Over the course of a longer-than-you-would-expect career, local outfit Anathallo has often been compared to Sufjan Stevens and his band, and it’s a just reference, as the band’s ambitious compositions, featuring spread-eagle instrumentation and choral voice arrangements (big, big, big) strive for the same sense of musical “community” Stevens so successfully found with his Illinois and Michigan records. “Canopy Glow,” Anathallo’s 2008 sophomore disc released on the Anticon label, is lush enough, if a little too sleepy at times. A song called “Northern Lights” from a chamber pop band such as this sounds pretty much exactly as you’d expect. So no surprises here. “Canopy Glow” picks up when the band tosses its collective hands in the air and tumbles into Sufjan territory with reckless abandon, as with the piano-driven “The River,” one of the record’s best songs. (“Italo,” at least the first minute of it, is also rather sublime.) Very beautiful tones and waves of melody, if only slightly interesting and not much else. Still, should be a decent live show, and having Sybris on the bill always helps. (Tom Lynch)
March 27 at Bottom Lounge, 1375 W. Lake, (312)929-2022, 8pm.
Cooling It: A Preview of Colleen Green at Cole’s Bar When Green strums power chords or chiming notes on top of her backing track, you might think you’re at Ramones karaoke night and Madonna is taking her turn.
For “Want” of a Change: A Preview of Rufus Wainwright at Ravinia Park Rufus Wainwright isn’t the first singer-songwriter to reinterpret earlier work through an orchestral lens. And much of Wainwright’s third and fourth albums, “Want One” and “Want Two”—whose twentieth anniversaries are the prompt for this new tour—is fully scored. But when Wainwright hits the Pavilion stage at Ravinia tonight, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will be behind him.
Brutal Finesse: A Preview of King Crimson at Ravinia There have been few new compositions from King Crimson these past two decades, but the live arrangements of songs from its catalog are often strikingly different than the recorded versions.
