Polish death-metal legends Vader have seen many major world changes in their 35 years as a band, some of which have directly impacted their career. Following the fall of the Iron Curtain in the early 90s, for instance, they became the first Polish death-metal band to sign a record contract with a Western label. They’ve since been reliably prolific, bringing a sense of martial discipline to every track they lay down. On last year’s Thy Messenger EP (Nuclear Blast), they package their talents for circle-pit thrash and sweeping, primal death into a neat bonbon of a release. The record includes a rerecording of the pile-driving title track from their 2000 album, Litany, that enhances the multiple-buzz-saw-orchestra quality of its guitar sound and perfecting its pummeling drums. Vader have a busy year ahead, with the release of their 16th studio full-length, Solitude in Madness, on the horizon. Though they haven’t announced a date yet, they’ve dropped the new single “Shock and Awe,” with an official lyric video that’s as gloriously retro in its flame effects as the song is of-this-moment in its raw force. The album also includes “Emptiness” and “Despair” from Thy Messenger, and “Emptiness” is reportedly one of only two slow numbers–come ready to rumble at high speed. Vader are also planning anniversary events in celebration of their classic albums–De Profundis turns 25 this year–but I expect their set at this show to mix older tunes with previews of their upcoming material. Also on the bill are LA’s solidly vicious Abysmal Dawn, Italy’s cleverly horror-inspired Hideous Divinity, Portland’s sadistic Vitriol, and Chicago’s fantastically grand and crunchy Blood of the Wolf, who show off their blackened-death chops on the recent EP III: Blood Legend. v
Two members of Chicago hardcore band Daybreaker, guitarist Alex Petrov and singer-guitarist Cameron Wentworth, are headed to Hollywood Spirits, at the intersection of Hollywood, Ridge, and Wayne in Edgewater. They need to talk to the owner about using his store’s stocked coolers and shelves of craft beer as a backdrop for their next video–and they’re expecting director Alex Zarek and the band’s other two members to meet them for the shoot in less than an hour.
Posted on the door is a small sign handwritten in black Sharpie on a scrap of torn green paper: the owner will be back in 30 minutes, it says, but there’s no way to tell when it was written.
Petrov and Wentworth aren’t fazed. Petrov lives around the corner, and he’s used to the sporadic hours at Hollywood Spirits–the owner regularly closes up shop when he decides to make some extra money doing Uber Eats deliveries. The two of them head back down the street to meet drummer Garrett Ramage and bassist Jason Perez, and they all sit down with Zarek over a spread of Dunkin’ Donuts Munchkins and coffee.
Petrov, 21, formed Daybreaker in October 2018–they played their first show in January 2019–but he’s wanted to be in a band with Daybreaker’s melodic grunge sound since he was a teenager. Back then, though, he didn’t have the support and connections to get off the ground.
“I always wanted to start an alternative grunge band, after seeing Superheaven play live for the first time when I was 13,” says Petrov. “I tried to start a band–I played one show, but it didn’t really work out. When you’re 14, you don’t really know any other bands to play shows with.”
Over the next six years, Petrov would play in several other bands–since summer 2016 he’s been in Decay with Perez and Wentworth, for instance. But it wasn’t till late 2018 that he decided to make another committed attempt at a melodic hybrid of grunge and hardcore.
Daybreaker began with Petrov on guitar and Wentworth on drums and vocals, and over the course of about seven months they recorded early demos with a couple different bassists and second guitarists. The constant personnel changes slowed the band down, though, so it was a huge relief when they solidified a lineup with Wentworth switching to guitar and vocals, Ramage on drums, and Perez on bass.
Daybreaker moved fast after that. They spent summer 2019 playing every backyard DIY gig they could book, and in October they released their five-song debut EP, Fall. For their release show, they sold out the downstairs venue at Subterranean.
Petrov is definitely happy not to be reliving the frustrations of his 14-year-old self. “We came into the scene at a very good time in Chicago. It’s very rare to have a show in a backyard where 150 people come out. And it’s not a one-time thing–it’s almost weekly where shows like that happen,” he says. “It was definitely a lot easier this time, but it still wasn’t as easy as one would think. No one wants to book the new band–that’s how it is. But fortunately, we had friends that supported us from the start who were in other bands. It felt like starting over again.”
