#jimmy lacy

[thesunlounge]

SiP - Sparkling Spur (from Leos Naturals, Not Not Fun Records 2020)

[burlveneer-music]

SiP - Leos Naturals (Not Not Fun) (via Slow Music Movement)

Cosmic Chicago modal organ grinder Jimmy Lacy developed the dexterous dialect of SiP some years back while helming a happy hour residency at a Logan Square cocktail lounge that required he vamp rambling three-hour sets nightly. With such a wide window to fill, he free-flowed serpentine mandala keyboard motifs across 15-minute expanses, soaking in every spiral, stasis, and sliding scale. These hypno-motion strategies were rehearsed and refined across stellar radio performances (notably for Planet Catieo, WLPN 105.5FM) and studio sessions, finally culminating in the sidewinder séances of his dazzling debut: Leos Naturals. Lacy speaks of SiP as a headspace “in sync with my own clock and rhythms,” which is apparent in his uniquely attuned playing, both motorik and meandering, between raga, rave-up, and reverie. Limber lotus position keyboard designs interweave with soft threads of bass clarinet, melodica, kalimba, and percussion, deepening the spectrum and expanding the trip. It’s a music elevated yet earthbound, loose but precise, natural magic for unnatural times. Recorded by K. Klemaier. Bass clarinet by E. Juhl. Melodica by P. Prezzano. Vocals by C. Lacy. Mastered by KK. Photography & design by D. Ryan. Shapes by C. Hudson

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

SiP - Leos Naturals

For Bandcamp Monday, check out an extremely nice piece of work from Chicago keyboardist Jimmy Lacy. Leos Naturals is a pleasing hybrid of all kinds of things — free-floating kosmische, hazy lounge vibes, Fourth World grooves, spiritual jazz, and more. There’s an avant-garde minimalist edge here, but also a pop sensibility, catchy melodies and sweet rhythms always bubbling up. The official copy calls it “serpentine mandala keyboard motifs” and I’m not sure I can do any better than that. Get it!

Also worth noting that Bandcamp is (once again) waiving its fees this Friday, June 5, so get your shopping lists ready ... 

[sinceileftyoublog]

Live Picks: 8/24

Daniel Bachman; Photo by Greta Svalberg

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Spanish-language shoegaze, beats, Americana, industrial metal, classic rock, jam psych, film score, and far-out instrumental guitar music: all tonight!

MINT FIELD, Beat Kitchen

Pasar De Las Luces is the 65-minute debut from Tijuana shoegaze duo MINT FIELD, the project of Estrella Sanchez and Amor Amezcua. It’s a record with discernible instrumental elements that combine to create a mood rather than a concrete point. The wordless singing and fuzzed out guitars of “Ojos En el Carro” instill melancholy, while the charge-up of songs like “Cambios del Pasar” or the motorik “Quiero Otoño de Nuevo” embrace nostalgia for a certain era of alternative music. 

Local new wave/goth pop band DoubleSpeak and indie poppers Tiny Fireflies open.

Prefuse 73, Empty Bottle

Ambient alt hip-hop head Guillermo Scott Herren--aka Prefuse 73--released some of the best IDM of the early 2000′s. He’s still prolific, having released two EPs and an album in 2015 (Rivington Não Rio, probably his best since 2003′s beloved One Word Extinguisher) and, most recently, another album this year in Sacrifices. While his most recent effort is middling in comparison to the excitement his early material brings, he’s still a fascinating and worthwhile live performer.

Rapper Mike co-headlines. SiP, a project from synth wizard Jimmy Lacy, opens.

Alejandro Escovedo & Joe Ely, Old Town School of Folk Music

Longtime Americana buddies Alejandro Escovedo and Joe Ely play together tonight. Escovedo’s got a new album The Crossing out next month (Ely plays on it). West Texas-heavy Panhandle Rambler was Ely’s most recent album until last week, when he released The Lubbock Tapes: Full Circle. The set should cover all over both men’s discography with few if any recent tunes.

Godflesh, Metro

Godflesh came roaring back in 2014 after a 13 year album-less streak with A World Lit Only By Fire. Late last year, they followed it up with Post Self, which was even better, the industrial metal of the title track kicking off an album that’s more noisy and punk than laden with heavy riffs. They should play much of it tonight at Metro with a few classic tracks thrown in for good measure.

Local straight edge hardcore punk band Harm’s Way, industrial metal duo Mirrors for Psychic Warfare, and Ledge open.

The Beach Boys, Ravinia

No Brian Wilson? No problem for The Beach Boys! Not just because Wilson’s not worth seeing anymore, but because John Stamos is playing with The Beach Boys. Just kidding (not about Stamos, who is appearing--kidding about Stamos being the reason). In actuality, the band’s got undeniable classics and are always worth seeing as long as some original members are there.

