Show review: Memoryhouse, Tiny Fireflies at Schubas, 2/28

By Andrew Hertzberg

(photo credit: Shannon Aliza)

“Let’s all go to sleep now,” Memoryhouse singer Denise Nouvion half-joked after playing one of their songs. I say half-joked because well, I mean, Memoryhouse is generally tagged "dream pop." I can’t tell you how many times I’ve put on The Years EP before I fell asleep at night. It's music that is lulling, innocuous and simply comfortable to listen to. Likewise, in the live setting, the audience is cool to react after songs, after being nearly mesmerized by Nouvion’s dreamy vocals. But the calm also brought to mind Robert Loerzel’s interpretation of crowd response to Low at Lincoln Hall last year, of having a respect for the performers and the assumption that everyone in the room is intent on catching every nuance performed. This of course isn’t true for everyone. I did notice some people filter out, perhaps just towards the back of the intimate room or out to the bar, but it does show signs of a crowd highly intrigued to a band early in their career.

Memoryhouse’s stop in Chicago was the first on the new tour and marked the release of their debut LP The Slideshow Effect out on Sub Pop. Aptly, a series of grainy projections played in the background throughout, of mountains, landscapes, waves crashing, people swimming. The whimsy started early with "Walk With Me," the duo of singer/keyboardist Nouvion and guitarist Evan Abeele looking entirely natural and comfortable with each other, doubly noted by their in-between song banter. Memoryhouse was originally just the two of them, but there was a drummer as well last night, who played subtly but dynamically, particularly in regard to the cymbals. Throughout the set, Nouvion’s vocals were spot on, distinctly feminine but comfortable in the lower ranges of her voice. She hits the higher notes occasionally, but I couldn’t help but wonder if she wasn’t holding back just a tad too much.

Show review: Supreme Cuts, Memoryhouse, Balam Acab, 10/11

By Reagan Healey

Supreme Cuts

Chicago duo Supreme Cuts refuse to be labeled “post-dubstep,” preferring instead the more whimsical “future R&B,” even musing on their Twitter that post-dubstep should sound “like Godspeed but with wobble bass” (ha ha ha). But despite their professed distaste for the Skrillex cult, there is a pretty striking similarity between most sample-based music and pretty much all dubstep: as a general rule, the most inebriated guy in the room is usually the only one who knows how to dance to it. That said, Supreme Cuts are an absolute trip, a local treasure. They’re like a fucked-up Yin-and-Yang that smells of menthol cigarettes and blunt smoke--that last part isn’t a metaphor, by the way, Slack Kevorkian damn near knocked me over on his way for a cigarette after Friday night's show at the Empty Bottle, and he really did smell like weed and more weed.

Slack Kevorkian (also known as Magical Options) and his bandmate Mike Perry seem onstage like the kind of opposites you find in an '80s cop-comedy. Mike Perry looks like a slightly younger, more wholesome version of Alan Palomo of Neon Indian. Slack Kevorkian looks like someone who would overcharge you for hydrocodone. Clad in a Gucci Mane hoodie, his long, stringy black hair pulled out of his eyes with a dirty Bulls cap, he seemed part early Jack Donoghue, part Jay from a Kevin Smith film. If he didn’t have the habit of constantly gushing over his favorite artists (which range from Waka Flocka Flame to James Ferraro), he really would have run the risk of coming off too sketchy for his own good.

Supreme Cuts are in between records at the moment: their debut EP Trouble is currently available through Small Plates Records, and their first LP Whispers in the Dark is slated to come out sometime in the spring. Given the duo’s unapologetic admiration of smooth R&B acts like R. Kelly and Keith Sweat, it doesn’t take long to guess where they might have found the latter title. If leaked single “Belly” is any indication, though, it’s an apt name. The duo’s absolute wealth of samples, although distorted and layered out of recognition, seems culled from obscure early-'90s soul compilations designed specifically for sex. Every good sample-based act needs an angle--that is, an essential feeling to the bits of sound they dig up and manipulate. Supreme Cuts' sound is uniquely their own: sleaze layered on with a heavy, sweaty hand.