JAZZ | Peter Margasak
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“We just really clicked personality-wise and had such a blast playing together, so we thought, why not continue making music together—even with the obvious challenge that none of us lived near each other.” The group has finally released its impressive self-titled debut on Italian label Rudi Records, and it includes compositions by all three members. Some are meticulously arranged, alternating between ethereal, levitating melodies and briskly swinging, extroverted postbop; others are texture-oriented free improvisations that sound surprisingly like classical music. Everyone uses a wide variety of techniques—their individual parts undergo constant metamorphosis—to create a rich ensemble sound.
Hear in Now has no shows planned for Chicago, though the group has a string of European dates in June. But Reid has a working trio here with bassist Joshua Abrams and guitarist Matt Schneider, plus exciting new projects that include a duo with cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and a trio with cheap-electronics whiz Nick Butcher and New York drummer Tomas Fujiwara (the latter group has a recording session planned around a show at the Whistler on Tue 5/1). In April she’ll launch a weekly solo engagement at the Bronzeville Coffee House (528 E. 43rd) on Sundays from 1-3 PM.
One of those songs was “Phantom Brat,” recorded in October, which became the first Super Minotaur tune—the lead track on their three-song demo. Gettig and Shead recorded the others in South Bend during Columbia’s winter break, but Gettig is in Chicago so often that the group ended up making Dead Dino here—with Gettig’s best friend, Leni Juric, aboard as their bassist, they cut it in a day at a Columbia practice space in late January. The album is the first release for a local label called Cold Slice Cassettes, and Super Minotaur will play a show to celebrate it at the Empty Bottle on Tue 3/20.
What gets me are the bursts of seesawing, lurching rhythms, more violent than queasy—sometimes the band thrashes like a helicopter entering ground resonance, about to shake itself apart. And I like the ugly sheen of distortion on the vocals—they complement the guitar sound better on this record, even when they’re hair-raisingly high in the mix. I listen to some metal that would scare the paint off a lighthouse, but a few of the screams in “Septichrist” and “At the Mouth” still give me the willies.