The Righteous Brothers open.

Gov’t Mule, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre

Jam band Gov’t Mule’s last album was 2017′s acclaimed Revolution Come...Revolution Go. Tonight, though, they’ll bring Dark Side of the Mule to Tinley Park, covering Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon the only way they know how: with crazy lights and monster jams.

Alt country band The Avett Brothers co-headline. Rock band/Black Crowes offshoot The Magpie Salute opens.

"Salomé" Live Score by Haley Fohr, Art Institute of Chicago

In our interview with Matchess, we mentioned that Whitney Johnson would be participating in the live score performance of Salomé, written by frequent collaborator Haley Fohr of Circuit des Yeux. Well, that’s tonight! The two perform along with double bassist Andrew Scott Young and drummer Tyler Damon. 

Daniel Bachman, Hideout

Guitarist Daniel Bachman released his most serene record yet in 2016, a self-titled album. He recently returned with The Morning Star, a 75-minute meditation of personal and political reflection. The improvisational and jarring “Invocation” opens the record with heady cacophony blending into hypnotic drones. “Sycamore City” abandons his studio wizardry for spontaneous-sounding field recordings that beautifully complement his trademark finger-picked guitar. He strays from the guitar a little bit on The Morning Star--juxtaposing fuzzy AM radio vocal samples with organ on “Car” and furthering his organ drone manipulation on closer “New Moon”--but the album still centers around his immaculate six-string, still very much the centerpiece of Bachman.

Bachman plays as part of Hideout’s Picnics on the Porch.

[thesunlounge]

Reviews 334: SiP

One of my favorite releases so far this year, and indeed of recent memory, is Leos Naturals, a forthcoming cassette on Not Not Fun Records written and produced by keyboard explorer Jimmy Lacy, otherwise known as SiP. It’s rare that an album so perfectly intersects this many of my favorite styles and sounds, and across the nine tracks, my mind is carried towards the minimalist flights of Terry Riley and the organic music of Don Cherry; the spiritual meditations of Alice Coltrane and the interstellar journeys of Sun Ra; the ebullient kosmische of Manuel Gottsching and the dreamspace ragas of the Theatre of Eternal Music; the pastoral psych folk of Woo and the spaghetti western scores of Ennio Morricone; and the rich lineages of post-rock and experimental music in Chicago…things like Tortoise, Brokeback, Natural Information Society, Mind Over Mirrors, and Bitchin Bajas. More remarkable still is that Lacy does almost everything with a minimal palette of organ and synth, using his keys and fingers to create kaleidoscopic spiral patterns, multi-layered fire webs, and LSD tracers of every possible color. Often times the left hand holds down a narcotic bass groove reveling in shades of Saharan jazz, West African highlife, and bubbly sunshine dub while the right hand explores mystical sonic landscapes which, in addition to classical raga, minimalism, modal jazz, and krautrock, also touch on Ethiopian psych and a range of sounds from various Native American folk traditions. And though the tracks are often solo organ journeys carried by primitive loops of hand drum exotica, they are sometimes accented by summertime kalimba storms, seaside melodica breezes, and multi-faceted bass clarinet performances, which vary between lounge romance, rainforest mystery, big band nostalgia, and free jazz shaman magic.

SiP - Leos Naturals (Not Not Fun, 2020) The percussion of “Amitabul” rolls through the desert with a subdued horseback gallop while subsonic basslines evoke warming dub liquids. Clustered keyboards spread across the spectrum like mirage sparkles and solar organ leads weave lullaby ragas and shake charmer serenades while tambourines and sleigh bells jangle in the distance and sometimes, the organ melodics are swapped out for gentle sunshowers of kalimba. Elsewhere, P. Prezzano’s melodica blows like a wheezing wind, with all distinction between melodica and organ disappearing as the two instruments blur into a smoldering cloud of psychedelic sound, and towards the end, we cut unexpectedly into tribal fire dance mysticism, with hand drums beating urgently, ringing bells filling all space, and Ben Chasny-style acid vox calling to the ancestral spirits. The percussion of “Pure Horse” mimics the sounds of clopping hooves against sunbaked stone while basslines slither through North African jazz descents. Repeating keyboard riffs execute a drunken delirium dance alongside the horse-gallop groove and everything proceeds according to Lacy’s own feverish dream logic, with acid-fried leads alighting on flights of spiritual jazz fantasy and Arabian desert exotica that sometimes mesmerically track with the basslines. Best of all, dueling keyboard leads sitting somewhere between a ceremonial wood flute and a rainforest pan-pipe occasionally sing overhead…their esoteric folk harmonies lifting the soul towards astral ecstasy. “Ras Cosmos” sets bells ringing beneath some approximation of a phaser-smothered zither…like an elven future spirit playing a strange psaltery strung with electrified strands of crystal, where each pluck swirls into a self-contained vortex. There’s a touch of Japanese traditional music as the spageage koto evocations are accompanied by E. Juhl’s cloudy clarinet abstractions, and at some point, shakers and floor toms give the groove a shambolic lurch as the clarinet works through big band jazz melodies from a bygone era. And though the whole thing seems to approach the drunken exotica of Haruomi Hosono, the moment is all to brief, for we soon return to blues-soaked space harp psychedelia and pastoral woodwind ambiance.

