If you’re looking for a Chicago analog to Okayplayer—the loose-knit, Philadelphia-based musical community centered on the Roots but also embracing Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, D’Angelo and many others—the nine-piece band Vertikal is a strong contender. Founded by local guitarist Anthony Allamandola and featuring a DJ, a three-piece horn section and two diverse front people with the sultry-voiced Stacy Rene and the spoken-word artist Ben Butta Jones.
Dedicated to bridging the gap between hip-hop and jazz but also incorporating elements of funk, neo-soul, Latin, rock and blues, the mixed-gender, multi-ethnic band nonetheless churns out some surprisingly seamless and very accomplished grooves on tracks such as “Ready or Not” and “Time Chasin’,” currently streaming from its Web site, http://www.myspace.com/VERTIKALCHICAGO, and definitely in need of wider release.
Despite what the band name might lead you to believe, there actually are five members of Trio in Stereo -- vocalist PJ McMahon, bassist Marc King, keyboardist Logan Cradick, guitarist Mike Nelson and drummer Chris Kolodziej, augmented at various times by assorted friends on horns and backing vocals -- and they formed when they were all in college at the University of Indiana in Bloomington, then moved en masse to Chicago to build on what they started with their 2005 debut, the “Everyone Here Looks Familiar” EP.
Since then, the band has spent a lot of time gigging around with kindred sonic spirits such as Mary Timony and Midstates, as well as tweaking the impressive mix of vintage ’90s shoegazer guitars and rhythms and endearingly odd Elephant 6-style orchestral pop flourishes on its first full album, “Bury it to Dig it up,” self-released in mid-February, and available for free streaming or paid download on its Web site, www.myspace.com/trioinstereoband.
If the group is half as accomplished onstage as it is on the wonderfully trippy but undeniably catchy recordings of songs such as “The Show,” “She’s not a Robot” and “Jupiter,” it’s primed to claim a spot in the front ranks of Chicago’s psychedelic-pop elite. Judge for yourself at its next gig at Lilly’s, 2513 N. Lincoln, on May 8.
Formed in 2003, when they took their name from an intentional misspelling of the infamously decadent Greek city of Sybaris, bassist Shawn Podgurski, guitarist Phil Naumann, vocalist Angela Mullenhour and drummer Eric Mahle have been pegged as up-and-comers since their self-titled 2005 debut for the indie Flameshovel Records. Now, with a lot of touring and even a few big festival gigs under their belts, they’re back with an even stronger second disc, “Into the Trees,” out soon on a slightly bigger indie label, Absolutely Kosher.
At first blush, the name Children's Masterpiece Theatre may bring to mind a BBC TV special, or perhaps another aging rocker trying to revitalize his career with children's music. But there's nothing kiddy about the suburban Chicago group - the vibe is much more tortured teen, as in a combination of vintage '90s symphonic Smashing Pumpkins with Tool or Nine Inch Nails electro-industrial thrash.
Sadly unheralded, mostly unsuccessful and largely forgotten also-rans of Chicago's great alternative-era major-label feeding frenzy, Figdish (http://www.myspace.com/figdish) will always have a warm spot in my heart. Few groups have done the drunken, chaotic, ramshackle but insanely infectious Midwestern garage-pop thing better. In that band's wake, Blake Smith pursued more mannered glam-rock sounds with Caviar, while co-founder Rick Ness, displaying uncharacteristic hubris by naming his band Ness, has
followed the connections from heroes such as the Shoes, Cheap Trick and the Replacements to the dustier corners in the British Invasion archives of the Who, the Kinks and the Pretty Things.
My second favorite Chicago "brother act" after the Neil Young-loving Braam, the indie-pop quartet Filligar has been kicking around the local scene for several years now, since the group was formed by then-teenage siblings Pete, Teddy and Johnny Mathias and their childhood friend Casey Gibson.
No one will ever be able to accuse 30-year-old singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Stolie — raised in suburban Deerfield as Rebecca Stoelinga — of being unduly narrow-minded when it comes to the musical styles she embraces. On her third D.I.Y. release, "Between the Fake and Real," she flits from coffeehouse jazz ("Humpty Dumpty") to ill-advised rap ("Tendency") to alt-country ("Long, Long Way"), and the leaps can sometimes be jarring.
But when she focuses her prodigious talents (she played all of the guitar, piano and bass on the new disc, programming everything else with her computer) on endearingly skewed pop songs that keep the spotlight on her wispy vocals and literary eye for lyrical details, it's hard to deny that she's the real stuff.
Taking a cue from Daft Punk — or Kraftwerk, if you want to be old school about it — electronic pop musicians Jimmy and Aaron are mysterious auteurs who shun last names, claim to divide their time between Chicago and New York and prefer to hide behind the collective identity of Pretty Good Dance Moves as they create an entrancing mix of organic and electronic sounds using vintage analog synthesizers as well as vibraphone, violin and guitar.
