Posted inMusic

In her first Chicago appearance, Clara de Asís collaborates with Aperiodic to model the aesthetic virtues of nonintervention

Clara de Asís is a Spanish-born, France-based multi-instrumentalist and sound artist who uses played and collected sounds as prompts to focus the power of the listener’s attention on the potentialities of the sound fields around them. The crackle of static and the decaying reverberations of struck metal on her new collaboration with Ryoko Akama, Sisbiosis […]

Posted inMusic

The Pride Bands Alliance celebrates 40 years with a symphonic-band blowout and two world premieres

In October 1982, members of seven LGBTQ+ concert and marching bands from across the U.S. met in Chicago and formed the Lesbian and Gay Band Association. Though the LGBA changed its name to the Pride Bands Alliance in 2021, it still provides “an international network of LGBTQ+ and affirming bands in all stages of development” […]

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Sound artist Rocio Zavala debuts with an album of otherworldly drone

In May 2020, during the isolating depths of the first large-scale U.S. COVID-19 lockdown, Gossip Wolf caught a live online performance by Rocio Zavala as part of Experimental Sound Studio’s Quarantine Concerts series. A sound and visual artist from Mexico who’s now based in Chicago, Zavala crafted an alluring, otherworldly drone with her own handmade […]

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Experimental Sound Studio unveils an archive devoted to beloved saxophonist Fred Anderson

On March 22, 2022—what would’ve been Fred Anderson’s 93rd birthday—Experimental Sound Studio and its Creative Audio Archive announced the acquisition of a collection devoted to the beloved Chicago saxophonist, venue owner, scene anchor, and mentor. The CAA describes itself as “formed for the historical preservation of recordings, print, and visual ephemera related to avant-garde and […]

Posted inBest of Chicago

Best impromptu spiritual-jazz show to celebrate what turned out not to be the end of the pandemic

When the pandemic shut down live music, Chicago gallery Corbett vs. Dempsey began presenting great online gigs via Experimental Sound Studio’s Quarantine Concerts series. I remember the excitement I felt when the gallery made a last-minute, low-key announcement, mostly to friends and supporters, that the sixth of its Sequesterfest livestreaming events would also be open […]

Posted inBest of Chicago

Best use of cicadas on a jazz album

The dense, iridescent drone of an untold number of singing cicadas seeps into Now, the 2021 sophomore full-length by Damon Locks’s Black Monument Ensemble. In August and September 2020, 11 of the collective’s members gathered to record at Edgewater’s Experimental Sound Studio, both inside and out back in the garden behind the building—and the environmental […]

Posted inMusic

Wind player and polymath Douglas R. Ewart convenes a trio to honor AACM elders

In September, Experimental Sound Studio opened a retrospective exhibit by Chicago woodwind player and multidisciplinary artist Douglas R. Ewart in its Audible Gallery at 5925 N. Ravenswood. His paintings, collages, sculptures, masks, musical instruments, and more will be on view via small-group appointment until Sunday, December 12. On Saturday, October 16, at 7 PM, Ewart’s trio […]