“But that’s what we were doing,” interrupts Wentworth, referring to Daybreaker’s rebirth with its current lineup.
Petrov continues: “It was a good feeling because it was more hopeful–it was a fresh start, and we could do whatever we wanted with it.”
As part of that fresh start, Daybreaker have teamed up with Chicago-based videographer and director Zarek to create two music videos for songs from Fall. The band learned about Zarek after they were booked to play a show at Live Wire Lounge with Pennsylvania underground group the Standby in May 2019. Hoping to learn more about the Standby, Petrov looked them up and found a series of videos that Zarek had created for them.
“They were really good,” said Petrov. “It actually made me think that they were famous and professional because of their videos.”
Zarek’s first Daybreaker video, for the EP’s title track, was released in December 2019 and modifies live performance footage with glitchy postproduction effects. The second, a more ambitious clip for “Porn and Fame,” came out the morning of Valentine’s Day.
Once Petrov and Wentworth leave Hollywood Spirits and meet Zarek, Perez, and Ramage, they gather around Petrov’s kitchen table, surrounded by unopened cases of Lagunitas beer and small chests filled with Dungeons & Dragons dice. The band are explaining to Zarek the idea they have in mind for “Porn and Fame”–a narrative that Perez and Wentworth have been referring to as a “Weekend at Bernie’s storyline.”
Despite the video’s comic premise, “Porn and Fame” isn’t a lighthearted song. Wentworth, the band’s main lyricist, says it addresses a real problem that many young people face–when partying with friends crosses the line into substance abuse. “You’re feeling numb and out of touch,” he sings. “You try so hard to give it up.”
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In keeping with that tone, the hard-driving music doesn’t sound like party punk. It’s thoughtful and even morose, which conditions the way the video’s profusion of cheap beer and goofy antics comes across. The whole thing can even be read as a subtle subversion of the time-honored “dirtbag fuckup band dudes” subgenre.
That said, Daybreaker’s brainstorming session is hardly serious. They want somebody to pretend to be passed out the whole time–to be the “Bernie” of the video–and they decide it’d be funny to pick Ramage, the only member not big into partying. He’ll be fake-unconscious on the couch while Wentworth pours himself a bowl of “beereal”–that is, Boo Berry cereal with Miller High Life instead of milk. Perez is excited about shooting dice in the alley after the band finish the scene in Hollywood Spirits. Did Petrov ever talk to the owner? Someone needs to check on that. Zarek wants to know if there will be any skateboarding in the video, because, well, it seems like there should be a skateboard.
“You don’t have to overthink a lot of this stuff, and that’s a misconception for a lot of people,” Zarek says. “You don’t script out or block out a music video in the same way you would with a show or a short or a documentary. You can be so creative and so random with music videos, because all it is is a three-and-a-half-minute visual supplement to something that already exists.”
The filming process is mostly silly and fun, and all of it takes place on Petrov’s block, between Bryn Mawr and Hollywood on Wayne. While Wentworth chokes down his beereal, the rest of Daybreaker watch from behind the scenes, pretending to gag and muffling their laughter. When Wentworth and Petrov carry Ramage down the front steps and into the windy 16-degree weather, Ramage stifles a grin and tries to control his shivering–he’s still supposed to be passed out.
“One of the shots was us shooting dice in an alley, and for continuity’s sake we couldn’t put a jacket on Garrett,” says Wentworth, laughing. “So we had to sit him down in this alley in 16-degree weather and have him stay completely still for every shot.”
The laughter and horsing around behind the scenes aren’t reflected on the screen, though. The way the video is edited, three guys are simply going about a mundane day–they eventually meet in the alley to have a few beers and shoot dice–but they have to drag around their passed-out friend the whole time. Nobody ever remarks on this or treats it as odd. Even the gross-out jokes (the beereal sequence, a shot where Petrov brushes his teeth with Fireball) are played straight, as though these are totally ordinary things to be doing.
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That leaves the “Porn and Fame” video as something of an open question: Is it supposed to be funny? It’s certainly not much of a party video. Sometimes it seems to be commenting instead on how laughing off red flags and dysfunctional behaviors serves to normalize them–which is one way substance abuse goes undetected, even in tight friend groups.
