- Gigan, in what’s almost certainly the least metal promo photo of 2011
I’ve had Gigan on the brain lately, on account of they were supposed to come through town a couple weeks ago with Dark Funeral and Inquisition. That tour, which I was very much looking forward to, got canceled—surely a huge disappointment for the band, and definitely a serious financial blow. So I thought I’d give ’em a little love with today’s 12 O’Clock Track.
Gigan recorded Quasi-Hallucinogenic Sonic Landscapes (Willowtip), the 2011 album on which “Transmogrification Into Bio-Luminoid” appears, in Chicago with Sanford Parker. Guitarist Eric Hersemann, the band’s main creative force, is a native Chicagoan, and last year he moved back here from Tampa, Florida, where he’d founded Gigan in 2006.
Philip Montoro has been an editorial employee of the Reader since 1996 and its music editor since 2004. Pieces he has edited have appeared in Da Capo’s annual Best Music Writing anthologies in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011. He shared two Lisagor Awards in 2019 for a story on gospel pioneer Lou Della Evans-Reid and another in 2021 for Leor Galil's history of Neo, and he’s also split three national awards from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia: one for multimedia in 2019 for his work on the TRiiBE collaboration the Block Beat, and two (in 2020 and 2022) for editing the music writing of Reader staffer Leor Galil. Philip has played scrap metal in Lozenge, drummed with the Disasters, the Afflictions, and Brilliant Pebbles, and sung for the White Outs. He wrote the column Beer and Metal from 2012 till 2015, and hopes to do so again one day. You can also follow him on Twitter.
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