Reviews, profiles and news about music in Chicago
The album is a dazzlingly rich lode of tonal and especially textual delights; I’d call it a master class in songwriting, except I’ve listened to it a few times through and still can’t tell how he’s pulled off some of the effects he has here. Inspiration and invention can’t be taught.
Garber’s voice is a gorgeous thing—managing to deliver both the resonance of a viol and the brightness of a trumpet—and her phrasing could persuade you that these timeworn lyrics are actually occurring to her spontaneously as she speaks them.
The band’s sound has expanded a bit since its earliest days; one hears more hints of psychedelia in more recent outings like 2018’s “Evil Spirit.”
With her exuberant self-empowerment single “Juice,” the irrepressible singer-rapper-flautist has positioned herself as one of 2019’s defining voices.
The unique tuning used by CGT—intervals of fifths, like a violin—gives a unique sonority to the instrument as well. Against that backdrop, the trio sounds like no one else as it digs into both original compositions and interpretations of others’ works.
“Twin Hemispheres” is neither the best composition on the band’s new album nor the right choice for the single (which it was), but I’ll be damned if they didn’t position it perfectly as a statement of intent, as if to say, “We are still Pilot Cloud and we’re picking up precisely where we left off. “
My favorite of the album’s original tunes may be “Oceans of Notions,” where Avery clearly enjoys himself, chattering and clicking and rattling at Miller’s breezy guitar theme; he’s like a terrier running between Miller’s legs as he ambles along.
Unlike many other musicians, Auger is possessed of a full understanding of both rock and jazz, so while other jazz-rock hybrids fall flat or lean too far in one or the other direction, Auger’s work focuses on the instrumental acuity of the musicians without sacrificing the visceral energy of rock.
Van Morrison, the grand old man of folk-rock, returns, both pipes and passion still intact, to celebrate the deluxe reissue of his seminal 1997 album, “The Healing Game.”
The Tubes ushered the theatricality of Alice Cooper, the musical adventurism of progressive rock and the titillating shock value of cabaret into an intriguing and sometimes messy whole. Many decades later, core members of the group continue, with a mix of satire now leavened with a bit of nostalgia.
