Empty Bottle

Toro Y Moi

Concert Photos: Toro Y Moi @ Empty Bottle (Chicago, IL)

South Carolinian experimental-pop band Toro Y Moi is the creative effort of one Chazwick Bundick, formerly of the band The Heist and the Accomplice. The band, whose new album, Underneath the Pine, was released in February, has garnered buzz on the strength of its funky, dreamy blend of chillwave and dance pop. In a recent stop in Chicago, there was enough demand to schedule two shows: an early show with electro-pop act Adventure and a late show with indie-rock band Braids. ALARM copy editor Kyle Gilkeson was there to capture the action.

Toro Y Moi

Tortoise

Concert Photos: Tortoise @ Empty Bottle (Chicago, IL)

Experimental instrumental quintet Tortoise played a pair of hometown shows recently, performing in front of welcoming crowds at the Empty Bottle in Chicago. The incomparable rock-dub-jazz shape-shifter garnered a “This Week’s Best Albums” tag for its 2009 release Beacons of Ancestorship (Thrill Jockey). Since then, it has released a 13-minute single (Ice Ice Gravy) and a Japan-only CD (Why Waste Time?).

As you wait for a new Tortoise full-length, check out photographer Drew Reynolds‘ captures from the performance, and then click on over and revisit guitarist Jeff Parker‘s late-2010 show with Andrew Bird right here.

Tortoise

Disappears

Concert Photos: Disappears @ Empty Bottle (Chicago, IL)

Chicago-based rock band Disappears played a hometown show at the Empty Bottle recently, performing material from its most recent release, Guider, out now on Kranky. Awash in heavy waves of reverb and distorted guitars, Disappears kept things characteristically minimal — no pomp, no circumstance, just pure, unadulterated fuzz-rock mania. Photographer Drew Reynolds captured these images, which, like the music, are simultaneously rich and stark.

Disappears

Wovenhand, White Hills blow minds at Empty Bottle

I saw David Eugene Edwards perform with 16 Horsepower when I was in high school, but this was the first chance I had to see Wovenhand. Their music, a hybrid of intense rock ‘n’ roll and traditional American styles, is dark, haunting, and incredibly moving.

Japanese Motors Bring Retro Rock to Chicago

Sometimes hype can be destructive. Despite the fact that the indie-rock band Japanese Motors’ self-titled debut album is a mediocre-at-best attempt to hipsterize yet another mid-century retro sound, despite that this band has been pushed so hard by the golden ticket of coolness VICE Records that the influence toward irritation even before hearing the band is inevitable, despite lead singer Al Knost’s attempt to create a West Coast Julian Casablancas (the original retro hipsterizer), despite a half-empty room of uninterested stares at the Empty Bottle — despite all this, this band actually kills it live.