Tag: spires that in the sunset rise

Posted on

Makoto and Nakatani at the Empty Bottle, plus Spires and Brian Case

Two master musicians from Japan — guitarist Kawabata Makoto, who’s the leader of Acid Mothers Temple, and percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani — created a beautiful instrumental epic onstage at the Empty Bottle on Nov. 29. Both used bows at many points during the concert, with Makoto bowing the strings of his electric guitar while Nakatani gently coaxed vibrations from a huge gong and other pieces of percussion. Nakatani even played the drums with his mouth for one short passage. This collaboration was an enthralling duet, filled with dramatic musical flourishes. Makoto and Nakatani seemed to be playing with an uncommon sense of freedom.

(Blog post continues below photos.)

l99a8318 l99a8322 l99a8349 l99a8474 l99a8493 l99a8621 l99a8644 l99a8659 l99a8696 l99a8705 l99a8759 l99a8781 l99a8857

The evening also featured two noteworthy opening sets. Brian Case, leader of the rock band Disappears, played instrumental electronic music. Spires That In the Sunset Rise continued exploring the many possibilities of what sounds two musicians can create together, duetting with wind instruments at some points, singing and plucking autoharp at other times. The results were bracing and fascinating.

Brian Case

l99a8063 l99a8102

Spires That in the Sunset Rise

l99a8122 l99a8128 l99a8133 l99a8196 l99a8203 l99a8219 l99a8300 l99a8303

Posted on

Chicago Psych Fest

For the seventh year, the Hideout hosted Chicago Psych Fest last week, with three nights of music from the more experimental, trippy end of the rock spectrum. What does “psychedelic” mean these days, anyway? This festival always offers an interesting range of answers to that question. I attended the first night of this year’s festival, on Jan. 29 — which turned out to be the Night of Flutes. Four bands played, and three of them included flute. The final group of the night, Spires That in the Sunset Rise, even had a flute duo, meaning that the overall ratio of flutes to bands was 1:1 for the night. (Oddly enough, the last band I saw in a previous show at the Hideout, Expo 76, also played flute!)

The evening started with the duo Lavasse (Whitney Allen and Mark Fragassi of Toupee) playing a sinister set that culminated with some onstage gardening. Then came the Singleman Affair, Daniel Schneider’s band, which released a great record last year called The End of the Affair. Schneider really threw himself into this performance, singing and playing with passion. The third group of the night was ADT, playing psych music closer to jazz. (But no flute!) Finally, Spires That in the Sunset Rise explored the idea of duets featuring wind instruments and vocals — and it was quite captivating.

Lavasse

L99A3751 L99A3887 L99A4079

The Singleman Affair

L99A4232 L99A4357 L99A4379 L99A4465

ADT

L99A4572 L99A4628 L99A4640 L99A4699

Spires That in the Sunset Rise

L99A4785 L99A4919 L99A4971 L99A5067 L99A5192

Posted on

Spires That in the Sunset Rise

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago has been hosting a cool series of monthly free musical performances in its cafe called Face the Strange, which was a perfect setting last week (March 27) for the ambitious, experimental music of Chicago duo Spires That in the Sunset Rise. The group began 11 years ago as an all-female quintet from Decatur, Illinois, but they’re now just two, athleen Baird and Taralie Peterson.

For their “Face the Strange” show, Spires played an eight-part suite inspired by some writings of Italo Calvino, with cello, flute, looping pedals and processed vocals that resembled those of Laurie Anderson. It was an impressive work overall, with the complexity and gravitas of contemporary classical music, although like many such compositions, it was hard to absorb it all in one listen and arrive at a full feeling for it. Let’s hope it surfaces on future Spire recordings.

Spires finished off their concert with a couple of shorter songs that are more typical of what the group does on its recordings — heavily atmospheric songs that combine rustic acoustic instruments with echo and effects. Spires That in the Sunset Rise has a fine new album, Ancient Patience Wills It Again, coming out April 17, and the whole thing is streaming now at the band’s website, stitsr.com.

One more concert is coming up in the current “Face the Strange” series: Plastic Crimewave Vision Celestial Guitarkestra plays at 6 p.m. April 24.