Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week we have a collection of songs put together by Chicago-based songwriter Sofia Jensen of the project Free Range.
Free Range came into indie favoritism with their debut album Practice, released back in 2023. At the time, and still to this day, Practice is a sharp and discernable release; the marking of a conscious and explorative storyteller like Sofia, who has the ability to write songs with both melodic gratification and lyrical exfoliation, reinforcing the charm and tradition of indie-folk as each song becomes its own moment within a much larger story to be told. Sofia has also recently hinted at new music set to be shared this Friday January 31st.
About the playlist, Sofia shared;
“Here is my list of songs getting me through the winter. best listened to in order and while walking around bundled up in the cold.”
Listen to Sofia’s playlist.
Listen to Practice now on all platforms.
Written by Shea Roney | Featured Photo by Alexa Vicius
Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week we have a collection of songs put together by Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Andy Red PK of the project Red PK.
If you have spent any time in the Chicago music scene, Andy’s face on stage is one of familiarity and comfort. Having been a player in some of the city’s most beloved acts, such as hemlock, free range, Options and Tabacco City, as well as instances of joining touring groups like Sinai Vessel, there is a guarantee of a good show at work when Andy is playing guitar. Earlier last year Andy released two singles, “Bedroom” and “Moving off the Line”, debuting his cleverness and passion as a songwriter as well, with hints of more to come in the future.
To accompany the playlist, Andy shared;
Songs that make me laugh and cry, sometimes unsure which is about to happen. Featuring friends, heroes, inspirations, recent pleasures. Fix yourself a Shirley Temple with extra cherries and cuddle up with your childhood stuffy while listening.
Listen to Andy’s playlist here;
Andy will accompany hemlock for a few shows on their expansive tour crossing eastern U.S. cities beginning on January 24th. Find a show near you HERE.
Listen to “Bedroom” and “Moving off the Line” out on all platforms now.
Written by Shea Roney | Featured Photo by Sofia Jensen
Interlay does not want to play nice. Alexandria Ortgiesen tells you this on the second track of Hunting Jacket, amidst waves of abrasive instrumental collisions, but by then she doesn’t have to. Rather than treading a fine line between dissonance and harmony, Interlay embraces extremes recklessly, cultivating a rich and indulgent sound like some sort of ‘all you can eat’ buffet of the varying noise-driven genres they touch. Their songs lean heavy, but their structure is smart, understanding that the loudest arrangements can’t sustain impact by sheer volume alone. Hunting Jacket carves out soft pockets, teasing enough delicacy to lower your heart rate before a storming of dense drumming can kick you in the stomach. In six tracks, Interlay invites you into their game but does not tell you the rules, their clever melodies simulating the highs of reckless sound as they nail the gnarly beauty of raw Midwest noise in a recorded format.
Hunting Jacket functions as both a fitting addition to Interlay’s catalogue and a debut of its own. It marked their first release after relocating to Chicago from Madison, where the band had been based since its start in 2018. Ortgiesen is the only remaining member from Interlay’s roots, and is now joined by Henry Ptacek on drums, Kayla Chung on bass, and guitarist Sam Eklund, who also makes his vocal introduction on the 2024 EP. The band has never been known to ease in, following commanding start of “Rot” on their 2020 release Cicada with an even stronger intro track on Hunting Jacket , as standout “Virgin Mary” fills the first thirty seconds of the EP with abrasive riffs and formidable percussion. Throughout their latest work, Interlay takes the dense sonic textures and brooding nature of their past projects and stretches their potential, demonstrating how Interlay’s recent shifts are nourishing their identity rather than thwarting it.
One of the many successful feats of Hunting Jacket is the way it disputes notions that emotion and weakness are synonymic. Ortgeisen’s vocals are also volatile, offering no warning in their turns from gentle to abrasive. Yet, even at their most benign moments, when her deliveries are tender and lyrics spill with vulnerability, her performance is laced with assertion rather than docility. It helps that Hunting Jacket is a guitar heavy listen, creating an environment where instruments carry equal weight in navigating the feel of the tracks as vocals do. Interlay embraces their own emotion as much as they embrace raw post-punk noise, and their ability to blend the two bulldozes sonic expectations on “sad girl” music to make space for a reality where yearning, paranoia, and insecurity can and should exist at the same volume as bitter rage.
