a hot mess that includes jazz, house and electronic music. I suppose what got me there was Venus and how she plays her keyboard. Oh, and Corey in the drums. Yeah.... and Kon plays bass. So its rock that almost without intention evades description. Its easier to say about hanging with Kon at Empty Bottle to see some bands on a Free Monday. His spanish is great, he can have entire conversations. He has a separate project, Rows Of Arrows.  I look forward to that since I already like his voice. Its fascinating to listen to what a musician thinks of other bands, it helps me in finding my own expression. I feel real at ease around these guys. I often run into them for other shows. Its them that introduced me to Julie Meckler. Kon. ....  There was something about Moritat that struck me as understated and still cool. Like something that is cool enough to not really need your recognition of it. They got new work coming out. I'm happy about that, and I'll be listening.
Zig.

Ami Saraiya

The two most recent times that I've seen her, I believe both have been at Schubas. Once was with Tele Novella.  Natalie from Agent Ribbons comes back to Chicago with her new band and Ami opened for them. I believe that was a weekday, Monday or Tuesday. It was a great fit for me because I see them as evoking different parts of the same world. Its one thing when your mind naturally closes the distance with what seems similar. Its a good surprise to catch, when you actually see them share a stage. This other time I went from Ami's show to one at Hideout to see Lycanthea. A Saturday I believe. That was a great night to be able to see those two shows that could have conflicted. Its just been eating away to start and then to finish this post. I don't like going on without having this written down. I already wrote about Lycanthea. At least for me its significant to document...hmmm, period. I think I've seen Ami at Hungry Brain the now or soon to be closed venue on Belmont. With each live show I find a new element to like about the music I do have of her. This almost random surge in productive writing, I've harnessed to explore the memory of seeing Ami. And its a compulsion by now. I can't let these two shows go like that. Two! And I know there were those I missed and that kills, but I made it to these and they make you review the recorded work especially if she talks about them. On stage she would play and explain a little something about Familiar or Archaeologist. They are on two different CDs for those that still use them. Archaeologist is the latest. Up, Down &Charmed....no, I did not hear it but its always one that circulates often in the soundtrack in my head and it being in the latest I think I can stick it in here. It starts with a nice and slow drunken swing, you wake to this foggy steam punk period, or at least nostalgic over...something.  It has sweetness with Nick Cave pre-rock coolness. Romantic but not sappy or too sweet, but enough to see things through a nostalgic black and white filter.  Colder Meaner Is tense as all hell. You are barely held until finally let go by the violin. That leaves you wide open and ready for Tangleweed to finish you. Its like her music evokes for me a period just before rock but well into jazz. Memphis Train for some reason reminds me of The Color Purple. Her primary instrument is the accordion but its not the only instrument I've seen her use. Her music brings to mind Pezzettino, Eliza Rickman, Jill Tracy, Nicki Jaine. I fear that I can only describe her music in the crudest of ways. But thats the company I can put her in. They all evoke that same period atmosphere....well at least for me. And I'm glad this is what comes from Chicago. It also stands out well among local peers.  The night I saw Lycanthea I saw Ami before but I don't recall taking many pictures at all as just being there to see it feels different from documenting, taking pictures. I relaxed.

I recall only one other band member on stage with her. Just before she begins to sing she says a few things about the song. That always gets me to listen again and her music stays in the now of my mental background because I saw her live on stage.There is something about an accordion that makes you see an altered take on modernity.....my mind brings to me vague takes of older musical styles. That's more me, imposing a costume on the music. Its not something deliberately coming out of her the way a goth band wear their identity.  I have to recall that I've seen her in some tiny, cool venues like the Brain.  I really treasure that memory now because now its about preserving where you saw it, the venue. So I post pictures from those moments. Hmmm, well these pictures I couldn't tell now. I just was happy to find these to post.
Zig

SEXY FIGHTS

  This is a band I should have caught like ages ago. They are local. For some reason I was too lazy to look them up and now I'm playing catch up. Its amazing how I can have them play in front of me and all I'm thinking is about how many times I missed them. Their music is soulful and the two pillars of that are the voice and the music. You feel separately their impact even as your hit with one song that is deep, soulful and modern. If you still feel like shit 'cause you missed Golden Filter that Wednesday at Empty Bottle...... too busy getting drunk over the Blackhawks winning. I feel ya'. I think you will like Sexy Fights. An easy sell. They bring a daytime energy to a midnight dance floor with Black Earth. You are at once assaulted by this freshly woken morning person happiness. I have to say seeing them this one time was fabulous like a revelation. I was overwhelmed by it......relax. Its intense that I saw it and was struck by it later. Then later it also hits me all them times I could have seen them., hmm anyway. They did not fuck around with the 6 track self-titled EP. Every track is absolutely brilliant on its own. They don't telegraph each other. They are smooth, electronic  and effortlessly dance-floor worthy. Sounding almost nostalgic for an earlier period of modernity. The idealized way a child remembers a certain time, trying to capture the best feeling of it in music. Yeah, that can also be me rambling on about this here band, but this is worth a listen. Trees....by the time you reach that one, you are overwhelmed with it. Its like having Golden Filter/ Glass Candy.....and they are from Chicago. Jordan Rose's voice just commands attention at all times. Its bold and deep and beautiful.....it just has this natural authority. I believe this one time was at hmm Burlington or Township. All I really can recall is that it was just one time. And having them from Chicago does raise the hope that I may see them again.  My impressions of this band will be evolving. ZIG.

