free music for the people!
LB plays in the ovens and snip snap and as casual leg. Keith was in the rories and makes music by himself and with others. Together they make music about bodies, the horrors of capitalism, environmental collapse, and aging. Sometimes it’s fun.
Their first album is 10 songs in 28 minutes. Guitar, drums, vocals. Punk/post-punk energy.
FREE PALESTINE
Library Experimental is an ongoing series focusing on Chicago’s experimental musicians. It is happening at the Chicago Public Library in Jefferson Park on Saturday, April 27 at 2pm, and features Janna Lee and Christopher Riggs / Kieran Daly!
Early! Free! Kid friendly! If the kids are patient!
Jefferson Park library is located at 5363 W Lawrence. Convenient to both bus and blue line. https://www.chipublib.org/locations/38/
Janna Lee is a Chicago artist who uses her voice to explore various facets of herself, and blurs the line between angel and demon. In addition to being the vocalist of Snek Trio and Obsequies, her solo work combines harsh noise and haunting vocals into a maelstrom that confronts the dark side of humanity. Her versatility has garnered a diverse range of collaborations, including Bob Genghis Khan, Galaxxu, Unmanned Ship, Ben Zucker, and Scarlet Diva.
https://jannaleemusic.bandcamp.com/
Photo Credit: Erin Workman
Kieran Daly is a composer and guitarist with concentrations in electroacoustic and improvised music. Some of his prolific work has been featured by the Chicago Reader, Flea, Hibari, Issue Project Room, Lateral Addition, Madacy Jazz, Pitchfork, Triple Canopy, and Wire Magazine.
Photo Credit: Gonzalo Guzman for Chicago Reader
Christopher Riggs is an autistic person who plays experimental music on the electric guitar. Without the use of processing or FX, they squeeze sounds from their guitar the Chicago Reader has called “brutalist, abstract, cold”.
Library Experimental is an ongoing series focusing on Chicago’s experimental musicians. It is happening at the Chicago Public Library in Jefferson Park on Saturday, March 16 from 2-4pm, and features Reversed Bear Trap and Sun Picture!
Early! Free! Kid friendly! If the kids are patient!
Jefferson Park library is located at 5363 W Lawrence. Convenient to both bus and blue line. https://www.chipublib.org/locations/38/
Reversed Bear Trap is the musical side project of English PhD student Krista Muratore aka Krista Bloom. Krista Muratore is also a video artist, writer and general hooligan.
https://reversedbeartrap.bandcamp.com/
Sun Picture is the instrumental home studio project of Venezuelan-American musician Carlos Lowenstein.
Using everything from modular synths to live instruments, Sun Picture blends elements of ambient, dub, spiritual jazz, and Latin-American beats. This mix is approached with a restraint suggestive of krautrock’s detached stance.
Alexei Borisov was born in Moscow on December 7, 1960 and graduated from the Moscow State University where he studied History and Arts. His controversial performing career as a guitarist began in 1980 in the new-wave group, Center. The following year he formed the mod-band, Prospekt, which transformed into the shifting Notchnoi Prospekt in 1985. After the dissolution of Notchnoi Prospekt in the mid 1990s, he surfaced again in the “noise reconstruction and techno acoustics” duo F.R.U.I.T.S. with Pavel Zhagun as well as in various art/noise/industrial/impro acts like Sever, Joint Committee, Atomic Bisquit Orchestra, New Russian Alternative, Gosplan trio and more. He is a co-founder of the N&B Research Digest label and curates the international festival of experimental music, Noise and Fury. He also works as a DJ in clubs and on various radio stations in Russia and abroad.
Jelena Glazova is a sound/visual artist and poet from Riga, Latvia. She works in interdisciplinary areas of contemporary art – combining image, poetic text, experimental sound and installation in her pieces and performances. Her sphere of activity in experimental music is drone/noise, usually constructed from processed vocals. As a conceptual artist she relies on her voice as a generator, heavily altering and manipulating it through digital processing. She considers this destruction of the vocal element as a way of expressing unpronounced speech – connecting it with her practice as a poet. As a visual artist, Jelena works with physicality which extends her sound art paradigm.
Their first album as a duo for pan y rosas was recorded in Moscow and Riga in 2023 with tapes, electronics, processed vocals, laptops, and controllers. The sound contains long form drone electronics with squelches, bends and swells.
Jukka-Pekka Kervinen (1961) is a Finnish composer, writer and musician. He plays free improvisation with electronics, (live) coding, electric guitar, piano, clarinet, and synths – modular/experimental. He lives in a small village, between two lakes, in the middle of the forest.
asymmetric modes is a series of improvised pieces created in 2022 and 2023 by Jukka-Pekka with guitar, trumpet and electronics.
