Skinny dipping with Essex Chanel & more weekend fun
Spring’s over
Celebrate the end of spring with some wildly varied weekend shindigs.
Locals Essex Chanel top our list Saturday night, with a special party debuting their “Skinny Dippin'” music video. Reportedly in the works for 18 months, the latest single from Love Is Proximity tracks people from throughout Chicagoland who all react immediately to a mysterious text message and end up in synchronized swimming. The video won’t be publicly available until Monday the 21st; all of the band’s music is available free on their Web site. (@ The Academy Of Dance And Music – 2929 W. Devon.)
Susanna & The Magical Orchestra provide an altogether different flavor on Sunday night, caught somewhere between Kate Bush and El Perro Del Mar. Despite the size intimated by the band name, SATMO are actually the duo of Susanna Karolina Wallumrød and Jaga Jazzist’s Morten Qvenild, and the appropriately titled 3 (Rune Grammofon) continues their tradition of tackling idiosyncratic covers amid their originals. This round’s objectives include “Another Day,” once a duet between Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel, and Rush’s “Subdivisions,” which captures a 2112 essence without a single Neil Peart drumfill. (@Schubas with La Strada.)
Sunday also caps the Taste Of Randolph street festival (beginning Friday in the West Loop). This year’s headliner is a reunited Superchunk, who have put running Merge Records on hold for a new album and tour. Most closely linked with early-’90s indie rock (the band’s “Slack Motherfucker,” about a worthless Kinko’s employee, remains timeless), Superchunk have been a lighthearted neighbor in Chapel Hill, N.C. to the more fundamentalist indie utopia of Ian MacKaye’s (Minor Threat, Fugazi) Dischord D.C. Chicago’s Califone and Champaign-born Headlights are also on the bill, though a late afternoon treat will be The Love Language, whose second album (stream here) our Patrick Conlan calls “shimmering magic.”
Then when Monday comes, Sally Seltmann awaits you. The singer, who formerly roamed as New Buffalo (hello, Michigan!) dropped a solo album this year. Heart That’s Pounding (Arts & Crafts) surprisingly is not overloaded by her Broken Social Scene bandmates and traverses in Tin Pan pop, ethereal trip-hopisms, and some rather bold optimism. Watching her try to pull it together cohesively can have terrific results, however; she is, after all, the person who wrote “1 2 3 4” for Feist. (@Schubas with Katie & Pat.)
Category: Featured, Stage Buzz, Weekly