Lightfoils...second to last show.

  This show was at The Owl. The very last show with the current singer Jane was at The Burlington and I missed it. I added here pics from where I saw them somewhere else. Kon from Moritat told me once that I can write a whole fucking blog on the stuff I went to but missed and that is the bloody truth, and Lightfoils at Burlington is the latest entry. I mean I heard she cried. It was really special and I was late for it.....no, not because of the bloody tears. Fucking hell. The last gig with Jane. And it just reinforced the belief in how delicate it is to hold a band together.  But I made it to all of The Owl show and so....there are far worse things to bitch about, but it is a quirk the bands know me for. I nearly did not have the means to go at all, when I did it was last minute. I believe this show was already after their tour, east coast I believe. I don't know how that went but I'm glad they take the risk to put their music out there. I think I did ask Cory the bass player how that went. I don't recall what exactly he told me, but I feel at ease asking him. The same goes with the rest of the band and it takes a long time for me to feel like I'm not imposing on them like a fly in the soup. I believe he is still enthusiastic about the band's future. I got the feeling there will be something grand from them around the corner. I remember Cory showing me a track of him singing. I did not know that he sang. And you know what? That's often how I get sold on a band. These are friends that I wish success for them, oh yeah. I already have pictures of them. Jane is no longer the voice of the band but they are not done.  The point being, the band will continue and I'm happy about that.  So to feel at ease around them is a big deal for me. I believe I have stated that before, well....its a constant. Anyway, touring, hell just existing as a band is holding a fucking rose scented candle in the wind and daring it to blow it out, well......maybe not daring the wind.....sorry. Reading about George Galloway and sounding off like him...or at least just to me.  Not that you want it to go out but the light of it, the scent...to continue the metaphor. Each delicate light is singular for me and it exists in a sometimes indifferent world, and so I do support it, because it is my identity....alright, on and on like that as I always do. The point is to look up and support these bands, Lightfoils in this case.

Circuit des Yeux

  I'm writing this ahead of her Empty Bottle sponsored performance at Bohemian Nat'l Cemetery on Saturday 6 December. I'm glad to see her touring so actively. She can take the stage alone or with a full band behind her. I mean there is something powerful and unsettling when hearing how fucking deep her voice is in My Name Is Rune. And there she is a dark and psychedelic Midwestern chanteuse.  At times she seems to speak from the animal urges. The thing is people have to listen, have the patience, the common fucking decency to not talk during her shows, or any shows for that matter.  Performers are human and I get embarrassed to no end when being around people that are yammering about. Ms Haley's Acarina, on Overdue a dark casual walk down a rural ghost town is creepy like Siouxsie's Rawhead And Bloodybones. Someday has the seething strength of Samson waiting to drop the building down on his enemies.  It just has this intense volcano like build up.  While on Portrait   3311 just seems ok with festering with whatever rages Someday. Its pace relaxes in misery, in no apparent rush, and then.....Twenty &and Dry then  I feel like I just saw a whole documentary on The fucking Dustbowl and The Steppenwolf Theatre's production of Buried Child. And then you get that cathartic power rush with I'm On Fire! You put that one on after you took care of business. Ms Haley don't do cheery shit. Oh.....Why do I hear shit that is so fucking dark and heavy?....Its fucking rhetorical!....Here's why anyway. Its the light within the tunnel. It may sound like depressing music, but it gets it out of you, or leads you out if it like blues music.

This is my goth equivalent of jazz with seeming improvisation of the same dark elements abnormally unharnessed in the hands of Haley Fohr. Or perhaps I just should have said you can't easily dance to it in a goth club. Its road worthy for when you are going there.  Having said that, her live sets are moving and powerful. This one show at The Owl actually sounded like Dead Can Dance and goths trip over each other to dance to that.  I do recall she's moved to Chicago from Indiana, yay!!! The south side on top of that....No, not Pilsen. Anyway, she is local and is touring all over and will come home in early December. Lets give her some local attention before she feels the appreciation of other places she can want to move to.
Zig