Library Experimental is an ongoing series focusing on Chicago’s experimental musicians. It is happening at the Chicago Public Library in Jefferson Park on Saturday, November 18 from 2-4pm, and features Cinchel and Kathryn Schaffer!
Early! Free! Kid friendly! If the kids are patient!
Jefferson Park library is located at 5363 W Lawrence. Convenient to both bus and blue line. https://www.chipublib.org/locations/38/
Cinchel is a sonic architect whose music transcends conventional boundaries, crafting ethereal soundscapes that transport listeners to distant realms of emotion and contemplation. Their sonic explorations push the boundaries of ambient, experimental, and post-rock genres, creating a mesmerizing tapestry of sound that resonates deeply with his audience.
Kathryn Schaffer is an ex-astrophysicist, ex-art-school-professor. Her recent projects include writing about quantum causality and building a sanctuary for endangered bumblebees in NW Illinois. In her music and experimental sound projects (often collaborative and seldom published) she pursues sound as desperate miscommunication. Cables die notes slip didn’t hit save on the current version. Dinner will be on the table in an hour and the laundry folded. Code and circuits are like fingers to the physicist and they too fumble, worn and tired. It is all noise.
This work, entitled “mommy have you ever lost your voice?” collides two electric guitars, live vocals, and recorded voice in co-interrupted coercion and miscommunicated care.
Hello. Just a note that the plugin used for the preview player on this site is supremely out of date and we decided to retire it for site security purposes. We will be converting to an html audio player for the preview function, but it will take some time to move through the entire catalog. Know that we are working on it and we apologize for the inconvenience.
Library Experimental is an ongoing series focusing on Chicago’s experimental musicians. It is happening at the Chicago Public Library in Jefferson Park on Saturday, October 28 from 2-4pm, and features Hali Palombo and Meredith Haines!
Early! Free! Kid friendly! If the kids are patient!
Jefferson Park library is located at 5363 W Lawrence. Convenient to both bus and blue line. https://www.chipublib.org/locations/38/
Hali Palombo is an avid practitioner of “plunderphonics”: sampling existing musical/aural works and intertwining them into something brand new, whether it’s shortwave radio and CB radio samples, wax cylinder audio, and field recordings taken from Midwestern points of interest. Through her music and art, she aims to make the perceived ordinary hypnotic, haunting and memorable.
Meredith Haines is a multidisciplinary artist and educator working with sound, installation, performance, and video. Her work engages the political capacities of sound, and explores noise as a method of social resistance. She has performed and exhibited work all over the country at venues such as No Nation, High Concept Labs, New Boone Gallery, AS220, Space 1026, and the DUMBO Dance Festival.
After earning a BFA in dance and choreography at Temple University and working as a musician in Philadelphia for over a decade, Meredith’s work led her to Chicago in 2019 to earn her Master’s in Sound Arts and Industries at Northwestern University on a merit scholarship. She is a current Fellow Artist-in-Residence at High Concept Labs in Chicago, Illinois, and also performs under the moniker, MAIR
Reversed Bear Trap is the musical side project of English PhD student Krista Muratore aka Krista Bloom. Krista Muratore is also a video artist, writer and general hooligan.
Psionic Youth is her first album on pan y rosas. It draws on samples to blur the boundaries between mainstream pop and experimental noise music in order to explore what we can learn from sampling. Psionic Youth in particular blends pop rap, synthpop, techno, noise and black metal in a disorienting, chaotic blend that will hopefully, at the very least, make the listener smile as they recognize familiar sounds in new contexts.
Pascal Pons is percussionist who is renowned as a soloist, ensemble player, pedagogue, and improviser. He is constantly searching for ways to rethink the percussion set-up to allow sound and resonance to be set free. This aesthetic and technical approach is apparent in percussive arrangements that range from the simple to the complex. He is active in commissioning and performing solo and concerto work with orchestra.
Alistair Zaldua is a composer, improviser and violinist based in Manchester, UK. In addition to solo improvisation, he performs in a duet for organ and live electronics with Lauren Redhead. His most recent projects involve duet improvisations with Alwynne Pritchard (Bergen), saxophonist Christoph Gallio (Aarau), percussionist Pascal Pons (Freiburg), Franziska Baumann (Bern), and with cellist Isidora Edwards.
crossings is the first album by Pascal Pons and Alistair Zaldua as a duo. It was recorded in the summer of 2022, in one take, with short pauses between each number, deep in the Black Forest.