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Chicago's Gel Set (aka Laura Callier), last heard kicking it with Stacian on the 2014 split-release Voorhees, is back with her own full-length album on Moniker Records. Her dance floor Darkwave tracks mix humor and melancholy with an edge. Much like Xiu Xiu and Tobacco, her digital arrangements are a path to the kind of subconcious impulses that don't show up in the Top 40 world. You can hear selections from Gel Set's new album on CHIRP Radio!
Power pop is music built for summer: power chords and pool parties, sweet harmonies and starlit nights, bicycles and popsicles, tan lines and fruit wines. The Bishop’s Daredevil Stunt Club knows this. The Chicago band’s new album Rock and Roll Motorcycle Dinosaur dropped this week, and its cool tunes are perfect for these hot days.
The band’s five members have been playing and recording together since 2009, making what they call “roughed-up power pop” that blends elements of glam, surf, psychedelic, pop and punk into irreverent, rowdy fun.
Hear them in rotation on CHIRP Radio, listen to the new album in full on their website , or catch them live this Saturday, July 18, at the Bottom Lounge for a record release celebration.
Dark and heavy but satisfying like your favorite stout, local band Minsk have a brand new album released by Relapse. Their first release since 2009, The Crash and The Draw stands out from its doomy post metal brethren with interesting percussion, layered vocals, and thoughtful progressions. Named after the capital of Belarus, the band found inspiration from the city's remoteness and its history of destruction and rebuilding. Minsk formed in 2002 with roots in Peoria and Chicago and they are currently finishing a tour in Europe with Floor. You can hear them in rotation on CHIRP Radio and at their website www.thesoundofminsk.com.
Fresh off their performance at Kansas City's Middle of the Map Fest, local band Ghastly Menace are currently in rotation on CHIRP Radio. Their debut album, Songs of Ghastly Menace, was recently released by Kansas City label The Record Machine. Despite their fearsome moniker, it is easy on the ears and full of hooks and power pop harmony.
Ghastly Menace began as Andy Schroeder and Chris Geick and has since blossomed into a six person operation with their first release. According to Schroeder, the process of making the album helped to define everyone's role in the band. Check them out for yourself at ghastlymenace.com and on CHIRP Radio.
Lean back and close your eyes. But don't fall asleep, because you're going to miss something quite extraordinary. Nick Sherman, the Chicago artist who operates under the moniker The Variable Why, weaves together sounds that some might file under Ambient but would not entirely or properly describe what he's doing. Like his contemporaries Juliana Barwick and Ken Camden, there's not really a name to summarize the effect of music that's felt just as much as listened to. Hypnotic? Transcendental? An oasis of grace and beauty in a world saturated by harsh reality? The truth is somewhere in there.
Sherman's new record Looking at the Triangles is now in rotation and available by request on CHIRP Radio.