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Concert Wed Mar 24 2010
The Last Temptation of Sissy
If you only know the Viaduct Theater's sign from driving or riding your bike past it on the overpass at Western and Belmont, you might not expect the four-way merging of music, film, art, and theater that passes through the unassuming front doors.
This Friday, the Viaduct (3111 N. Western; yes, under the overpass) will host one of its semi-regular evenings of experimental electronics, featuring touring acts Sissy Spacek (featuring noise/metal jack-of-all-trades John Wiese [also formerly of Sun o))) and Bastard Noise]) and the ad-hoc pairing of Gerritt Wittmer and Paul Knowles. Opening the show will be Chicago's own legendary dark ambient/industrial noise pioneers Illusion of Safety, a group withloose borders that revolves around IOS mastermind Dan Burke (and one featured a young Jim O'Rourke).
The Sissy Spacek project (no relation) is rooted in a grindcore aesthetic (featuring leather-lunged sasquatch Corydon Ronnau on vocals) but wanders outside of genre conventions with a purposeful aimlessness, drifting into non-ionized particles of noise, scraping and clatter before instantaneously launching into blurry, gore-spewing thrash, abruptly starting, stopping, deliberately shattering momentum, again and again. Their records share only the thinnest of continuity lines, mostly based around unexpected, unconventional editing techniques. Their live shows tend to be a lot faster and heavier.
The unexpected pairing of Gerritt Wittmer (purveyor of solo project Gerritt and owner of the Misanthropic Agenda label) and England's Paul Knowles (formerly of legendary '90s UK noise project Dachise and later of the Digitariat) in some sort of shadowy collaboration is the biggest mystery of the night. One listener at their show in Cleveland had this to say: "gerritt wittmer + paul knowles performed The Silver Cord and it was one of the very best and most profound performances i have ever experienced - TOTAL MINDBENDER -"
If you've got a taste for profundity, you can thank your lucky stars, because tickets to transcendence are a whopping $5 and the show starts at 10:30; plenty of time to get dinner, have a drink or two, and say goodbye to your loved ones for all time before you cross over into the next phase of existence.
There might even be time to stop at an all-night Taqueria on the way home.
paul knowles / March 27, 2010 1:32 PM
fyi- The Paul Knowles who performs with Gerritt Wittmer is an american and not "formerly of legendary '90s UK noise project Dachise and later of the Digitariat." Just to make that clear:)
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