Usually when bands make up their own genre name it’s a completely douche move, because most bands fit easily within genres that have already been invented. (For 95% of the bands that try to pull this shit that genre is “bad alternative rock with a synth player.”) Sich Mang, who I profiled for this week’s Reader, get away with it by virtue of sounding like no one else making electronic music right now, and also because their own term “wurkstep” is more euphonious than “bong-rip footwork” or whatever else you might want to call them. The 26-minute DJ mix they recently made would make a good soundtrack to reading the piece, so I’ve embedded it after the jump.
While you’re listening, be sure to also check out our music editor Philip Montoro’s feature on a new anthology of material from Rocktober, the very cool and extremely uncynical zine put out by Reader contributor (and voice of Chic-a-Go-Go‘s Ratso) Jake Austen. And then check out Three Beats for news on local experimental music, shoegaze, and psychedelic metal. (I guess it’s a really good week for stoners, or at least stoners with sufficiently broad tastes in music.) Then on to Gossip Wolf to find out which local good-band-with-a-bad-name is now a good-band-with-a-much-better-name and what you can do to contribute musically to Occupy Chicago. Then click through to the Soundboard to figure out which shows you should check out over the next week, including ones from Yelawolf, Mobb Deep, Metz, Bo-Keys, Roc Jiménez de Cisneros, and more.