“The lyrics for ‘Porn and Fame’ do have quite a bit about partying too hard, dabbling in things you probably shouldn’t. Flying too close to the sun with substance abuse,” says Wentworth. “Singing about something as serious as substance abuse, you have to do it respectfully, but . . . I don’t think we should have gone in on this very serious storyboarding. Not to make fun of people who suffer from substance use–like myself–but you have to take everything in life with a grain of salt. You can’t take yourself too seriously.”
Daybreaker hope their fans will be able to see that they’re more involved and more passionate about the “Porn and Fame” video than they were for “Fall,” where they deferred more to Zarek due to their own inexperience. The band are split on how they think viewers will interpret the new clip, but they all agree that their goal was never to solicit a specific reaction–they hope each fan will make a unique connection.
“I’m a really big believer that art is subjective to the person,” says Wentworth. “So however the fuck you want to receive [the video] is how you should receive it, and I don’t think we as artists should tell you how to receive our art. I think it’s entirely a personal thing.”
The “Porn and Fame” video is live on Daybreaker’s Facebook page via YouTube. The band’s next live show is at a DIY space on Saturday, April 18, with Natural State, Mannequins, the Kreutzer Sonata, Lower Automation, and Sawbuck. If you want the address, as the old saying goes, “Ask a punk.” v
With their ruffled shirts, baggy Tripp pants, and signature painted-on mustache, Dorian Electra always look like they’re ready for a goth meetup at the Renaissance Faire. The nonbinary pop star is all about being too much, and though they’re still a relative newcomer, that energy has already earned them a fervent indie-pop following. Electra’s debut album, last year’s Flamboyant, consists of 11 energetic hyperpop tracks that explore a wild array of sounds and subjects: The campy “Career Boy” satirizes cubicle culture, and “Live by the Sword” (cowritten by 100 Gecs’ Dylan Brady) sounds like a backing track for an intergalactic joust. But the best example of Electra’s maximalist style is the album’s title track–an ode to going “all the way” that features over-the-top Auto-Tuned vocals, sweeping piano melodies, striking synth chords, and spicy whip cracks. The music video plays out like a Liberace fever dream: champagne, candelabras, sequins, and feathers abound, while Electra lounges in front of a roaring fire in a red silk robe. They’ve released videos for five Flamboyant tracks so far, and each is worth a watch; their songs are solid, and their sense of theatrics makes them even more fun. Electra’s most recent tour involved dramatic fashion, backup dancers, and crowd surfing–they even hired two sword fighters to serve as an opening act in London. This show offers another chance to spend an evening in Electra’s dreamy, chaotic world. v
Chicago rapper-singer Rich Jones brought his multigenerational monthly hip-hop series All Smiles to a close in April 2019, but its spirit lives on at this Subterranean show he’s headlining. The bill includes great local MCs who might not otherwise have any reason to cross paths, beginning with up-and-comer Musa Reems. On his recent self-released EP, November’s To Whom It May Concern, he speeds through hard verses atop sleepy synths and snaggletoothed percussion; he enlivens “Zombies” (which features Chicago great Mick Jenkins) by switching between thick staccato bars and quick stanzas of rhymes. I imagine Reems will have more music coming out soon, including what he’s been making with new multi-city hip-hop collective Dumb Intelligence, which also includes both members of Free Snacks. Also on the lineup is gifted storyteller David Ashley; this is one of the first local shows he’s performed since dropping his latest album, Deep Down Inside (Helpful Music), in September. Ashley’s songs combine dry vocals, understated delivery, and flair for grimy, warped instrumentals, and he can impart his briefest narratives with affecting pathos. On his January single, “Plight,” he confronts Black death and drug abuse via raps that corkscrew through dreamy synths, and his performance brings an air of hard-won triumph to an otherwise bleak song. v