The EP wraps with the title track, where Interlay breaks free from the fervent tug of war between heavy and tender to explore a more climactic style of songwriting. Surpassing the prior songs in length, “Hunting Jacket” mimics the bodily effects of walking a lap after a sprint. In a stirring buildup, the band counters any whims that the rapture of the EP lies in party tricks of all consuming noise and distortion tactics, as their ability to write suspenseful and controlled melodies amounts to an equal level of auditory catharsis.
Scroll through photos from Interlay’s EP release show July 5, 2024, at The Sleeping Village in Chicago, IL.
Today we are celebrating six months of Interlay’s Hunting Jacket. Listen on all streaming platforms as well as order a cassette or CD via Pleasure Tapes.
Holding the headphones to his ears so as not to not hear his bandmates talking to each other behind him, Deerest Friends member Nathan McMurray quickly turns around, “This is it! This is the sound, it’s perfect.” Frances Brazas and Ruben Steiner anxiously wait to take the headphones off of each other’s head to hear their recording come together. Huddled around the laptop they all share the same giddy expression, excited to keep recording.
Sitting on an old rocking chair in Brazas’ family’s home in the suburbs of Chicago, observing them minutes and even hours earlier I was unsure of how they were a functioning band. Lost microphones and mic cables left them using their iPhone to record the kick drum and one mic to record both lead and backing vocals live.
McMurray had the idea to balance an orange tube amp at the top of the staircase and put glass and beads on top to get a rattling effect from the synth as it echoed down the staircase and into the basement. Scared the whole time that the amp would fall down, I tried to look away and focus my attention on the living room where tangled and crossed wires ran through the air and headphone cables pulled at each end. The synth kept randomly turning off, a problem that occurred because the original cable was lost and a knock off was used as the replacement.
“It was completely unnecessary, it probably would’ve made zero difference to record it in a less circuitous way, but that’s what I like about this approach. Recording is very different from playing live. I think in the recording scenario you have theoretically infinite possibilities, and I couldn’t imagine it being enjoyable if you’re not exploring or actively engaging in some level of spontaneity” said Brazas.
Deerest Friends is a Chicago-based band centered around the songs of Nathan McMurray and Frances Brazas, but you’ll find dozens of names of friends from all over credited on Deerest Friends projects. Their songs come alive through the help of their friends, bandmates and rotating members.
On their recorded music, you can hear the voices of Desi Kaercher’s haunting piano and synth lines wavering over the tracks, their drums holding everyone together, Charlotte Johnston and Xochi Cortez’s emotive strings weaving tensely in and out of parts, and Will Huffman’s iconic twee vocals echoing a catchy melody round out the record.
If you’ve seen or get the chance to see Deerest Friends live you’ll probably notice that each time you see them they may be performing with a different lineup. Ruben Steiner of Lund Surk often performs with the band, playing guitar or keyboards, Will Lovell joins in on drums or Trumpet, and Erin Boyle drops in on Cello. Most of the time audience members will find themselves getting swept up in the magic of seeing Deerest Friends live and become an honorary member, singing their favorite parts on stage or jingling their apartment keys when conducted by the band.
“You can engage in the same level of spontaneity live, it’s just completely different because the spontaneity live comes from having these limited things to work with and a limited amount of time. You get a different kind of recorded spontaneity when you have infinite options and time” McMurray said. “When you record, you have the ability to do things with instruments and vocal layering that’s just not possible to do live. If you create this kind of intense or manic energy by doing a lot of layering and getting sounds that wouldn’t typically be allowed, you can get that same idea across live if you just sell it the performance. The manner in which you perform something live is a really big part of the arrangement, and you can capture a lot of what is presented by a recorded arrangement just in how you deliver a live performance.”
Instead of trying to take their recorded music and recreate it perfectly or as close to the recording as they can every time, the band allows their songs to take a completely different form live, using the performance as a way to see all the opportunities of where else the songs can go.
“Even if a song is released, every time we play it live, we’re sort of adding onto it,” Kaercher said. “For some of the new songs, the live versions and recorded versions are very different, and I really like that. Most of the new stuff we played on [our summer] tour didn’t sound anything like the album because we were using entirely different resources.”
