RECOMMENDED

In the years since Netherlands collective The Ex first debuted, in 1979, the band has gone through admirable, always interesting stylistic changes. Venturing beyond the in-your-grill anarchist punk that the group embraced in its infant stages, The Ex have involved jazz elements, African percussion and even Turkish folk. Influential, beloved in a cult-like way, The Ex continually churned out records under leader G.W. Sok’s guidance with striking consistency, considering how many different paths the band explored. Last year, Sok decided to leave the group to pursue other interests, and the band replaced him with Arnold de Boer. The recent release with Boer, a seven-inch titled “Maybe I Was the Pilot/Our Leaky Homes,” shows that even with a new guy at the helm, The Ex remains powerful. Shellac opens, and honestly, the stamp of approval from Albini, Trainer and Weston should be enough to convince anyone. I’m in the middle of a personal Shellac resurgence, listening to each record over and over for three days apiece, and having a helluva time. “1000 Hurts” is king. That record is one mean bastard. (Tom Lynch)

March 20 at Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln, (773)5252501, at 10pm. $15.

RECOMMENDED

Local duo My Gold Mask shapes spooky futuristic tribal anthems dotted with nods to early-nineties alternative-rock. It’s experimentalism with hooks, as singer Gretta Rochelle’s often-soaring voice battles the brain. Song “Violet Eyes” boasts a rather infectious chorus melody that’ll soundtrack your day, at least in your head. “I like shooting arrows in the dark,” Rochelle sings, and it feels as if she’s blindly taken aim at your sanity. The dark mood and gothic tones work as well, even when the two-piece lurks around dance-rock territory, like on “Bitches.” (“Leave your bitches at the door,” Rochelle demands of us.) My Gold Mask creates some interesting material that’s not easy to put your finger on; seeing it live might help, and the band plays a free Monday night show at Bottle before heading off for South By Southwest. (Tom Lynch)

My Gold Mask plays March 15 at Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, at 9pm. Free.

RECOMMENDED

Efterklang’s juggling of experimental electronics, pop and post-rock has made for three solid records, most recently “Magic Chairs,” the Denmark group’s first for 4AD. The collective manages to avoid Animal Collective joylessness while maintaining many of the same musical elements; quite simply, Efterklang is just prettier, and it goes down easier. Lead track “Modern Drift,” with its heavenly and incessant dueling piano parts, could’ve been a straight-up dance track (and it would’ve worked), but the band shows restraint and pulls the elements into one tight pop force, a remarkable decision and a bold way to begin a record. The rest of the record may not reach the height of its opening song—”Alike” sounds like a phoned-in Peter Gabriel, and “I Was Playing Drums” is so melodically misguided you’d think it was a different band entirely—but that’s a minor complaint for a band that’s not quite great, but oddly admirable. Plus, live, Efterklang has ten thousand people on stage, so you’ll have something to look at as well. (Tom Lynch)

March 8 at Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln, (773)525-2508, at 9pm. $12.

RECOMMENDED

The inauguration of the Year of the Tiger, the lunar or “Chinese” New Year 4708, began with the new moon that occurred on Valentine’s Day, and climaxes this weekend with the first full moon of the New Year.  It would be difficult to imagine a better way to celebrate than with the North American debut of the Hong Kong-based Windpipe Chinese Ensemble.

Thanks to the auspices of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office of New York, which is sponsoring the tour, and Chicago’s Fulcrum Point New Music Project, the Windpipe Chinese Ensemble will present a free, one-night-only area performance that will spotlight this remarkable group that seeks to preserve traditional Chinese music on indigenous instruments as well as create a new body of contemporary Chinese music for ensemble that feature both traditional and modern instruments.         Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Often mistaken for actually being from Glasgow, this dream-pop company hails from Philadelphia. Pairing ambient shoegaze atmosphere with electronic beats and heavenly vocal harmonies, the band’s two full-length records have been artistic successes if not quite homeruns. The group’s EPs have been impressive too, and their most recent, “Nitetime Rainbows,” will be released the first week of March. While the band has enough talent to one day create an astounding record from start to finish, it hasn’t yet; the group does seem to be leaning more towards minimalist techno and away from traditional rock these days, and it suits them well. But that doesn’t mean A Sunny Day in Glasgow can’t be unbelievably frustrating—every time a song seems to be approaching a moment of stunning beauty, the band backs off and injects some sampled weirdness. Live, though, this is all said to be a treat. (Tom Lynch)

March 3 at Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, (773)525-2508, at 9pm. $8-$10.

RECOMMENDED

Touring behind his first full-length release since 2005’s “Everything’s Ecstatic,” Four Tet makes a return to Chicago, where he’s become a welcome visitor. Perhaps it wasn’t always this way—in years past it was easy to praise Four Tet for his unique blends of pristinely produced musical beauty and noise that challenged the definitions of electronic music, but sometimes hard to stomach the indulgent nature of his uneven live performances. But somewhere, over time, man-behind-the-moniker Kieran Hebden began streamlining his live performances, channeling his genius into digestible dance-floor bites, shaped by his increased interest in DJing. Through his monthly residency at London’s famed Plastic People, Four Tet began trying out his new compositions on the unsuspecting public—perhaps standard operating procedure for most producers, but new to avant-jazz and folk-loving Four Tet. The result is apparent from the start of “There Is Love In You,” with leadoff track “Angel Echoes” harkening back to the sonic bliss of a classic like “My Angel Rocks Back And Forth,” but with the added urgency of a 4/4 beat. The album is a delight for both the feet and the head, and tonight’s show at the Empty Bottle should be an incredible night, as Four Tet’s diffused genius gets focused for a dance floor. Also performing—and making his Chicago debut—is Nathan Fake of Border Community fame, who first made waves with 2004’s melancholic club hit “The Sky Was Pink,” and is touring behind his latest and harder-hitting full-length effort, “Hard Islands.” (Duke Shin)

February 19 at Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, (773)276-3600, at 8pm & 11pm. $15.

