Dig ‘in: Artificial Go, Comet Gain, Black Market Karma
Check out what the No Wristbands team is listening to and what’s in our show calendars this month on our latest Dig ‘in.
INCOMING
Artificial Go - Musical Chairs (Feel It Records LP)
In the process of visualizing a follow-up to their Hopscotch Fever debut from last fall, Artificial Go settled on the concept of musical chairs. According to vocalist Angie Willcutt, she “envisioned it to be a world of chaos and play, where not even gum on your shoe, or a Dalmatian dog biting your leg can bring you down.” That irrepressible spirit is captured throughout the album by this Cincinnati outfit whose tongue-in-cheek approach intertwines agreeably with their art punk ambitions.
With it’s numerous canine references, “Circles” explores navigating the challenges of a dog-eat-dog world. “Yaya” sports the DNA of Swiss pioneers Kleenex down to its snaking rhythms and shrieks of delight. The punk funk rhythms return on “Late to the Party,” where Micah Wu’s elastic baselines and Cole Gilfilen’s hi-hat rides intersect with Claudio Thornburgh’s guitar clang that sound inspired by Gang of Four’s playbook. “Playing Puppet” registers as the most pointed critique on the record as Willcutt recounts her childhood and the double standards that were expected from her that didn’t apply to her brother. Musical Chairs captures the frenetic energy surrounding Artificial Go; it’s a bit chaotic, but wholly worth the time to give it a sit-down and listen. -Bruce Novak
Comet Gain - Letters To Ordinary Outsiders (Tapete Records LP)
The music of Comet Gain has always maintained an intimacy that eliminates any divide between listener and performer. On the band’s ninth studio album, and first since 2019, they take that aesthetic a step further by inserting snippets of conversation between frontman David Christian and various bandmates. This warm, personable approach permeates the tracks themselves. The opener, “The Ballad Of The Lives We Led,” maintains a wistful beauty; ruing stolen time occupied by dead end jobs. “Threads!” and “Ashtray Cult” swing with irreverent glee, highlighting Christian’s sly sense of humor. Comet Gain’s mastery of indie pop turns up once again on the beatific “Do You Remember ‘The Lites On The Water’.” Letters To Ordinary Listeners closes with a measure of hope on the soaring “Maybe One Day It’ll Really Happen.” Christian is dismayed but resolute when he observes: “It’s so different these days / Yeah to live in a daydream haze / They’re putting people in prison / Just for reading poems / So find the other wayward ones / The peculiar daughters and the stumbling sons.” His wish for “every weirdo a home” expresses a utopian vision in a world where marginalization is seen as a normative process. -Bruce Novak
Black Market Karma - Mellowmaker (Fuzz Club LP)
After dropping the intriguing Wobble last summer, Stanley Belton has delivered its bookend Mellowmaker that utilizes the same tool bag of idiosyncratic analog techniques. In the words of Belton: “With these two albums I’ve attempted to crystallise how it feels to be stuck between a feeling of amnesia of the soul and the earthly experience of piloting a meat suit... I’m still chasing that longing intangible ‘Hiraeth’ feeling. The sense of wanting to find our way home to a place that maybe doesn’t exist.”
The destination he arrives at is awash in ’60s-styled psychedelia and pop filtered through a slightly more modern lens. The sound is shaped by not only his use of a vintage Vox Ultrasonic guitar and Mellotron, but also of his sometime employment of synths and a drum machine. The reverbed, double-tracked vocals add its own textural element with a murkiness that makes it sound like events are unfolding underwater. The title track advances in a leisurely, laconic fashion and is intermittently redirected with a breakbeat interlude. The third track, “The Sound of Repetition” captures a pattern that is omnipresent throughout; repeating notes that frame occasional shifts in tonality. “Jellylegger” mines Beatlesesque psychedelic pop territory; an evocation of the Hiraeth feeling that was part of Belton’s mission statement. With Black Market Karma, he’s paying homage to his guiding inspirations in an unconventional manner that both zeroes in on a targeted sound, but hangs out at the margins. -Bruce Novak
UPCOMING
Cap’n Jazz
Where: Thalia Hall / Directions
When: July 5 & 6, 7:00 PM
How many of us are still proud of things we created when we were teenagers? I mean really, really proud, and still getting joy out of something that we did as teens? Well, almost sheepishly, Cap’n Jazz reunites every 5-10 years to play raucous shows, with fans almost experiencing rapture as they see these high school friends play songs they wrote before their breakup in 1995. The band at this point features a triumvirate of Kinsellas—brothers —and emo godfathers Tim and Mike, as well as their extremely accomplished cousin Nate, along with guitar whiz Victor Villarreal and Sam Zurick on bass. I’ve always gotten the impression that they don’t know what all the fuss is about, but they are, like many of us, happy to get to hang out with their old friends again.
Having seen them during their last reunion in 2017, I can confirm that Tim is still an electric frontman. Mike, despite being his own harshest critic, still crushes the drums. Like a lot of us, we’ve gone on to work on bigger projects over the years, but there’s always that nostalgia and allure of revisiting your past. Tim, of course, went on to form the legendary Chicago avant-rock/emo/indie band Joan of Arc. Mike went to college (that’s how long ago and how young they all were when Cap’n Jazz broke up) and perfected Midwest-emo with the equally beloved American Football. These opportunities to go back and get together with friends decrease as we get older, and they become more special. Seeing Cap’n Jazz is the rare opportunity to see a band in their home town, playing to a packed room of people who feel this music intensely. Nobody at a Cap’n Jazz show (minus the time I took my now wife) is there by happenstance, they are there for the absolute love of the band, and what they’ve meant to them over the years.