“Malabar” ends the A-side with desert caravan hand percussions bopping over a frog-squelch bass pulse while kalimbas flutter in a seaside breeze. Juhl’s clarinet approximates elephant shrieks and jungle mating calls until harmonious organ chords billow into the mix…like a warming blast of wind and sand. Shakers dance alongside a snaking synth lead awash in Indian ocean magic before the mix gives over to clarinet exotica…like Woo exploring a coastal oasis. And so it goes for the rest of the track, a sort of dream dance progression between clarinet balearica and passages dominated by immersive organ wavefronts and joyous raga-lead explorations, the latter of which increase in intensity as things progress….shakers hissing like snake tails, tambourines shaking out golden hazes, ethnological drums dancing wildly beneath an idiophonic rainfall, and Lacy’s keyboards climbing towards the sun with joyous abandon, his bleating leads and shamanic spirals falling over themselves and creating multi-layered tapestries of free jazz intensity, high life positivity, and raga complexity. There’s even a climax of wall-of-sound psychedelia where whistles overblow into feedback ecstasy while keyboards transmute through crazed LFO oscillations and hyperspeed fractal dances. Then on B-side opener “Electric Palm Study,” a shuffling psych rock groove is sourced from an old organ drum machine…a sort of primitive rhythm box kosmische, with basslines bouncing through acid-colored flower fields. And as spindly keyboard riffs jangle in the sunshine, the mix overflows with malfunctioning computronics, further overblown whistling, and garbled broadcasts from faraway star systems. The mangled electronic accents continue in “Sparkling Spur,” which establishes a loping groove built from tom-tom rhythmics, galloping bass riffs, and muted shaker clicks…a horseback trot through a seaside saloon town, or perhaps a journey atop a bouncing burro, riding the crest of a dune while sparkling waves crash against a white sand beach. Sunbeam synth leads rise towards the sky, with touches of spaghetti western and Ethiopian folk radiating in all directions, and towards the end, as these Afro-coastal and American western melodies converse across the spectrum, the crazed feedback electronics settle into synthetic birdsong.

In “Chicago Dream Center,” organ basslines move with a spiritual bop…a sort of Arabian desert fantasy sway. As we give over to a cosmic jazz groove awash in modal organ spirituality, one that evokes for me Alice’s late 70s classic Eternity, tambourines create glimmering webs and minimalist keyboard patterns splay out in each ear. It’s an eye-closed revery of mystical inspiration, one that pushes even closer towards transcendence as Juhl’s bass clarinet begins blowing waves of ecstatic fire across the stereo field. Elsewhere, we move away from free jazz intensity and journey towards the realm of dreams, as pan-pipe and forest flute leads invoke mystical visions of coyotes howling at the stars. And all throughout the mix, weird gusts of metallic wind blow and eventually subsume everything, until all that remains is sparse wind chime resonance. We move more directly into the Coltrane universe with the tributary “Alice,” though it could also rightfully be called “Herman.” Stuttering bass patterns eventually release into sustaining warmth…like be-bop rendered as otherworldly ambient in a way pulling my mind to Sun Ra’s “Exotic Forest” and that similar feeling of exotica space jazz threatening to vaporize at any moment. Juhl blows cool noir breezes via clarinet, the sounds filmic and emotionally affecting…like the twilit heroin journeys of Bohren & der Club of Gore’s…and all the while, an e-piano smothered in liquid tremolo moves between overflowing chord clusters and percussive runs up the scale. Tambourines and ceremonial bells generate sprays of sparkling metal that bring further touches of Alice, though the rhythms flow in and out of focus like a daydream. There are also moments where vents in the ground open up and spew forth neon space vapors and LSD-smothered fusion runs, which then swim drunkenly towards the stars. “Rainbow Kids” closes Leos Naturals with ecclesiastical keyboard waves and clattering chimes while overhead, Lacy’s organ does a fantastic impression of a tenor sax. It’s a transition from the world of Alice Coltrane to that of John, resulting a spiritual faux-sax paean awash in atmospheres of gospel and old world blues.

(images from my personal copy)