Friday 18
DIALS Flex Time (Latest Flame), the full-length debut from local power-pop band the Dials, bristles with stabbing guitars, lamp-shade-on-head Farfisa tickles, and petulant vocals from Rebecca Crawford (of the Puta-Pons) and Patti Gran (of the New Black). The album was recorded last year, before the tragic death of drummer Doug Meis in a traffic accident that also claimed the lives of Silkworm’s Michael Dahlquist and Crawford’s husband, the Returnables’ John Glick. Chad Romanski (MirrorAmerica, Rockit Girl) will play drums for this show, a release party for Flex Time. Detholz!, the Avatars, and the Bitter Tears open. 10 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, 773-281-4444, $8, 18+. –J. Niimi
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LAKE TROUT I’ve usually been pretty certain about what this Baltimore jam band was thinking. On Volume for the Rest of It back in ’98 it was, “Hmm, Radiohead sure is popular, and electronica fans have better incense than hippies.” Their 2002 album Another One Lost was similar–a little acid jazz, a little rock, a little techno–but at least they made it sound like hard work, laboring to corral their slick noodling into something like actual songs. I’m not quite sure what to make of the sound and fury on their new Not Them, You (Palm Pictures/Rx), though–it sounds like they’re going for overprocessed stadium pop that alternates between faux triumphal and blandly sinister, but why would anybody do that? And I sure wasn’t hankering for another cover of “Street Fighting Man,” especially not one that’s about as tense and urgent as stoners watching golf on TV. Kiss Me Deadly opens. 10 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, 773-525-2508, $12. –Monica Kendrick
Saturday 19
PHIL RANELIN & TRIBE RENAISSANCE Back in the 70s trombonist Phil Ranelin was a key figure in Detroit’s Tribe–a diverse collective, akin to the AACM and Saint Louis’s Black Artist Guild, that operated as a band, record label, and magazine publisher. Recent reissues on the British label Soul Jazz and Chicago’s Hefty Records have cast new light on Tribe’s music, a freewheeling mix of postbop and funk that takes its cues from Miles Davis’s early electric period as well as the controlled free jazz of the AACM. Tribe disintegrated in the late 70s and Ranelin moved to LA, where he became a regular sideman for his childhood friend Freddie Hubbard. Fast-forward to 2000, when he began making some unlikely connections in the electronic-music world: Hefty owner John Hughes III hired him to play on his score for the film Scarlet Diva, which led to a pair of reissues and a 2001 remix project featuring Prefuse 73, Morgan Geist, and Jan Jelinek, among others. The new audience has obviously benefited Ranelin’s career, but it hasn’t changed his swinging aesthetic. On his most recent album, 2004’s Inspiration (Wide Hive), he leads his own group of young players, along with guests like Pharoah Sanders and old Tribe reedist Wendell Harrison, for a solid session of post-Coltrane hard bop distinguished by Ranelin’s dark, rich arrangements. Hefty was instrumental in organizing this gig, Ranelin’s first in Chicago in 15 years; he’ll front his LA sextet, Tribe Renaissance. Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Ensemble and DJ Supreme Court open. a 7 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401, $20. –Peter Margasak
WHITE/LIGHT Matt Clark (Pinebender, Joan of Arc) and Jeremy Lemos (Lacerati) come up with seemingly endless variations on guitar drone as White/Light–and though the band’s name was inspired by the Velvets’ feedback-drenched White Light/White Heat, they also claim as influences Earth 2, Fripp and Eno, and the guitar solo on the title track from Maggot Brain. The drifting, ambient pieces on the duo’s self-titled debut on Rebis Records are at once graceful and harrowing, and while they don’t adhere to conventional song forms they do develop according to a certain logic. Clark and Lemos layer low-end rumbles, high-frequency sine waves, and lacerating bursts into constellations of sound that reward close listening, and even though the tone of each piece is essentially fixed, the two constantly rejigger details to keep the record full of surprises. On the brief “01:43” an organlike tone oscillates in and out, sounding like a spinning coin coming to rest, while the epic “28:43” is filled with ominous, billowy hums and sharp slashing gestures that slowly grow denser and more claustrophobic. The music has an almost orchestral depth, awash in the sort of resonant glow that comes from a love of sound for its own sake. The Cairo Gang and Mysteries, a new group with Jason Ajemian, Robert Lowe, Tim Kinsella, and Ben Vida, open. 9:30 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401. Free. –Peter Margasak
