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Cheer-Accident + D. Rider
Hideout; Fri 13
Surveying our city’s current stable of experimental rock acts, it’s easy to forget that just more than a decade ago, Skin Graft was the hub of a vibrant, prolific scene. Firmly off the Chicago grid these days, the record label and comic-book publisher was an early champion of quintessential local acts like U.S. Maple and the Flying Luttenbachers, not to mention Jim O’Rourke’s many non–Gastr del Sol guises—Brise-Glace or Yona-Kit, anyone?
Multi-instrumentalist Thymme Jones—who lent his considerable talents to those aforementioned O’Rourke collaborations—has been composing ambitious, if fractured, genre-defying compositions for more than 20 years as the leader of Cheer-Accident. Anchored by guitarist Jeff Libersher and bassist Alex Perkolup, the band’s new Fear Draws Misfortune (Cuneiform) heralds a return to the prog-rock excesses of its Skin Graft debut, 2000’s Salad Days, as well as 2003’s Introducing Lemon.
Straying from the hypnotic pop of 2006’s wonderful, and surprisingly accessible What Sequel?, its latest finds Jones and co. navigating typically dense, fidgety arrangements with a healthy disregard for convention—darting between Burt Bacharach–esque balladry and the odd-meter attack of Rush, often in the same song. Live, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether they’ll welcome a parade of guest performers or play an hour-long lock groove.
Former U.S. Maple guitarist and sometime Cheer-Accident contributor Todd Rittman adopts the alias Deathrider for his new outfit, D. Rider, celebrating its debut LP, Mother of Curses (Tizona). Rittman’s stuttered vocals punctuate deep grooves, fragmented synthesizers and overblown reeds with thrilling results, recalling a deconstructed variation of his recent work with local “supergroup” Singer. Tonight’s double record-release party is a powerful reminder that our post-rock vanguard is still kicking.
