| « Your week beats our year...and a half | Indie Soul Stealer » |
Concert Tue Dec 18 2007
No, They Don't Do "A Love Supreme"
What's in a name? Everything and nothing, maybe. But if you're in a band, at some point you have to collectively decide to call yourselves something. That in itself can be a creative hurdle that some aspiring music artists never successfully overcome. In the end, does it matter if you call yourselves the Caveat Emptors or the Not Dead Yets or the Dirty Merkins or We Came To Wreck Your Pity Party or whatever? Not sure, but how different would the legacy of Joy Division have been if they'd stuck with their first adopted moniker, the Stiff Kittens? So yeah, names can be tricky.
Take Coltrane Motion, for example. Coltrane Motion are not a jazz ensemble. The trio started out as a bedroom-recording DIY outfit in Ohio before they relocated to Chicago about four years ago. And while there's exactly eight seconds of squeaky soprano sax smear during the opening of their tune "Ex-Girlfriend In A Coma," the band bears no musical resemblance to their venerated namesake, but instead play what they call -- for lack of a better label -- electronic indie-pop. After numerous releases on their own Datawaslost label, the band released their latest album, Songs About Music, earlier this year.
From start to finish, Songs About Music is a fun and enjoyable listen. The guys definitely aren't hook-averse, offering up tunes that are sometimes breezy and wistful and sport catchy choruses. At other times they dig into darker, droning domains that fit snuggly into orbit around planet Shoegaze. In terms of songwriting styles, the cover a lot of bases and thread it all together with a thick sound that's heavy on buzzing, textural keyboard and guitar washes, all laid atop funky, punchy rhythms that all but mandate hip-shaking. And while it may epitomize something akin to a new "indie-pop sensibility," the core of its charm and catchiness is about as new-school as The Seeds or Question Mark and the Mysterians.
You can catch Coltrane Motion at Schubas this Wednesday evening. Hearsay has it that they throw a lot of energy into their sets and put on a good show. Butterfly Assassins and Let's Get Out Of This Terrible Sandwich Shop open. 3159 N. Southport. Show starts at 9pm and admission is $5.
[mp3]: Coltrane Motion - Twenty-Seven"
[mp3]: Coltrane Motion - "I Guess The Kids Are Okay"
[mp3]: Coltrane Motion - "How To Be"