RECOMMENDED

Annie Clark’s 2009 record “Actor” received abundant praise upon first release, a step forward from her debut “Marry Me,” a unique quasi-pop experiment that—my hunch—no one quite understood at first, but all knew was very, very good. Nearly a year later, the record has gained a slight aged loveliness; somehow, it’s developed, it’s matured, without, of course, literally changing at all. The member of The Polyphonic Spree and the touring band for Sufjan Stevens carved out this odd little chunk of time with her poetically dark lyricism and sometimes childlike delivery. Her arrangements are pristine, disarmingly so, as she’s capable of shaping this mess of music into something sonically conceivable. No small feat, and in many ways St. Vincent has become pop music’s new darling underdog. One can only hope Clark will craft a new record sooner rather than later. (Tom Lynch)

February 18 at Metro, 3730 N. Clark, (773)549-0203, at 9pm. $16-$18.

By Dennis Polkow

Boulez.  The radical and outspoken enfant terrible who once advocated that concert halls and opera houses should be burnt to the ground as dead monuments to an irrelevant past, but who ended up being known as one of the all-time great conductors and interpreters of that past.

Boulez.  The name of the leading twelve-tone composer of his generation, the man who once advocated that serialism would become “the only musical direction of the future,” and yet who later completely abandoned it as a compositional method.

Boulez.  The frustrated artist who vowed that he would never come back to an artistic position in his native France, and yet who returned to Paris to found and lead the world’s premier experimental music research center at the Centre Pompidou for a decade and a half.

Boulez.  The defiant and arrogant lion in Nietzsche’s “Also sprach Zarathustra” who once attacked all established systems, but who is today as diplomatic and subdued as a pussycat and who has come to epitomize the very musical establishment he once so sharply opposed.

On the surface, at least, it would seem that Pierre Boulez is a man of considerable contradiction.  Rather, Boulez is a man of genuine paradox: a living parable and a walking twentieth-century monument.

Our greatest living figure in music, Boulez is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century’s most significant and innovative composers.  But there is also Boulez the conductor, the champion of new music, of technology to expand music materials, the teacher, guru to rock stars, author and lecturer of international renown; in short, a man who helped reshape the course of music after World War II on a myriad of levels. Read the rest of this entry »

By Dennis Polkow

Pierre Boulez is widely represented on recordings and videos both as a composer and as a conductor. Sony Classical has re-released virtually all of his earliest recordings in a special “Pierre Boulez Edition” released for his eighty-fifth birthday, but many of these recordings have long been supplanted. Deutsche Grammaphon is re-releasing many of its Boulez recordings in multi-disc sets this year and the CSO is even releasing an all-new “Boulez Conducts Stravinsky” disc later this month on its own CSO Resound label. The following very select list is a basic introduction to the remarkable art of Pierre Boulez:

Bartók: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 3. Daniel Barenboim, soloist, Pierre Boulez and the BBC Symphony. Angel/EMI Classics. Many people thought the Bartók Piano concertos were just noise until this legendary 1970 recording forever made these works part of the standard repertory.

Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra, Four Orchestral Pieces, Op. 12. Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Pierre Boulez. Deutsche Grammaphon. This stellar recording swept the Grammy Awards and is the best of several Boulez/CSO recordings of the Hungarian master’s music. Read the rest of this entry »

By Tom Lynch

For what seems like an eternity, Tim Kinsella has been a figure in Chicago’s art scene, mostly through his musical work with Cap’n Jazz, Joan of Arc, Owls and Make Believe, plus work he’s presented under his own name. While an innovator, Kinsella’s a bit of an acquired taste—his apparent aversion to conventional melody and his unique and often abrasive voice could turn a traditional rock fan off. That said, Kinsella’s a lyrical master, his projects each thrillingly distinctive and daringly experimental, and it’s obviously no stretch to call him an icon in certain circles.

Joan of Arc, Kinsella’s longest-running project, has famously consisted of a rotating cast of musicians through the years and its twelve releases. 1997’s “A Portable Model Of…” and 1998’s “How Memory Works” remained my favorite Joan of Arc records for a decade, until “Boo Human” was released in 2008 and annihilated me. Kinsella’s newest Joan of Arc project is called “Don’t Mind Control,” and it’s a compilation of brand new songs submitted by past and current Joan of Arc members, eighteen tracks in all. Contributors include Tim’s brother Mike Kinsella’s Owen, A Tundra, Disappears, Jeremy Boyle, Cale Parks, Euphone, Tim Rutili, Josh Abrams, Ghosts and Vodka and Kinsella himself. In many ways this is the quintessential Joan of Arc release, as over the years the band has thrived with planets of talented musicians orbiting around Kinsella’s sun. Read the rest of this entry »