LCNL 060: Hello Chicago, 2015! (Cinchel Mix)

cover art by Kirstie Shanley from the “Chicago as a vinyl record” series

Jason Shanley aka Cinchel gives us a tour of some of the most interesting music coming out of Chicago today, a loving documentation of a scene that continues to nurture his own creative endeavors.   This mix is extra special because EVERY TRACK is something brand NEW. And seeing as this is our SIXTIETH mix, I’d just like to say an extra thank you to all of our supporters out there.  Listeners, readers, artists, labels. We love y’all.  (Joseph Sannicandro)

Download/stream at Soundcould, listen at Mixcloud

MINI-INTERVIEW

Tell me about the mix, which I guess is another way of saying, tell me about the state of the/your scene in Chicago these days.  Chicago of course has long had a strong regional music scene. Blues, House, hip hop and all, but also post rock and experimental music, being the home of Kranky, Thrill Jockey etc.  There seems to be affordable housing, decent public transport, a good number of venues, supportive audiences, concert series… is that right?  How would you describe Chicago compared with other places in terms of the music community?

I think what ever you’ve heard about Chicago is only 1/10th of what is actually happening here. Sure Kranky is amazing and Thrill Jockey just signed Curcuit des Yeux (Chicago resident Haley Fohr) but there is so much happening below that surface. That’s what I hoped to expose a bit with this mix. Most of the musicians I either played with or met at a show last year. Each of those people exposed me to more stuff that was going on in Chicago that I didn’t know about before. I really cant keep up. There are shows in all kinds of various places; store fronts, house/apartments and legitimate venues of all sizes, small neighborhood bars to “rock venues” like The Empty Bottle.

While it does help that we have affordable housing and decent public transportation I think the weather here does filter out people. Our winters are harsh and so I don’t fault Aroon (Vapor Lanes) or William Selman for leaving (they are *honorary* Chicagoans for this mix, Aroon and I met years ago when he moved here from Champaign-Urbana and I know William via another Chicago musician Joshua Davison who is also featured on this mix). What that does though is expand the ideals of the way Chicago communities work to other scenes, which is pretty exciting. Those ideals as I see them are just to work hard, be friendly and try to support each other as best as possible. Everyone I’ve met in Chicago through music has been all of those things and more. There is a strong sense of if you want something done you either help some one that is already doing it or you do it yourself. Lots of DIY spaces have come and gone, such is the nature of those endeavors, but ppl learn from each other and do it better the next time. It all very exciting.

Anything else you’d like to tell us about the mix?

Everything on this mix is something new from each musician. Most have some kind of release planned this year which their track is either a sketch for or an excerpt of. What I hope you hear is that there is not one specific sound happening but lots of great ideas in drone, abstract noise, and analog synthesis.

And as far as Cinchel goes, anything on the horizon you’d like to plug?

I just uploaded 2 things to bandcamp. Childhood (part 1) was released New Years Day. It was originally meant as part of a bigger collective work w/ Le Berger, Andrew Weathers and Grzegorz Bojanek which ended up not happening. I was going to release “Sometimes I Hear Voices” at the same time but then my friend Jason Olexa (dustperiod) sent me some tracks asking for an opinion. We decided to make a split release out of them which we just released on February 1st.

On March 1st I will release a cassette called Worry. I made a video for the B-side.

Thanks again!

TRACKLIST

LINKS

volutes

gardener

josh davison

well yells

enemy chorus

lightpolite

kyle landstra

william selman

aroon

jason soliday

akosuen

cinchel