Dig ‘in: Flat Worms, Slaughter Beach, Dog, Deeper
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
Flat Worms - Witness Marks (God? Records LP)
Will Ivy, singer and guitarist for Flat Worms, views the creative options of music making as infinite and feels it’s essential to set parameters in order to achieve an agreeable balance between technical execution and creativity. With its tightly-coiled intensity, Witness Marks pushes against those boundaries like a pressure cooker waiting to blow its lid. The title track is in recognition of the unborn son he and his wife lost; a soul neither of them was afforded to be with yet one who had such a profound effect on their lives. The couple was able to regroup and were expecting the birth of another child around the time of Witness Marks’ release, which Ivy considers part of the painful but beautiful complexities of life.
After recording their previous album, Antarctica, with Steve Albini in Chicago, Flat Worms circled back to work with Ty Segall, who had engineered much of their earlier catalog. God? Records, which has served as the band’s label since 2019, is Segall’s personal imprint that he established through Drag City. As a trio that includes bassist Tim Hellman and drummer Justin Sullivan, Flat Worms employ a less is more approach by creating a lean dynamic that doesn’t unduly muddy the waters. Each instrument emerges on equal footing so that their individual presence is noticeable but remains part of the whole. Above the fray, Ivy’s voice emerges, much like Protomartyr’s Joe Casey, to expose society’s foibles—human nature in full view and all a part of what we’re resigned to live with. -Bruce Novak
Slaughter Beach, Dog - Crying, Laughing, Waving, Smiling (Lame-O Records LP)
Alt-Country seems to be having a moment right now with indie bands like Ratboys, Wednesday, and Slaughter Beach, Dog embracing country twang in their music. Slaughter Beach, Dog may be the most surprising of the aforementioned bands to embrace country as they started life as a solo project of Jake Ewald from Philadelphia 4th wave emo band Modern Baseball. As MoBo wound down Slaughter Beach, Dog picked up momentum and Ewald continued to write songs focused on introspection, growing up, and yearning. Slaughter Beach, Dog grew into a full-fledged band, and across 5 albums they have continued to explore their sound from emo to indie to acoustic, leading up to Crying, Laughing, Waving, Smiling’s embrace of alt-country. You’ll hear some lovely slide guitar on “Summer Windows” and twangy guitar playing on “Bobcat Club,” a song that tells the story of a couple Ewald observed at a favorite local bar. The show stopper on this album for me is the 9-minute Wilco-tinged “Engine.” The track moves along at a deliberate churning pace before opening up to a bed of synth and keys on which guitar explorations rest. It feels ethereal; it could come apart at any moment, but for this moment it is holding together and it’s perfect. Quite frankly, I cannot wait to see them perform it in person, as I’d imagine it gets longer and jammier live. Luckily, we will have that chance as they are playing at Thalia Hall on November 5th with Bonny Doon. -Mark Joyner
Deeper - Careful! (Sub Pop LP)
On their Sub Pop debut, Careful!, Chicago’s Deeper tread trepidatiously—always looking over their shoulder and waiting for the next shoe to drop. In the opening song, “Build a Bridge,” Nic Gohl intones “Everyone is sleeping / I’m sold-out on sound / Ominous music / no, it won’t let you down / It’s the right kind of rhythm.” Gohl regularly stares down his neurosis on the record, daring not to blink despite the discomfort.