Be Forest

 
  Be Forest is from Italy, a town named Pesaro. Due to the amount of bands coming from there, I read about there being a Pesaro-scene. Be Forest is what got me to even look that far. All the way from Italy, this band drops a grenade of coolness.  These are details about specific places make me want to go there. It would be something to see them during a normal home gig, no pressure, well after the glare of an international tour. That is when to see them. If I had stupid Elvis money. That is what I'd do. Go see Esben and The Witch in their hometown of Brighton on a casual night for something they can only do local. Or go see Be Forest play to a local crowd.  Yeah, that's what I'd do with stupid Elvis money....I'd go to them.....see these mother fuckers..... I got lost, and now I'm back, really.
  I hear the bass running and I see a parkour runner just as fast and graceful down urban landscapes. For me the bass is the support structure, its what permits you to do shit. Sometimes its so way out in front, I gotta use my muscle-car metaphor. The gut instinct to mimic like your playing the guitar hits often with Costanza's bass playing. The night-time beats have a daylight urgency. Lost Boys is so forward driving, and over this beast is a chill angelic voice. And that opening line just stops you cold. It's sage advice riding a previously untamed beast.  For fuck's sake she's playing the bass herself.  I don't know if this is what made me dance, gaze in a stupor. Its kind of irrelevant which track hit live. My magical realism, German expressionist film recording mind will recall it a certain way. What is great and is indicative about all of it....how they grab, and keeps you with the time lapse tools. Ghost Dance is a thinker's house-music. And now I'm stuck trying to find another set of words of praise for Airwaves. Nothing is telegraphed. You don't feel taxed from three in a row....at least I don't. It will not be like you heard a long variation of the same song. Goths are always finding that balance of something that can stop you and make you think and something to dance to during a shogaze themed night.  Remember  Asobi Seksu? Think of them as Laura Palmer and she had a cousin named Maddy. This to me is Be Forest. .....No? Well they are bringing the show back...Twin Peaks! No one remembers Twin Peaks? My angle with all that is not to say "they sound alike" and that's it.  But to not hold back something awesome and brilliant that you may like. I wanna go and jog to this.  There is also this element of deep thought and contemplation, a kind of slowing down even as whatever rages behind you. So you are not just slowing down in the fog. And this is what I like I'm still basking and stretching the moment of seeing Costanza Delle Rose singing and playing bass. The pictures are few in part because I took in the time to just jam out to whatever song they played. I do recall openly dancing to their music. I could not tell you which specific tracks I danced to. I was just happy I had enough to figure it out later.      Earthbeat is their second CD, and is what I came home with. Their Debut in 2011 being Cold. Researching for this post has led me to listen to that as well. I don't know if the timing of bringing them so late in the fall, November is deliberate. Their music goes great with autumn. It just feels right for me....anyway. What they had available at the merch table was Earthbeat. This Empty Bottle show is part of their first ever US tour.  Perhaps I got this wrong I think its their first time in the States. They had such really cool shirts that I could not afford to get. So, certainly I'd want this comet from afar to come back. I caught like the last three songs. I basked in whatever time I had in there, without complaint. I was efficient in dividing the moments. I took, and was mindful of the time just jamming, dancing, and documenting,. The documenting is what keeps the moments from being so damn fleeting.
Zig

Sister Crystals

  I run an errand and I deliberately cue up You Won't Let Go. This one live is a killer. This one is the encore song or the one that made you want more. I have yet to really take in lyrics aside from what clearly pops out, but this is one that hits you before words even start to make sense. It hits me like it belongs in some indy cult film that without intending speaks for an age. A car that is so cool, you wanna buy a new house for it. Its already awesome after just over 3 minutes and then it drops the house on you. Six minutes and I wanted it to go longer. This hits me like a Warpaint jam session with John Lennon. This is actually a signature feeling Sister Crystals has on me with their music. First Time....that name is no bullshit, its that awesome. Their storytelling is not just in the words but in the hands, in the guitars. So these long intros or segments of just their guitar playing is great, I feel like I'm in the middle of this awesome jam session. This Emporium show I decided to go see instead of Ruby Fray/Coins at Burlington. I have to say I do regret missing that. And its not the same as saying I wish I did not catch Sister Crystals at Emporium with the last Videotape show. I just wish the shows did not conflict.  You Won't Let Go is the song I would recall best from the shows before finally buying the LP. But really every track is brilliant. My Ghost, From Our Room...You feel like you have climbed a cathartic hill. You wanna connect it to something greater because it already is on its own. Its the last track on their self-titled LP. Its on vinyl, its the exclamation. And can you believe it, they live in Chicago, local awesomeness! I noticed a good heavy crowd behind me for them at Emporium, so that was nice, I got the feeling they knew what they came for. For going on about them like I do, you'd think I would recall with tremendous precision which songs they played, but I do not recall, and I was there on time for their whole set. Oh look, and I just had to marvel at nearly this whole post without saying shoegaze. Chicago does seem to have this active, churning shoegaze scene, or at least bands that have had that crayon used to describe them....me included. Well....its just a fucking crayon and I just so happen to like to use it.
Zig