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Northern Spy Records

[northern-spy]

New Music: Download ‘The Best’

Homepage photo courtesy of Impose/Nate Dorr

It has long been the hope of this writer that the kids start investigating and reinterpreting prog-rock. A fertile and largely unchecked source for inspiration, prog’s dizzying time-signatures, synthesizer-laden atmospheres, and musical cross-pollination finally seem ripe enough for the children of the internet to devour. Brooklyn’s Starring seem more than able to live up to the task of carrying on the lessons of this unfairly scorned genre into the future. A listen to The Best — a track from the Brooklyn quintet’s Northern Spy debut ABCDEFG-HIJKLMNOP-QURSTUV-WXYZ — certainly won’t conjure images of Middle Earth, Renaissance Fairs, or fantastical Roger Dean landscapes. But it will spin you into a world where punk thrust, psychedelic smear, and prog-rock’s technical virtuosity collide to produce very listenable, and thrilling, results. Stream/download The Best below and head here to pre-order ABCDEFG-HIJKLMNOP-QURSTUV-WXYZ ahead of its June 12th release.

  -East Village Radio

[northern-spy]

Chicago Underground Duo Announce US Tour Dates, Release New Single

Chad Taylor and Rob Mazurek of Chicago Underground Duo are heading out for some key East Coast dates this May, with stops in Brooklyn, Easthampton, New Haven, Washington D.C., and Philly. The Duo’s new record Age of Energy has been getting raves across the blogisphere and is charting at a slew of independent radio stations across the country. In honor of the tour, the guys are releasing a second single, “Castle in Your Heart”  for all you sound-junkies to download, embed or do with what you will.

TOUR DATES

05/09/12 – Brooklyn, NY  - Kenny’s Castaways Time: 8:00pm. Undead Jazz Festival

05/10/12 – Easthampton, MA – Flywheel Time: 8:00pm. Address: 43 Main St, Easthampton, MA 01027. 43 Main Street (In the Old Town Hall

05/11/12 – New Haven, CT – Intercambio Time: 8:00pm. Address: 756 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT.

05/13/12 – Washington D.C. – The Bohemian Caverns Time: 7:00pm. Admission: $15. Address: 2001 11th Street, Washington, DC. Transparent Productions Presents

05/14/12 – Philadelphia, PA – Ars Nova Workshop/The Rotunda Time: 8:00pm. Admission: $15. Address: 4014 Walnut Street. VENUE: Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA

STREAM, EMBED AND DOWNLOAD THE TRACK “CASTLE IN YOUR HEART”

KEY PRESS FOR AGE OF ENERGY:

Review in eMusic “Really a wonderful album that throws enough curveballs to keep the album perpetually interesting and uncategorizable. The sort of avant-garde music that could appeal to a wide cross-section of genre fans. Highly Recommended.”

Chicago Underground Duo review in The NYC Jazz Record “The whole album has this feel of hearing the sounds of the environment, being inspired by them, but never forgetting to respect the lay of the land.”

NY Times “This long-running avant-garde outfit, consisting of the cornetist Rob Mazurek and the drummer Chad Taylor (along with a wealth of electronic effects), has a typically venturesome new album, Age of Energy, on the Northern Spy label.”

Time Out New York “On the lush new Age of Energy (Northern Spy), celebrated at tonight’s gig, Mazurek and Taylor collage unbridled cornet-drums improv with celestial drone pop and synth-haloed dub.”

Review in the Chicago Reader “Despite the fact that the duo’s sound has evolved consistently across its six albums, this new one is something of a shocker.”

   Chicago Underground Duo – Age of Energy CD / LP / Digital – Special edition 100 piece run of clear vinyl availble now!

[northern-spy]

Songcography Reviews "Age of Energy"

The Chicago Underground Duo consists of Rob Mazurek on cornet, electronics and voice with Chad Taylor on drums, mbira, drum machine and electronics. Together they get a fascinating sound, influenced by 70′s Miles Davis, electronic music experiments and their own jazzsensibility. The lengthy opener “Winds and Sweeping Pines” has a long progressive electronic opening passage, developing into a moody and beguiling soundscape. Taylor’s drums enter a little ways into the nearly twenty minute long improvisation, playing his drums off against waves of electronics. Mazurek doesn’t move to the cornet until nearly fifteen minutes in, but he does so with a finely honed tone that fits in well with the surrounding music. Taylor’s drums build the pace and the music gradually increases before slowly fading out. Droning electronics and sampled voice usher in “It’s Alright” laying down a subversive and unusual foundation, based as much in science fiction sounds and modulations as jazz. Mazurek’s cornet slowly glides in sounding like a post-modern homage to Miles Davis’s In a Silent Way album. The electronics evolve into a moody and distorted, overdriven section building anxiety and taking the song into much more ominous terrain. The acoustic track “Castle in Your Heart” has a gentle African vibe with the smoothly percussive mbira providing an unusual but interesting sound. Together with cornet, they make for music that has compassion and kindness. This sets things up for the extraordinary finale, “Age of Energy” which begins with drilling electronics and drums. Taken at a blistering uptempo pace, the shape-shifting electronics and rock-inspired drumming make for a very exciting track, especially when Mazurek adds cornet smears to the boiling cauldron. This was a fresh and thoughtful look at jazz and improvised music from a thoroughly modern perspective. Building from both electronic and acoustic instruments the group facilitates a truly unique sound. 