Abetted by co-guitarist Drew McBride, bassist Kevin Fairbairn and drummer Shiraz Bhatti, the instrumentation of Deeper is pulsing and serpentine. A judicious use of synths adds an element of dark wave and a smidgen of sax ups the discordance. With its stripped-down, repetitious structure, “Airplane Air” could have co-existed along with the rest of the tracks on Wire’s 154, down to Gohl’s disembodied refrain of “I couldn’t relate.” At the culmination of the album, on “Pressure,” the relief valve is finally activated when Gohl spills affection upon his spouse for being his saving grace. As McBride has pointed out, “Careful, is about looking out for one another.” Knowing someone else has your back makes it more comfortable dealing with whatever lurks behind in the shadows. -Bruce Novak
UPCOMING
Good Morning
Where: Empty Bottle / Directions
When: October 3, 9:00 PM
For most of their duration, Stefan Blair and Liam Parsons of Melbourne’s Good Morning have self-recored their music, which reflects the leisurely and conversational tone of the songs. That changed over five days in November of 2019 when they seized the opportunity to record their fourth LP, Barnyard, at The Loft in Chicago while Wilco were out on tour. Despite a slight apprehension of recording in a professional studio for the first time, Blair described it as a “low stakes environment” peppered with consumption of Miller High Life and Malört—a Chicago handshake greeting! The album finally saw release in 2021 and is resplendent with nuanced songwriting between the duo and shifting arrangements that made good use of The Loft’s collection of instruments, including an analogue synthesizer dubbed the Swarmatron. This return to Chicago is part of a two week U.S. sojourn supporting Frankie Cosmos. -Bruce Novak
Lewsberg
Where: Sleeping Village / Directions
When: October 9, 8:00 PM
When asked to explain the origins behind their austere sound in a September interview with The Quietus, the members of Rotterdam’s Lewsberg didn’t offer up any kind of consensus. Lead vocalist Arie van Vliet cited a deconstructivism principle of “denying a bit what music is, or what music is seen to be derived from, and rebuilding music with the fewest possible elements.” Guitarist Michiel Klein, on the other hand, cited countering expectations in an effort “to play with the state between recognizing a tune and being surprised by one.” Needless to say, Lewsberg aren’t interested in the typical parameters of rock music. Built around a minimalist aesthetic that achieves its subtlety through variations on repetition, the band conveys a matter-of-fact viewpoint informed by a wry sense of observation. Their speak/sing approach parlays a more intimate connection and a zen-like state of mind. Whether of not that’s music to your ears may depend on setting aside all manner of pre-conceived expectations. -Bruce Novak
Lovely Little Girls
Where: The Burlington / Directions
When: October 13, 8:00 PM
Chicago artist and provocateur Gregory Jacobsen has been teasing the finer sensibilities of the art and music scenes for decades now. LLG is four albums in since debuting in 2006 with Glamorous Piles & Puffy Saddlebags. From the cover painting to the latest iteration of LLG to the music contained herein—a complex proggy juggernaut of warped flavors, absurd hilarious lyrics, and razor fine playing—Effusive Supreme, released this August on Skin Graft, may be their finest record yet. Overall, what impacts deepest musically is the tight and nimble horn section; poking, prodding and driving throughout, but the whole ensemble just shine. “(She Puts the) T & A in TA,” “Be Good to Your Shoes” and “Procreation of the Wicked” join the canon of personal favorites. Jacobsen says LLG started as “a chaotic and noisy one-off performance piece” inspired by, amongst many, Henry Darger and Whatever Happened To Baby Jane. Word. In a more perfect world LLG would’ve opened for Ween at the recent sold-out Salt Shed and gained legions of admirers. No matter, we locals have the better opportunity to celebrate together at the Burlington. An essential listening experience. -Wade Iverson
UNCOVERED
Colin Newman - A-Z (Beggar’s Banquet LP)
What was planned to comprise Wire’s 4th album following 154, resulted in a solo release after EMI cancelled studio time when negotiations with the band fell through. As Newman explained to Trouser Press at the time: “We’d worked out a sales strategy for 154 that EMI couldn’t see at all. They couldn’t understand a rock band that wanted to do a week in a theater as an event, and wanted to promote 154 with videos or left-field TV adverts. We wanted to help them sell records: they thought we were simply being intransigent.” Hardly an unreasonable request considering Wire’s stance of not performing prior material live and the profound influence videos would soon have when MTV launched in the fall of 1981.
Beyond the EMI label issues, Wire were also splitting in factions during this time, with Newman and drummer Robert Gotobed favoring a more pop approach while bassist Graham Lewis and guitarist Bruce Gilbert skewing towards more dissonance. Fittingly, Gotobed joined Newman for A-Z’s recording along with bassist Desmond Simmons and trusted producer Mike Thorne, who also contributing keys & synths. Newman’s pop element was most notably on display with “& Jury,” which he co-wrote with Simmons. In keeping with Wire’s adventuresome bent, A-Z cobbles elements of post-punk, industrial and ambient soundscapes for a fly-in-the-ointment agitation effect. “Troisième” comes crashing down in dizzying discordance and at one point the synthesizer morphs into what sounds like an air siren, beckoning us all to seek cover. With an uncertain future, Newman appears to be trying things on for fit; on “Inventory” he confesses “I’m testing the temperature, one foot in the water / A splash makes me gnash my teeth in horror.” It would be some time before Wire found some common ground to stand upon again. The realization that they’re producing some of their most vital music as of recent years points to how fortunate we should feel to be experiencing their lasting effect. -Bruce Novak
We recommend listening along over at our Spotify page. Here’s this week’s content: