MUSIC
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Algiers EBRU YILDIZ
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idarity and revolution. With hotheaded wails and earnest clamor, Fisher recounts the Atlanta child murders of 1979-1981, in which more than 30 Black people, predominantly children and adolescents, were targeted and killed; the 1985 Philadelphia police bombing of Black liberation group MOVE; and other instances of police brutality that color our country’s past, present, and future blood red. While Algiers’s ethos has always been rooted in brotherhood, on Shook they double down on their zest for collaboration by corralling an impressive roster of contributors—among them Rage Against the Machine front man Zack de la Rocha, jazz musician Patrick Shiroshi, Alabama rocker Lee Bains III, and Canadian rapper Backxwash—and emblazoning their names on the album cover. These contributors amplify the record’s white-knuckle feel: de la Rocha’s madcap barks stoke the blistering violence of “Irreversible Damage,” while Jae Matthews (Boy Harsher) and Samuel T. Herring (Future Islands) sing slinky, soulful verses on “I Can’t Stand It!” Much of Shook orbits Atlanta, where the band members grew up together. It opens with a field recording plucked from Hartsfield Airport and incorporates chopped-and-screwed samples from Peach State artists such as soul singer Lee Moses; elsewhere its tracks are woven together partly by the baritone voice of Atlanta spoken-word legend Big Rube. In the hands of a less seasoned band, Shook could’ve ended up clumsy bricolage, but Algiers capture a perfect snapshot of everyday chaos. Shook is the sound of protest and house parties, the clangor of relationships dissolving and new love beginning. It’s the sound of life as we know it—even when it’s harrowing, it’s rooted in truth. —SHANNON NICO SHREIBAK
FRIDAY31 Molder Obscene, Detherous, and Cryptual open. 8 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 2109 S. State, $15. 17+
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Joliet four-piece Molder know what’s awesome about classic death metal—and that includes its deliberately disgusting aesthetics. “I think some of it goes a little overboard and it’s a little silly, but to each their own,” guitarist and vocalist Aaren Pantke told Invisible Oranges last July, when Prosthetic released Molder’s second album, Engrossed in Decay. “It’s all about death, gore, decay,” he said. “Your typical run of the mill death metal topics.” Pantke, drummer Kyle Pooley, bassist Dominic Vaia, and guitarist Carlos Santini focus on what makes death metal exciting and gross—and demonstrate how even the grossness can be played up till it’s exciting too. Throughout Engrossed in Decay, Pantke delivers visions of slimy viscera in inhuman belches while the band relentlessly plow through morbid, sludgy instrumentals whose circular-saw guitar riffs could gut an alligator. Molder don’t even try to reinvent the wheel, but when death metal sounds as delightfully putrid as the pummeling “Ghastly Mutation,” it doesn’t need to be innovative to rip. —LEOR GALIL
SATURDAY1 The Vampire’s Ball Featuring performances by Sextile, Automelodi, Xibling, Kris Baha, and Conjunto Primitivo, as well as DJ sets by Club Drippy, Flores Negras, and Veri Peri. Hosted by Cae Monāe and Nico. 7 PM, Epiphany Center for the Arts, 201 S. Ashland, $45. 21+ The event producers who debuted multiday gothic music festival Sanctum in Chicago last November are now attempting to make April Fool’s Night a thing with the 2023 Vampire Ball. The ball, which features a curated lineup of dark art and music, takes place at the Epiphany Center for the Arts, the near-west-side cultural center built inside the shell of the historic, stunning Church of the Epiphany—making the night feel all the more sanctified. The musical acts include a variety of goth, industrial, and experimental noise artists who will stage
their performances on what the promoters are touting as “two floors of horror” within the church. The headliners alone are worth staying up late for: occult-leaning Los Angeles postpunk act Sextile and French Canadian synth-pop whiz Automelodi (aka Xavier Paradis, who you might remember as part of Echo Kitty). Also on the bill are 80s-inspired electronic duo Xibling, industrial dance producer Kris Baha, and otherworldly sound provocateurs Conjunto Primitivo—an alluring Chicago duo who might be the biggest draw of the night. A number of DJs will spin throughout the event, including ambient techno producer Club Drippy, aka Jonathon Freund of electronic trio Pixel Grip; industrial EBM master Flores Negras, founder of inclusive event company Mictlan Productions; Veri Peri, who’ll bring a mixed bag of Italo disco, acid house, and darkwave; and Beau Wanzer, who’s just as inspired by 70s and 80s minimal synth as he is by horror films. Also making some noise will be event coproducer Nocturna—allegedly going live from the “catacombs.” Dress for the occasion, as there will be a costume contest and photo-booth opportunities. The night also offers art vendors and visuals by Videowaste, and those who arrive early will be able to visit the Epiphany galleries free of charge before the ball kicks off. —SELENA FRAGASSI
ALBUM REVIEWS Acid King, Beyond Vision Blues Funeral acidking.bandcamp.com/album/beyond-vision Acid King’s new full-length, Beyond Vision (Blues Funeral), wasn’t originally intended to be an Acid King record at all. As lead guitarist, front woman, and sole permanent member Lori S. (aka Lori Joseph) told Guitar World magazine in a February interview, she meant to make an experimental collaborative album with guitarist Jason Landrian of Black Cobra. Along the way they acquired bassist Bryce Shelton and drummer Jason Willer, so that a full-band sound emerged. And what a sound it is. Acid King are a pillar of the stoner-metal genre, and though they’ve been active since 1993, they haven’t released a new album since 2015 or toured since 2019 (when they commemorated the 20th anniversary of the landmark Busse Woods, named for the forest preserve near Joseph’s hometown in Chicago’s northwest suburbs). This is as powerful a comeback as anyone could have hoped for. Eventually, Joseph and her comrades accepted that Beyond Vision was an Acid King record. It maintains the raw heaviness of the band’s classic sound while adding synths and keyboards (played by Shelton and Landrian, respectively) to create a lush psychedelic garden of noise whose fluid transitions and satisfying climaxes are never rushed, always earned, and consistently infused with deep cosmic patience. Willer’s dense but steady drumming carries “Color Trails” to a mesmerizing conclusion, and an eerie spacescape in “One Light Second Away” stalks along underneath heavy riffs, leading into a release worthy of the moment in 2001: A Space Odyssey when David Bowman says, “My god—it’s full of stars.” The majestic terror of “90 Seconds” evokes the idea of death in space (in a
press release, Joseph says that 90 seconds is how long you can survive in space without oxygen, and that the song is influenced by the 1995 Yoko Ono album Rising). The songs on Beyond Vision are so good that I could never fathom ranking them, but for me one of the brightest highlights is the shifting, phasing planetary landscape of the long intro to “Electro Magnetic.” Joseph’s transcendent, agonized lead guitar writhes like a serpent in the hand of an angry god before finding escape through the track’s major dynamic shifts. Acid King have booked a few oneoff dates in California and Texas, and they’re hitting the European festival circuit, so let’s hope they come to Chicago before too long. In the meantime, Beyond Vision is a gourmet treat for your headphones—or you could blast it through speakers and wait for your neighbors to thank you for turning them on to Acid King’s warm, heavy sounds. —MONICA KENDRICK
Mats Gustafsson & Joachim Nordwall, Their Power Reached Across Space and Time—to Defy Them Was Death—or Worse Thrill Jockey gustafssonnordwall.bandcamp.com Free improvisers, experimental musicians, and foley artists differ in their methods, but practitioners of all three arts can unite around their attraction to sounds that’ll raise your hackles. This collaboration between improvisational woodwinds player Mats Gustafsson and electronic musician Joachim Nordwall (of the Skull Defekts and the iDealist) could soundtrack a bookshelf full of straight-to-video freak-out flicks. The hyperbolic, mostly all-caps titles that these two Swedes have conferred upon the record’s eight tracks suggest that they aren’t unaware of this. “THERE ARE SOME WORLDS WHERE DREAMS ALL DIE (en glad stund),” for example, opens the album with a commingling of bring-out-the-dead cadences and lung-withering exhalations that will give your subwoofer and the more panic-inclined recesses of your unconscious a workout. Many of the sounds on the album could perform cinematic functions or trigger a reflexive response from an unsuspecting audience. The sputtering synths on “LOVE SHOWS IN HER SMILE: IT IS CONFIDENT (panik),” for instance, could score a ray-gun shoot-out scene. If the subliminal pulses and long tones on fluteophone (a flute fitted with an alto sax mouthpiece) from “OH, SAID THE STRANGE MIND, YOU WANT ME TO THINK FOR YOU (det blir aldrig bättre)” don’t have your date leaning into your neck to hide their eyes, they’re really not into you. —BILL MEYER
Baaba Maal, Being Marathon spektralquartet.com/btw-project Senegalese superstar Baaba Maal has been recording for close to four decades, and at age 69 he still sounds relentlessly, almost eerily contemporary. While his first album, 1984’s Djam Leelii, features himself and his teacher Mansour Seck on acoustic guitars in a mesmerizing, fluid triumph of griot tradition, he’s since embraced electronics and trans-
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