Once upon a time Chicago trio Frontier were as well-known for their audience-pummeling visuals—smoke machines, blinding lights, slideshow projections—as they were for their epic avant-garde blasts. At the Empty Bottle in September, the three members convened from three different states to play their first show since 2003, doubling as a wedding band of sorts—they were celebrating the nuptials of Mark Ferguson, proprietor of Roscoe Village’s Hard Boiled Records & Video. Apparently the reunion stuck, because they’re playing again February 19 at the Abbey Pub. Frontier will be supported by an all-star lineup of noisy kin, including postindustrial brutalists Wolf Eyes, ambient solo-synth act Envenomist, and local heavy hitters BLOODYMINDED and Plague Bringer.
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Swell Season front woman and Oscar winner Marketa Irglova was in town earlier this winter to record her solo debut at Soma with boyfriend/engineer/local dude Tim Iseler behind the boards. The album, slated for a summer release via Anti-, features a slew of Chicagoans, including jazzers like drummer Frank Rosaly, trombonist Jeb Bishop, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, and trumpeter Jaimie Branch. Irglova is also rumored to be relocating to Chicago later this year.
Are you wondering where self-proclaimed “dirtbag” noise trio Birth see themselves in Chicago’s underground scene? “We don’t fit in with the Art Institute hairy-leg-girls Day-Glo shit or the hardcore scene, and definitely don’t wanna be a part of this neo-psych-fest shitstorm that has wah-pedaled me to death already,” speaketh guitarist Josh Russell. The hairy-legged boys dropped their self-titled debut LP last week on Dead Beat. Birth have already put out two cassettes, but don’t front like you’ve been down with them since their zygotic state—they made fewer than 20 copies of each, and you don’t have one. But what they call their “winter tape” is up on Soundcloud (bit.ly/birthtape), in case you want to dub your own. The record-release show is February 18 at Empathy Lodge; for more info e-mail empathylodge@gmail.com.
