thursday27
Thursday27
Bird TalkThee Silver Mt. Zion Orchestra
Friday28
Shondes
Saturday29
Gilles Aubry, Antoine Chessex, and Valerio TricoliBlowoffAndre Williams, Dirty Diamonds
Sunday30
Brian Jonestown MassacreEleventh Dream DayPharez Whitted Sextet
Monday31
Broken Bells, Morning Benders
Wednesday2
Erykah Badu
THEE SILVER MT. ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA On six albums across the past decade, this Montreal-based collective—formerly known as A Silver Mt. Zion, Thee Silver Mountain Reveries, and Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-la-la Band With Choir, among other permutations—has developed a sprawling, detailed sound by fusing ragged, passionate folk to widescreen post-rock. The group has gotten better and better at harnessing its instrumental depth, and in its current incarnation the layered lines of violinists Jessica Moss and Sophie Trudeau make it seem much bigger than a five-piece. But it wasn’t until several members of the band backed the late Vic Chesnutt on last year’s At the Cut that they truly moved me. Silver Mt. Zion’s recent Kollaps Tradixionales (Constellation), their most song-oriented effort, does it again in Chesnutt’s absence—guitarist Efrim Menuck, who’s also in Godspeed You! Black Emperor, isn’t half the singer Chesnutt was, but his voice swells and cracks with raw emotion. The album begins and ends with huge, episodic compositions, and the 15-minute opener, “There Is a Light,” is so intricate and varied that it could stand alone as an EP. The band deals in the kind of cinematic dynamics familiar to fans of Godspeed, but given the way it accomplishes those rises and falls—with resonant string arrangements and elegant four-part horn charts, with former Chicagoan Matana Roberts guesting on alto sax—they seem more like a means to an end than an end in themselves. The melodies are gently bittersweet, in a kind of counterpoint to the band’s large-caliber firepower, and even at its most driving and aggressive the music bustles with detail. Silver Mt. Zion have long been inspired by the Ex, and on Kollaps Tradixionales they convincingly transplant the spirit of those Dutch iconoclasts into songs that trade melodic intensity for frenetic art-punk rhythms. Sadhu Sadhu opens. Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra also plays Wednesday, May 26, at Lincoln Hall with openers Shapers. That show likewise starts at 9 PM; it’s 18 and up and costs $15. 9 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, 773-525-2508, $15. —Peter Margasak
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
ANDRE WILLIAMS, DIRTY DIAMONDS Soul singer ANDRE WILLIAMS has worked in music for more than 50 years as a performer, producer, and songwriter, and cut his teeth at legendary labels like Fortune, Motown, One-derful, and Chess. He’s been there, done that, and wiped up the mess with the T-shirt. In the 80s he came off the rails, laid low by drugs and for a time so destitute he took to panhandling—it hurts to imagine how many great records he might’ve made in those years—but his comeback, now well into its second decade, isn’t just a campaign to market his 60s greatness to a new crowd. Williams, 73, still has it, and people still love it. He’s long been known for using a lot of blue language in his rhythm and blues, but the new That’s All I Need (Bloodshot) will disappoint the porn-soul junkies. He’s in elder-statesman mode, straight-up holding forth, full of pithy things to say about addiction, poverty, nationalism, aging, regret, love, and pride. (If you really miss the smut, check out his first book of short stories, Sweets, which came out last year on Kicks Books.) Recorded in Detroit with members of the Dirtbombs and the Electric Six—and featuring appearances by guitarist Dennis Coffey of famous Motown house band the Funk Brothers—That’s All I Need simmers with sparse, smoky garage-blues licks that curl up around Williams’s authoritative voice. He sounds like a man who’s trying to make his peace with God, but he’s definitely bargaining from a position of strength. —Monica Kendrick
BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE To record the Brian Jonestown Massacre‘s tenth album, the new Who Killed Sgt. Pepper? (A Records), mastermind Anton Newcombe brought the band to Iceland—his part-time home of late, and better suited to his flavor of weirdness—and he sounds calmer for it. And by “calmer” I mean relaxed enough to create a sprawling, indulgent, meandering mess of a record that is nonetheless continually fascinating. Spacemen 3 veteran Will Carruthers, vocalist Unnur Andrea Einarsdottir, and returning guitarist Matt Hollywood also seem to be having the time of their lives with this strange blend of trance, Krautrock, Nordic folk, and psychedelia (not to mention the occasional moronic football chant or shameless Joy Division rip-off). One can never accuse Newcombe of aiming low—he sounds like he’s trying to create club music for the young people of a society that doesn’t exist yet. Elephant Stone opens. 8 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, 773-549-0203, $21, 18+. —Monica Kendrick
monday31
