Cains & Abels — My Life is Easy

Posted on May 4, 2012 by

Band: Cains & Abels
Album: My Life is Easy
Release Date: March 27, 2012
Free mp3: “Stay Home Tonight” (’til May 11)

As sensational as it might seem, I’ll nonetheless lead off with this nugget: I listened to My Life is Easy straight through the work day today. No joke.

There are a handful of albums that made a good run at it in recent memory — among them: Apteka’s Gargoyle Days and Grandeurs’ self-titled — but even those had me tapping out by lunch. After awhile, I peeled away their spells by introducing some diversity, you know?

Not so with My Life is Easy. It, Cains & Abels’ second full-length and first new batch of music from the guys since their 2011 EP, The Price is Right, would sit atop my list of favorite releases of the year if I had such a list.

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Mawrcrest — ‘No Way to Tell’

Posted on May 3, 2012 by

credit: Mawrcrest’s Facebook

A few weeks ago, Mawrcrest posted a new one — “No Way to Tell” — on their Soundcloud, and I wanted to steer y’all to it for two reasons, really: 1) “No Way to Tell” is a kick-ass tune, and 2) Mawrcrest is a kick-ass band.

Just, you know, general Mawrcrest kick-assery at work here. As they do.

I’d bet money they played “No Way to Tell” for me and the room at Cole’s in early April, because that guitar riff striking again and again and again is way too familiar to have been learned from a few Soundcloud spins.

Not long ago, Mawrcrest amended its name from Whisker Music to Mawrcrest. The switch signaled more than a change in appellation, and you get that from “No Way to Tell.” If Whisker Music was as its name might imply — cute and cuddlesome — then Mawcrest is its matured, much rougher cousin.

I’m digging the new stuff.

Here she is:

Extras:

  • The Chicago-based Mawrcrest is awesome. | Facebook
  • They’re playing Thursday night at Grace Street Tap with Deadlands. 3759 N Western Ave.

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Kodacrome — ‘The Bug’

Posted on April 29, 2012 by

Band: Kodacrome
Album: Perla EP
Release Date: March 27, 2012

It seems the stuff of When Clouds Attack was more affecting than I’d thought. That Chicago-based band’s debut album, Young Blood, was discussed here earlier in the month and might have been the first album of its kind to be featured in these pages.

As I put it then: “I’ve listened to [When Clouds Attack's] Young Blood often, and I’ve swung around to embrace that I am, I guess, so taken by a troupe so dependent on electronic buzzes.”

Only a few weeks have passed since that review, and again I am, I guess, so taken by a troupe so dependent on electronic buzzes.

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Grandkids — ‘Ethylene’ and ‘Crunch City’

Posted on April 25, 2012 by

credit: Grandkids’ Facebook

About 10 or so mixtapes ago, Chicago Mixtape introduced my iPod to Grandkids, a Champaign-Urbana-based foursome that I guess sleeps close enough to the city to be a considered entry for Chicago Mixtape.

As it happened with the mixtape featuring Grandkids — as it happens with nearly all the mixtapes I’ve hoarded, come to think — I downloaded the files to my player and then promptly forgot about them.

Through a fit of random chance — iPod, forever a sage, deemed it “time” — my ears connected to Grandkids not long after the Archie Powell review published Sunday, and you know, I’ve been listening to them almost exclusively since.

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Archie Powell & The Exports — Great Ideas in Action

Posted on April 22, 2012 by

Band: Archie Powell & The Exports
Album: Great Ideas in Action
Release Date: May 1, 2012

I’m merely assuming here, really, but it’s my presumption that a youngster growing up predisposed to keys — be it a) an instrument they were driven to understand by an assertive parent who, as well, was grandfathered into the ivory tickling scene by their own parents, to b) a noisemaker they decided to pick up one day for something as unassuming as, say, church band — probably imagined that the recognized height of their talent, the holy summit of where the fruits of their labor would guide them, would be head organmaster at a ballpark not unlike Wrigley. I mean where else — kindly skipping over Elton John and like kin — do keyboard swamis get to bust out rockin’ organ solos on a near nightly basis (when baseball season is active, of course)?

Thank god, then, for bands like Archie Powell & The Exports, who prove on their new one that an organist’s true home isn’t at a half-witted baseball game, but on stage, under the lights, as one piece of a totally wacky foursome that just blows through and around a room with remarkably wild uproar.

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Hollows — Vulture

Posted on April 18, 2012 by

Band: Hollows
Album: Vulture
Release Date: April 10, 2012
Free mp3: “Up & Down” (’til April 25)

This I’ve realized: Hollows is a rock band, yes, but a distinctly simple one. They cut through the middle, you know, like franchise running backs without marked diversions to the fringe.

What could be interpreted as slight isn’t meant to be so. There’s something to be said about a group of artists — in this case, a foursome of ladies in front and a dude on drums in back — who set out and assembled a collection of thumpers that aren’t exceptionally taxing on the ears of its listeners.

In a year that’s had me shuffling through what I might describe as an extended stay inside the city’s garage/psych/lo-fi compound, to have recognized Hollows at the time that I did seems in a way purposeful. Their daydreamy tunes are like welcome respite amidst the wash of hooking bangs I’ve grown accustomed.

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Post Honeymoon, The Runnies @ Township (4/14)

Posted on April 15, 2012 by

credit: Post Honeymoon's Facebook

You know, I might say Township, unassumingly, became a favored spot for me to hear live music in the city in a matter of weeks.

Last month I made it out to the venue for the first time for Mawrcrest and The Noise FM, and then hastily filed the evening’s headliner, Archie Powell & The Exports, in my To Certainly Follow Up On Bin. Last night was for opener The Runnies, and once again the bill had me securing more room in ye olde cataloging case for headliner Post Honeymoon. Their hyper drony goods pressed deep in my bones and just hung out in there for awhile. So comfy.

Perhaps I’m smitten with another venue, or perhaps its bookers know how to stack a deck. The Runnies/Nervous Curtains/Post Honeymoon triplicate made good good sense.

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Posted in Post Honeymoon, Show Review, The Runnies, Township | 1 Comment