You can hear their lasting impact throughout the primordial emo ooze over the years, with bands like Algernon Cadwallader and Oolong. Bands that specialize in odd time signatures, introspective lyrics, breakdowns, and arpeggios. This is all my long-winded way of saying you should absolutely go to their reunion shows at Thalia Hall. You’ll be blown away by the energy they bring to the stage—Tim can and will still play the french horn—and the music still delivers. -Mark Joyner
Friendship / 2nd Grade / Free Range
Where: Schubas Tavern / Directions
When: July 9, 7:30 PM
With the demise of Pitchfork Music Festival, the opportunity to see multiple up-and-coming indie bands that aren’t all from Chicago at one show has been greatly reduced. That being said, what I think will be one of the best shows of the year will be taking place at Schubas on Wednesday, July 9th with Friendship headlining a bill featuring 2nd Grade, and Chicago upstarts Free Range. Friendship and 2nd Grade hail from Philly, and of course, there is the overlap that 2nd Grade is the indie power-pop brainchild of Friendship guitarist (and friend of the pod!) Peter Gill. Gill’s heater continues having released his 4th album, Scheduled Explosions, as 2nd Grade to great reviews (including from us!) as well as recently stepping out on his own with a record of lo-fi gems as WPTR, and the release of Friendship’s fantastic new album Caveman Wakes Up. Seeing an ascendant band is exciting enough, seeing two with a band member pulling double duty is thrilling, and seeing three, with Chicago’s Free Range opening, makes for what could be one of the best shows of the year.
This is Friendship’s biggest headlining tour yet, and well deserved, as Caveman Wakes Up is another creative leap for the band. Their take on indie alt-country does not disappoint; the lyrics are the equal of the music. The beauty of Schubas is that it’s a small, warm room that has the tendency to accentuate the best band’s greatest attributes. 2nd Grade’s take on power-pop is sure to sound perfect in this room. Having spoken to Peter recently, he said they will even be doing full band arrangements of WPTR songs. Friendship mastermind, lyricist, and singer Dan Wriggins’ deep baritone is going to sound warm in Schubas’ wood-accented space. Not to shortchange Free Range, they were the most recent addition to the bill, their ascendancy is on full display in their most recent release, Lost & Found. Sofia Jensen’s breezy vocals and songs that are given room to breathe will sound lush in a space like Schubas. Again, three bands, all on the rise, playing one bill in this post-Pitchfork Fest world is rarer and rarer—don’t miss your chance this summer. -Mark Joyner
Mekons
Where: Fitzgerald’s / Directions
Square Roots / Directions
When: July 10, 8:30 PM
July 11, 6:45 PM
As a multi-continent collective, a gathering of the Mekons functions as a quasi-family reunion. Recent recording projects have expanded beyond their long-standing England and Chicago domains to encompass the Isle of Jura in Scotland, Joshua Tree and Valencia, Spain (for their latest album, Horror)—serving as destination vacation trips in a sense. And while Jon Langford and Tom Greenhalgh represent the only founding members from 1976, the rest of the band, save for Dave Trumfio, have 40+ years of collaboration under their belts. That camaraderie carries through in their performances in the nearly telepathic manner in which they come together as a unit despite limited rehearsal opportunities. Not that everything goes to plan, mind you—I’ve witnessed times where they hit like a streamlined locomotive and others where it was a train wreck starting to unfold (fueled by overconsumption). Turning up for the Mekons holds the promise of a spectacle of the highest order—it’s how I might of envisioned seeing the Band perform in their early club days. The Last Waltz, taking place on Thanksgiving Day of 1976, captured the end of an era for the Band, but the magical spirit they cultivated has lived on with the Mekons ever since. -Bruce Novak
UNCOVERED
Spacemen 3 - The Perfect Prescription (Glass Records LP)
While The Velvet Underground’s “Heroin” captured the harrowing dynamics of a narcotic state of mind in a little over seven minutes, Spacemen 3 painted a fuller overview of drug trip turbulence with their 1987 release, The Perfect Prescription. Merging the drone elements of The Velvets with the repetitive minimalism of Suicide, Jason Pierce (J. Spaceman) and Pete Kember (Sonic Boom) mirrored the volatile creativity of Reed/Cale and Vega/Rev.
Setting off their trip, the album opens with “Take Me To The Other Side,” building in pace and intensity as the substances take effect. “Walking With Jesus” arrives at a state of bliss, incorporating the religious iconography that would later be a staple of Pierce’s Spiritualized. Kember’s spoken recitation in “Ode To Street Hassle” further references Jesus, and like Reed, faces hard truths about temptation and its consequences. The calming “Ecstasy Symphony” feeds into Spacemen 3’s elongated reworking of “Transparent Radiation” off of the 1967 The Parable of Arable Land album by Texas psychedelic outfit Red Crayola. The flip side captures the fallout from the trip, notably on “Things’ll Never Be the Same” and “Call the Doctor,” where a desolate Blues element settles in. The Perfect Prescription has been reissued numerous times with additional and alternative tracks—a further testament to the impact of a record that cuts deep and leaves an everlasting mark. -Bruce Novak
We recommend listening along over at our Spotify page. Here’s this week’s content: