4 CHICAGO READER | OCTOBER 7, 2005 | SECTION THREE

CHICAGO READER | OCTOBER 7, 2005 | SECTION THREE 5

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FIERY FURNACES New York’s Fiery Furnaces areabout to follow up last year’s grandiose and excellentBlueberry Boat with Rehearsing My Choir (RoughTrade/Sanctuary), which ought to baffle even their mostardent fans. A collaboration between siblings Matt andEleanor Friedberger and their 83-year-old grandmother,Olga Sarantos, Choir is a rambling, fanciful near rock operaabout Sarantos’s life in Chicago, crammed with details abouteverything from her visit to a Gypsy fortune-teller on SouthHalsted to her recollection of writing letters to her husbandwhile he was in the Pacific. The lyrics are sung alternately bySarantos, in a low cabaret sing-speak, and Eleanor, whobrings out irresistible melodies amid her brother’s multi-tracked layers of keyboards and guitar. The press materialssuggest that the music reflects “the average person’s aspira-tions and experiences,” but when the two women rant abouta doughnut factory-owning MD who treats wounds withblackberry filling, it’s obvious these aren’t the recollectionsof anyone average. The band may also preview songs fromBitter Tea, a more conventional collection of new materialdue early next year. Pit Er Pat opens. a 9:30 PM, LoganSquare Auditorium, 2539 N. Kedzie, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401, $17. A —Peter Margasak

JIM HALL DUO On the surface guitarist Jim Hallseems like one of the most mild-mannered middle-of-the-road jazz musicians of all time; he’s bald and bespectacled,and until very recently he’s favored an ultraclean tone. Buthe’s actually one of the most sophisticated, daring, andopen-minded people to ever play the instrument. He’sappeared on a diverse range of recordings led by the likes ofJimmy Giuffre, Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, Lee Konitz, andOrnette Coleman, and his inventive melodic contributionsare instantly recognizable on each of them. But it’s Hall’sadvanced harmonic ideas that makes him unique. On hisnew album, Duologues (CAM Jazz), he and Italian pianistEnrico Pieranunzi create sublime thickets of unusual notecombinations in three improvised pieces and a variety oforiginal tunes; the two masters are less concerned withpushing the music outward than with exploring the sub-tleties of even the most familiar chord progressions. For thisshow Hall’s joined by flexible New York bassist Scott Colley,one of five players on Jim Hall & Basses (Telarc, 2001), asuperb collection of duos and trios. Hall experimented witheffects pedals on the disc and even strapped on a 12-stringfor the folksy opening cut, “End the Beguine!” The Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra headlines. a 8 PM, OrchestraHall, Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan, 312-294-3000 or800-223-7114, $19-$47. A —Peter Margasak

HOCKEY ISLAND I doubt any of the countless hotbands in Williamsburg have even heard of Hockey Island—they’re unsigned and have yet to release a full-length album.But if they keep writing material as good as the stuff on theirtwo self-released EPs, all that’s gonna change real soon.Guitarists Virat Shukla and Greg McKenna originally playedunder the name in Baltimore in 1999, but that incarnation fiz-zled and the two parted ways. After separate stints withBawmer pals the Oranges Band, they reunited in NYC lastspring, and it sounds like they hit the ground running:“Everything Twice,” from the Chopping Block EP, shares theOranges’ sleight-of-hand grooves and nonchalant melodicism(imagine Weezer after a beer and a lay, or maybe just aXanax), and Shukla’s voice has the easy polish most pop rock-ers would sell a thumb for. Sleepwalker Defense, the LateNights, the Lesser Events, and the DeeTees open. a 9 PM,Nite Cap, 5007 W. Irving Park, 773-794-1317, $6. —J. Niimi

BRIJ NARAYAN Brij Narayan, one of the greatest livingplayers of the sarod (a lutelike 25-string instrument), learnedfrom the best: much of his schooling in Indian classical musiccame from his father, sarangi master Nam Narayan, and healso studied under Ali Akbar Khan. His uncle and first teacher,tabla player Chatur Lal, seems to have had the greatest impacton him; Narayan is a fluid melodist capable of transcendentextended improvisation, but he also plays with a dazzlingrhythmic ferocity. At his most intense he produces flurries ofnotes in dense, neatly articulated clusters that never sound

Fiery Furnaces

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TheTreatmentA day-by-day guide to our Critic’s Choices and other previews

The Meter

W hen Robert Lowe unveiled hisone-man improv band,Lichens, at the Empty Bottle

last August, Kranky Records co-ownerBruce Adams wasn’t expecting to findhis next signing. But soon after Lowestarted playing, fingerpicking acousticguitar and layering eerie wordlesswails with a sampler pedal, he washooked. “I was standing there withTom and Christina Carter fromCharalambides watching Rob, and it’sone of those sort of moments whereyou look at each other and go, ‘Did youjust see what I saw?’” Adams says. “Iwas completely knocked out.”

To Adams’s ears, Lowe’s expansivevocals and precise playing echoed thework of modern avant-folk acts likeCharalambides and Fursaxa, but hewas also drawing on styles pioneeredby a previous generation: the other-worldly incantations of Meredith Monkand Demetrio Stratos, the meditativecompositions of the late StuartDempster, the “deep listening” explo-rations of Pauline Oliveros, and thecomplex harmonic work of DavidHyke. “He’s taking two strange musicsand putting them together and findingthe commonality in both of them,”Adams says. “There’s combustion whenthe two are put together.”

Adams brought his label partner,Joel Leoschke, to a Lowe gig a fewweeks later. They soon hashed out adeal to release Lichens’ debut album,The Psychic Nature of Being, whichcame out last month. The album is ahuge departure from Lowe’s work as abassist in the 90 Day Men. But sincethe band went on hiatus in March,Lowe’s eagerly embraced the opportu-nity to work on a host of new proj-ects—he serves as an occasional studiohand in TV on the Radio and has asmany as five new albums in the works.

Lowe, who grew up in Kansas City,joined the 90 Day Men in 1996, shortlybefore they moved from Saint Louis toChicago. During the next decade thegroup would morph from a dark post-punk combo into an ambitious indie-prog outfit. But following a European

tour in thespring of2004 to sup-port theirmost recentalbum,Panda Park,they decidedto slow down.“We’d beentouring per-petually, andit got to the

point where we really wanted to stopand reassess things,” Lowe says. “So wejust decided to go on an indefinitehiatus. It gave me the opportunity toreally start working on ideas I had inmy head for quite a while.”

Lowe had long thought aboutplaying some kind of minimalist liveimprov music—he sold CD-Rs of hishome recordings at 90 Day Men showsand finished the first track for Lichens’debut in early 2004—but he wasn’t ableto find the time to finish the record untilthis past March. Recording at SomaElectronic Music Studios and the nowdefunct Humboldt Park arts spaceCamp Gay, Lowe brought in a variety ofinstruments—including acoustic andelectric guitar, fife, and bells—andexperimented with different mike setupsto capture his ethereal vocalization.

“I think people generally misunder-stand the term improvisation,” Lowesays. “Some people think, ‘Oh, I’ll justbang on a pot, that’s improvising.’ Butit’s not that simple. It’s a much morecohesive process—there’s a skeletalframework for everything I did on the

this winter. And already in the can is adrone album by Dream Weapon, agroup featuring Lowe, percussionistMichael Zerang, and members of localfree-folk outfit Town and Country.Lowe sings and plays tamboura in thegroup, which also includes violin, viola,harmonium, and hand drums; thecombo takes its name from theDreamachine, a whirring, illuminatedcontraption invented by Beat-era artistBrion Gysin, which the band uses aspart of its performance.

Lowe’s cohorts in the 90 Day Menhave also moved on to other projects.Guitarist Brian Case joined the Ponysand has a solo act, Parish School; key-boardist Andy Lansangan plays withSterling; and Cayce Key plays drums inHalf Cut. But Lowe says the 90 DayMen are still a going concern. “We’re alldoing things really steadily,” he says.“But we’re definitely still a band.” Henotes that the group’s committed toplaying a festival in Austria in April,“under the constraints that we actuallyhave [new] music written by then,which shouldn’t be a problem.”

In the meantime Lowe has moreLichens work to keep him busy. InNovember he’ll tour with Bharoocha’snew group, Soft Circle, and theBrooklyn outfit Grizzly Bear. The nextLichens release will be a limited-edition seven-inch single that includesa book featuring works contributed by15 artists, including Justin Schaefer,Becca Mann, and Devendra Banhart.

Lowe admits his packed schedulehas him feeling harried, but he’s quickto add that the work is keeping himfulfilled creatively. “Sometimes it’s alittle hard to keep everything straight,”he says. “Sometimes it gets a little jum-bled. But I manage. Mainly I’m doingwhat I want, and that’s the mostimportant thing.” v

record. That being said, the whole ideaof happy accidents is something I’mreally keen on. That’s the wholeimpetus for what I’m doing. It’s takinga very simple idea and watching itevolve in front of you.”

The three songs on The PsychicNature of Being—“Kirlian Auras,”“Shoreline Scoring,” and the 20-minute“You Are Excrement, You Can TurnYourself Into Gold”—are rooted indrone, psych, and ambient music, butthere are flickers of Morricone twang,Fahey-style fingerpicking, and FarEastern folk. “I’ve been listening to afair amount of heavier music, metaland hardcore, which is kinda funnyconsidering where I’m at right now,”he says. “But I always listen to 20th-century classical, free jazz, folk, soul,and psych. I listen to all sorts of shit.And maybe that’s why everything iscoming out the way it is.”

As Lichens, Lowe has played solo,with a drummer, with a viola player,and occasionally with no instrumentsat all: when he performed at New YorkCity’s Knitting Factory in early Januaryhe sang a cappella. “It’s always dif-ferent, mainly because I want to makesure that I’m not treading over thesame ground,” he says.

To that end, Lowe is involved in araft of other projects. He’s been collab-orating with Jeremy Lemos and MattClark of the local psych-drone actWhite/Light for another improvproject, White/Lichens, which head-lines the Empty Bottle on Monday; thetrio recently recorded material for analbum slated to come out next year. Atlast month’s Adventures in ModernMusic festival Lowe debuted anunnamed trio with ex-Black Dicedrummer Hisham Bharoocha andBattles multi-instrumentalist TyondaiBraxton; they plan to write and record

By Bob Mehr

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The PsychedelicMinimalist90 Day Men bassist Robert Lowe finds music where the algae meet the fungi.

Lichens, aka Robert Lowe

themeter@chicagoreader.comwww.chicagoreader.com/TheMeter

White/Lichens,Number None, Zoo Wheel, MathsBalance VolumesWHEN Mon 10/10,9:30 PMWHERE Empty Bottle,1035 N. WesternPRICE FreeINFO 773-276-3600 or866-468-3401

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