Amalea Tshilds is a familiar face to anyone who’s ever enjoyed a meal at Logan Square’s beloved Lula Cafe, but in the past few years she’s also raised her profile as a singer-songwriter. It’s a decided shift from running the neighborhood restaurant she’s co-owned for more than two decades, but her musical pursuits are hardly new. Tshilds has trafficked in warm, homespun Americana for years, singing and strumming around town with Girls of the Golden West and Pollyanna Vox (and before that with Jim Becker’s Paulina Hollers). More recently she’s taken the spotlight with her own music–dulcet and comforting, it’s rooted in folk and country traditions and grounded by the caress of her voice. Tshilds’s second full-length, Love on the Ground, is a thoughtful collection of carefully rendered love songs that soothe like a balm. It’s a more personal album than Painted Tiles, her 2006 debut–by her own description, it’s “confident in its vulnerability”–and on a handful of tunes it uses borrowed lyrics for inspiration. The title track pulls from Paul Verlaine’s poem “L’Amour par Terre,” which Tshilds says she was drawn to for its “beautiful imagery of a statue of Cupid blown to the ground,” she explains. If that visual is severe, Tshilds’s tender voice is disarming, and she elegantly contrasts the words with her gentle delivery. She draws on another French poet, Charles Baudelaire, on the haunting yet seductive “Sisina,” layering her vocals into a moody tapestry framed by Sam Wagster’s swooning pedal-steel guitar. The poetry of St. Francis of Assisi guides album highlight “Lemon Orchard,” which billows with gauzy harmonies that circle the cooling refrain “I have to wring out the light when I get home.” To celebrate her new self-release, Tshilds is joined by her band, which includes Wagster, Elise Bergman, Gillian Lisee, and Joe Adamik, as well as album guests Becker, Douglas McCombs, Marydee Reynolds and Holly Stevens. Local song man Tim Kaiser opens, joined by his Axis: Sova bandmate Jeremy Freeze as well as Josh Johannpeter, Dan Browning, Kent Lambert, and Jeanine O’Toole. v
Chicago has grown into a full-on hub for summer music festivals. We’re home to some of the biggest and most beloved fests on the planet, and every weekend from late spring to early fall you can find outdoor music happening on city streets big and small. But why should the warm months get all the fun? Six years ago, the folks at the Empty Bottle had the genius idea to host some bands outdoors in the frigid cold of February, and what seemed like a surefire bomb has grown into one of their most popular annual events. This year’s Music Frozen Dancing features the biggest lineup yet, with a mix of bona fide indie-rock legends and excellent local acts. Headlining the show are Pennsylvania noise-rock mainstays Pissed Jeans, and also high on the bill are iconic posthardcore band Hot Snakes (keeping the momentum going on their reunion stint) and resurrected postpunk band Crash Course in Science. The locals include noisy industrial goth duo Hide (not a band you’d expect to see performing in broad daylight), prog-pop outfit the Hecks, and scuzz-rockers Hitter. The show takes place right next to the Bottle on Cortez–and in case it gets too cold out there, the inside bar stays open the entire time. v
In 2013 mathy Chicago emo band Mountains for Clouds dropped their debut album, Maybe It’s Already Everywhere, just as the scene underwent major changes. Fourth-wave emo was on the rise, and went on to become the toast of indie rock: emerging bands started selling out midsize venues that reunited indie-rock veterans often struggled to fill, and several fourth-wave groups issued era-defining albums, among them the Hotelier, the World Is a Beautiful Place, and Foxing. But by the end of the decade, that wave had crested and broken and a new set of bands were setting the pace–Origami Angel’s hyperactive pop punk, Glass Beach’s jittery symphonic indie pop, and Dogleg’s road-burning rock were beginning to take hold. In this new era, Mountains for Clouds’ relaxed but galloping guitar loops and languid, intimate melodies can either feel antiquated or come across as distinctive and idiosyncratic, depending on your perspective. On their new second album, Anxious & Aware (Count Your Lucky Stars), the three-piece prove they’ve lost none of their skill at wringing emotion out of bittersweet guitars. On the lumbering “Rememory,” front man Andrew Stefano sweetly intones lyrics about aging, self-doubt, and memory atop a stately shoegaze riff; the song’s quietest moments enhance its reflective mood, and make growing old sound like getting better. v
Since 1997, Evanston indie rocker Justin Roberts has built a deep discography of children’s music that treats listeners of all ages with respect. He first got an inkling that he wanted to make originals for kids while teaching at Step by Step Montessori in Minneapolis in the early 90s, and he’s since become an unusual type of star in children’s music: though he didn’t have kids himself, his ability to speak to them through music has earned him three Grammys for his independently released albums. Roberts became a father for the first time in 2018, and on his 15th solo album, the brand-new Wild Life, he reflects on his newfound responsibilities with the same gentle care he takes when he describes our complicated world to young kids. He sings about his wondrous curiosity about his child’s possible future (“Maybe She’ll Have Curly Hair”) and the queasy mix of trepidation and pride he experienced when his child began to show some independence (“When You First Let Go”), approaching these complex emotions with a welcoming tenderness that validates the experiences of parenthood. To help him color these plush yet minimal lullabies, he recruited a group of old and new collaborators: Eighth Blackbird pianist Lisa Kaplan, Flat Five vocalist Nora O’Connor, Robbie Fulks’s drummer Gerald Dowd, and cellist Anna Steinhoff (who’s also Roberts’s wife). With Wild Life, Roberts uses the same musical approach he takes with his children’s songs to reach adult ears, whether they belong to parents or to people who’ve never wanted kids: when the buoyant “Heart Like a Door” reaches its symphonic climax, it sounds as lovely as an indie-rock classic. v
Sound artists Oren Ambarchi and Crys Cole have both had thrilling careers. Ambarchi has run experimental label Black Truffle for more than a decade, and he’s collaborated with a wide array of avant-garde luminaries, including Sunn O))), Keiji Haino, and Keith Rowe and John Tilbury (both veterans of long-running UK improvising group AMM). Last year, the Australian musician released the resplendent solo LP Simian Angel (on Austrian label Editions Mego) right in the middle of summer, which felt like perfect timing: its two long-form pieces invoke hot, humid weather. “Palm Sugar Candy” weaves conga, guitar, and gauzy synths into a meditative tableau, inviting listeners to soak in every curious melody and texture. Crys Cole, born in Canada and based in Berlin, has also taken part in impressive collaborations over the past decade, including the duo Ora Clementi with Australian composer James Rushford, but her solo albums are some of her most exciting. Like Simian Angel, her upcoming Beside Myself (Students of Decay) features two pieces that each take up a full side of an LP. “The Nonsuch” is inspired by aural hallucinations and conjures its queasy atmosphere with squabbling electronics, field recordings, ASMR-like vocalizing, and unidentifiable noises, all of which combine to give it a hypnotic, inscrutable mystique. The artists will each play a solo set to kick off Chicago’s annual Frequency Festival, booked by former Readermusic critic Peter Margasak as an extension of his year-round series. Ambarchi will improvise with a guitar, a Leslie cabinet (an amplifier that uses rotating horns or drums to produce tremolo with a literal Doppler effect), and other electronics; Cole will present an electroacoustic set combining live and prerecorded elements. Her goal, she says, is to induce listeners to focus deeply on the music, such that their perceptions of space and time are altered. Given that Frequency Festival is known for highlighting the most exciting artists in forward-thinking music, it couldn’t have chosen two better acts to kick off its 2020 edition. v
Trumpeter Jacob Wick grew up in the Chicago area and now lives in Mexico City. Like his contemporaries Birgit Ulher, Peter Evans, Axel Dorner, and Nate Wooley, he employs extended techniques that enable him to produce sounds very different from conventional brass playing. His vocabulary encompasses coarse-grained ribbons of frayed wind, rhythmic puffs that resemble a steam engine in action, fluttering snatches of nascent melody, and the occasional brazen trad-jazz lick; with his command of circular breathing, he can keep a steady stream of sound going for upwards of 20 minutes. But he’s not interested in merely wowing people with musical prowess; particularly in solo performances, such as those captured on the 2019 LP Feel (Thin Wrist), he invites audiences to step into his shoes and experience things queerly. In the LP’s liner notes, he describes his ideal performance as a process: “queer sound–>queer time–>queer space.” By challenging received ideas (about how a trumpet sounds, about how long a phrase can last), he also invites listeners to develop an awareness that everything around them needs to be understood on its own terms, not according to assumptions about what’s expected. For his first Chicago appearance in almost two years, Wick will first play solo, then with drummer Phil Sudderberg. Their 2019 collaborative tape, Combinatory Pleasures (Astral Spirits), engages pithiness as rigorously as the trumpeter’s solos do duration. One prescription guides their otherwise wide-open improvisations: as soon as the music they’re playing approaches definition, they stop. This concert is part of the 2020 Frequency Festival, booked by former Reader music critic Peter Margasak as an extension of his year-round series. v
