There’s what looks like a really great little festival going on this weekend. We got all excited by the line-up and were rubbing our grubby little paws together in eager anticipation when we happened to read the small (ok, fair enough, the totally normal-sized, if not actually quite prominent) print and discovered the bastard thing’s in sodding Chicago. Damn Yanks get all the fun.
Anyway, if you’re in the Illinois area this weekend (well, you might be), you should probably check it out. There’ll be sets from a lot of acts we’ve recently featured like Oneohtrix Point Never, Rene Hell, Mountains and the awesome White Rainbow, as well as plenty of other daringly original, genre-defying and thought-provoking artists. Here’s a quick round-up of what we would be looking forward to if we were actually going:
First off is the new solo side-project from interstellar voyager John Elliott. Not entirely sure how he manages to pump out so much stuff – whether it’s with Emeralds, solo or for his various label imprints – or how he manages to make it all so good. But it doesn’t matter. He does. And that’s all that counts.
Staying in similarly cosmic territory, Portland’s Pulse Emitter weaves glacial, dream-like synth sequences that stretch endlessly into the distance. Definitely one to bury your head and get lost to…
Veering towards more terrestrial tones, we come to the excellent C V L T S, who first came to our attention a few months back thanks to AV favourite Time Wharp and his remix of their track Angel Chromosome. Check that, as well as a cut released especially to coincide with the festival, here:
Angel Chromosome (Time Wharp Remix)
White Cluster
Slightly out of place, but no less worthy of a slot at the festival, is warped blues guitar wizard, Bill Orcutt, whose spell-bindingly frenetic youtube videos have been favourites of ours for some time.
Filling the yawning chasm between Grouper and Fuck Buttons is the mercurially-styled Leslie Keffer, whose past work has veered from punk rock, to extreme noise and now into electronic improv. Should be a really great set if this teaser of a track is anything to go by.
Back onto the intergalactic megabus now for Dylan Ettinger. Check out his awesomely heavy, uber-slow synth-dub odyssey, Lion of Judah. Nizzze.
Last, but absolutely, positively and resolutely not least, is Lucky Dragons. A group that seem to change their entire direction every time they release a new album or play a gig, they’re always an absolute treat to see live. Here’s a quick round up of what to possibly expect, or to make you surprised when they play something totally different.
add void 