Age of Energy – Age of Energy

[northern-spy]

4 stars for 'Dream Seeds' from Record Collector Magazine

Spencer Grady from Record Collector Magazine - - - 

"This highly original conceptual work – a suite of seven songs recounting a series of harrowing child-related nocturnal visions – often occupies the same overwrought realms as Mike Pathos or Xiu Xiu. Indeed, the vocals of Extra Life’s chief songwriter Charlie Looker, on tracks such as Righteous Seed and, particularly, Ten Year Teardrop (“I’m breaking down, I’m breaking down/I buried you, I buried you”) approach the uneasy histrionic heights of Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart as if he were possessed by a coke-fuelled, frothy-mouthed Morrissey.

But such moments of amplified anguish tempered by Dream Seeds’ stridently propulsive post-rock arrangements, its melodious arcs and deft shifts in tempo grounding any high-kiting excursions of intense emotional display. Pieces such as First Song (capturing the kind of memorably anthemic chorus that would make a Mercury Prize nominee proud) and the slow-grinding Blinded Beast (a track that incrementally blooms into a steamrollering, multi-harmonising epic), make Dream Seeds a startling, sometime shocking and, occasionally, remarkable listen."

[northern-spy]

Jazz and Blues on Chicago Underground Duo

The Chicago Underground Duo consists of Rob Mazurek on cornet, electronics and voice with Chad Taylor on drums, mbira, drum machine and electronics. Together they get a fascinating sound, influenced by 70′s Miles Davis, electronic music experiments and their own jazz sensibility. The lengthy opener “Winds and Sweeping Pines” has a long progressive electronic opening passage, developing into a moody and beguiling soundscape. Taylor’s drums enter a little ways into the nearly twenty minute long improvisation, playing his drums off against waves of electronics. Mazurek doesn’t move to the cornet until nearly fifteen minutes in, but he does so with a finely honed tone that fits in well with the surrounding music. Taylor’s drums build the pace and the music gradually increases before slowly fading out. Droning electronics and sampled voice usher in “It’s Alright” laying down a subversive and unusual foundation, based as much in science fiction sounds and modulations as jazz. Mazurek’s cornet slowly glides in sounding like a post-modern homage to Miles Davis’s In a Silent Way album. The electronics evolve into a moody and distorted, overdriven section building anxiety and taking the song into much more ominous terrain. The acoustic track “Castle in Your Heart” has a gentle African vibe with the smoothly percussive mbira providing an unusual but interesting sound. Together with cornet, they make for music that has compassion and kindness. This sets things up for the extraordinary finale, “Age of Energy” which begins with drilling electronics and drums. Taken at a blistering uptempo pace, the shape-shifting electronics and rock-inspired drumming make for a very exciting track, especially when Mazurek adds cornet smears to the boiling cauldron. This was a fresh and thoughtful look at jazz and improvised music from a thoroughly modern perspective. Building from both electronic and acoustic instruments the group facilitates a truly unique sound.

[northern-spy]

Gapplegate on Gayle

What is Charles Gayle doing dressed as a clown on the cover of his new trio recordingStreets(Northern-Spy 018)? The answer is that it is a character persona Charles donned in the ’90s to comment on his days of homelessness.

Charles Gayle has been recorded pretty extensively since his breakthrough days as a “pure” avant-free jazz saxophone voice. He has been rather well documented. So what would induce you to shell out your money for another release? The answer is that he has developed his voice and sound on tenor to a point where it is quite obvious he has undergone a period of growth. The album is of a piece; Charles on tenor, Larry Roland on acoustic bass, Michael TA Thompson on drums, playing an hour of free excursions. But it’s not just any old hour. Charles is magnificently limber, impassioned and fired up. Roland and Thompson give him the cushion of excellent free-styling.

It’s a complete statement of the place where Charles Gayle is at today. A master of expressive freedom. If you want to know Charles Gayle at his full power, this gives it to you in all its glory.

[northern-spy]

Color Vinyl what WHAT!!!!

Get these babies while you can ... only 100 pressed!!!

NEPTUNE'S "MSG RCVD" and CHICAGO UNDERGROUND DUO'S "AGE OF ENERGY"

   Pretty nice, aye? :D Nothing like a little transparency. 

You can pick up Chicago Underground Duo's Age of Energy and Neptune's MSG RCVD at NSpy's online store. Did we mention there are only 100 of each? Get 'em while they're hot!!!