Collaborators since 1993, Loren Connorsโ and Alan Lichtโs hazy, late night howling blues has been well documented, but in 1998 at the behest of Jim OโRourke, the duo participated in what remains the most ambitious embellishment of their guitarsโ elegiac sprawl. With his sights set on channeling Teo Maceroโs edit-heavy production work on Miles Davisโ fusion-era records, OโRourke assembled an all-star group of Chicago improvisers that included bassists Darin Gray and Josh Abrams, clarinetist Mike Colligan, cornetist Rob Mazurek, percussionist Chad Taylor, saxophonist Ken Vandermark, trombonist Jeb Bishop, and guitarists Rick Rizzo and Kevin Drumm, in addition to Connors, Licht, and OโRourke himself to record Hoffman Estates for Drag City. Connors and Licht arranged the pieces on the spot, a full day of improvising was recorded, and OโRourke later added overdubs and edited the session into an entangled suite of overflowing guitar feedback, comely brass swells, swaggering ululation, and spacious, mournful intimacy. In celebration of 20 years of Hoffman Estates, Ken Vandermark, Chad Taylor, and Joshua Abrams join Loren Connors and Alan Licht once again to scream the spirit into being....
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Collaborators since 1993, Loren Connorsโ and Alan Lichtโs hazy, late night howling blues has been well documented, but in 1998 at the behest of Jim OโRourke, the duo participated in what remains the most ambitious embellishment of their guitarsโ elegiac sprawl. With his sights set on channeling Teo Maceroโs edit-heavy production work on Miles Davisโ fusion-era records, OโRourke assembled an all-star group of Chicago improvisers that included bassists Darin Gray and Josh Abrams, clarinetist Mike Colligan, cornetist Rob Mazurek, percussionist Chad Taylor, saxophonist Ken Vandermark, trombonist Jeb Bishop, and guitarists Rick Rizzo and Kevin Drumm, in addition to Connors, Licht, and OโRourke himself to record Hoffman Estates for Drag City. Connors and Licht arranged the pieces on the spot, a full day of improvising was recorded, and OโRourke later added overdubs and edited the session into an entangled suite of overflowing guitar feedback, comely brass swells, swaggering ululation, and spacious, mournful intimacy. In celebration of 20 years of Hoffman Estates, Ken Vandermark, Chad Taylor, and Joshua Abrams join Loren Connors and Alan Licht once again to scream the spirit into being.
Since his 1997 solo debut, Chicago-based experimental musician Kevin Drumm has demonstrated a mastery over noise, drone, and electroacoustic improvisation idioms, producing a continuum of devastating statements in each field. First coming into his own as a convulsive prepared guitarist, Drumm fell in with Chicagoโs vibrant improvising community, playing with Ken Vandermark and Gastr Del Sol as well as participating in the 1998 sessions for Loren Connorsโ and Alan Lichtโs Hoffman Estates. Incorporating laptop and electronics into his practice, Drumm in 2002 released Sheer Hellish Miasma, a genre-defining colossus of unrelenting, ferocious buzzsaw noise whose aestheticsโcheekily lifted from heavy metalโbely the sometimes-calm interior of its ebbing and flowing feedback. The serenity latent to Drummโs music was first made explicit with the tectonic drone of 2008โs Imperial Distortion, its spectral pulsations moving with a tranquilizing malevolence, and has frequently reared its luminous head since. Throughout its different modes, Drummโs work radiates a palpable sense of purity, a steadfastness of vision buttressed by morbid humor and a prankster spirit. Traversing the highbrow/real-deal divide with ease, he has collaborated with the likes of Tony Conrad, Phill Niblock, Aaron Dilloway, Prurient, and Taku Sugimoto and recorded music for Hanson, Erstwhile, Hospital, and Mego. Drumm has been especially prolific in recent years, with 5 releases under his belt already for 2019, but live performances remain few and far between.
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