CHIRP: The Chicago Independent Radio Project

Michael Ardaiolo writes

Show Spotlight: Deaf Center, Zelienople, Odawas

This Thursday night is circled on calendars around the country for the undoubtedly entertaining political spectacle that will be the televised Vice Presidential debate. But this is 2008, and we are no longer slaves to the space-time continuum. We have something more practical now: TiVo. And though technology has crumbled one law of physics after another, it has yet to improve upon the experience of a live musical performance. That is why you need to program your VCR… er… DV-R now, so you’ll be free to go to Chicago’s Hideout this Thursday evening instead. It will be a performance too good to experience in any other form than in person.

Headlining the bill is the Norwegian duo Deaf Center. Signed to the always-intriguing U.K. label Type Records, Erik Skodvin and Otto Totland craft moody soundscapes inspired by silent 8mm black-and-white film. Utilizing sampled ambient noises and aged recording methods as well as acoustic instrumentation, their music evolves into dramatic scenes without the crutch of visual stimuli. Whereas most bands rely on huge crescendos or entrancing rhythms to hook their audiences, Deaf Center concentrates on texture and acoustics. Its emotion relies on brevity of sound rather than amplitude or melodramatic climaxes, a talent many musicians seek but few succeed. (Erik Skodvin will also be performing solo under his Svarte Greiner moniker at Reckless Records‘ Wicker Park location at 6p on Friday).

Type Records label-mates and staples in the experimental Chicago music scene, Zelienople are also on the bill. Now in nearly the tenth year of their musical partnership, Matt Christensen, Mike Weis and Brian Harding have perfected their bewitching brew of psychedelic folk and drone-based jazz. Their most recent release His/Her is the product of a band on a matured creative high. The music is as seamless as it is loose, letting each musician explore the outer edges of their instrumentation’s acoustics while still defining a solid song structure in the process.

Fellow Chicagoans Odawas round out the night’s live bands. The core duo of Michael Tapscott and Isaac Edwards certainly share the atmospheric aesthetic of the other two acts, but they also introduce a Neil Young-ish narrator to the mix. Haunting and mesmerizing, Tapscott’s twangy vocals float atop a sea of brooding synths, yearning steel guitars and Morricone-like rhythms.

Morning Recordings‘ Pramod Tummala will spin between sets.

You couldn’t ask for a better setting for such music than in the cozy seclusion of the Hideout. And don’t worry; the tumultuous television spectacle everyone will be chatting about on Friday will be waiting for you when you get home.

Thursday, October 2nd, 9:30p

Hideout Chicago

Deaf Center

Zelienople

Odawas

Morning Recordings DJs