The band has become such a tight unit that they don’t even discuss somethings about their live performances, instead they already have an inkling of what each member likes to do or experiment on, and what parts should stay the same, and everything magically syncs up on stage.
Over the course of the 12 hour day I spent with Deerest Friends, the band went from recording Lund Surk songs, to recording Deerest Friends songs, to practicing Deerest Friends songs for their upcoming tour. Before and in between all of that we made lunch, loaded the car with gear, drove an hour out of the city and to the suburbs, ate dinner at a local fast food place, said goodbye to a member as they had to head back into the city, stood on top of Nathan’s car to try and see the Juice Wrld mural on the second story of a local brewery, picked up another member from the train station, and packed the gear back into the car and drove home.
“I find being a part of Deerest Friends to be really fulfilling because I don’t feel that I can write stuff on my own anymore. It just feels way too unenjoyable. I kind of hit a wall at a certain point, and for most of the last year, I felt like I needed to be around other people, to write with other people, and to make music with other people to really enjoy it” Kaercher said. “I’m a lot less like Nathan and Frances, I’m not really self guided. I can do it alone, but I just don’t have the heart for it. Writing with Nathan during the period Deerest Friends had separated was genuinely really fulfilling, it feels really good which is rare.”
Their days together feel almost as chaotic as their recordings, sounds stitched together by outlandish ideas and the desire to let out lyrics and chord progressions that have been rattling around in their brains for months. Their love for each other, and every person who drops in to help them complete the project keeps them motivated to spend hours upon hours together actualizing their visions for their songs.
“A lot of the way we record has to do with the immediacy of it, too. If we’re practicing or recording, and we decide we need to record a specific percussion part right now, because we’ll never have another opportunity to do it, sometimes the only thing we have is like a box of screws and toy bongos, we make it work, even if it takes hours to get the sound right.”
On December 1st, the band released two singles “Dearest Friend” and “Camaraderie,” bookends to their debut album Lamb Leaves Pasture, and recorded almost exactly one year apart.
“Camaraderie” was the last song they ever recorded in the old studio that Kai Slater had, where most of their first record was recorded. McMurray noted the emptiness he felt in the room on the last day of recording in the studio with Desi as everything but the drum kit, a room mic, and a mixer was all packed away in boxes. This truly solidified “an end of an era” and the end of the Lamb Leaves Pasture era for them.
“‘Camaraderie’ was sort of a post Deerest Friends song. It was written in a period when the band had sort of separated. After the late summer, early fall 2023. It was the first song I had written after Lamb Leaves Pasture and I wrote it in my head and arranged it on my computer in a program initially. I was staying with my uncle and I didn’t have a guitar. I was using this app, but I didn’t really know how to read or write music at that point so I would just drag the notes around until it got sounding right. It’s like a digital score and I sent Desi the sheet music for it. When I had moved back to Chicago after the summer, I was living in my old place, and I drove this little car up from North Carolina so I couldn’t take all too much, and I recorded it in my empty living room, which was just the two acoustic guitar tracks. I had taken it to Desi because I had this whole arrangement written, but I wasn’t able to transcribe the drum part, so I beatboxed it to them.”
“Dearest Friend” was mostly recorded in a practice room in the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts in Hyde Park. It was before the project or group even existed, “it wasn’t even a prefiguration of Deerest Friends existing” Brazas said. “I would record stuff on my own and be like, ‘I guess I need to be in a band now.’”
“The actual recording process leans into a sort of maximalism, which I like. For better or for worse, that’s what my work process is like. I’m extremely obsessive about recording things. I’ll record 25 tracks of percussion. For one of our newer songs I recorded a percussion track for three hours, hitting a piece of metal in slightly different ways and some of it made it on the song” Brazas added about their recording process.
No matter how much or little time you spend with Deerest Friends, you will leave feeling their shared sense of immediacy and passion for art. You’ll start looking at all of the objects in your room differently, ripping the sheets off of your bed and cutting them up to make funky curtains, you’ll start dancing around your room and write a song only with a tambourine, which seamlessly leads to you slicing up old magazines and books to create your single cover, and reluctantly passing out when you realize you have no more sheets on your bed. Tossing and turning in your bed you might try and figure out what is missing, and you’ll come to the conclusion that you’re missing collaboration and the close community that makes art and creating so beautiful. A strong sense of friendship radiates through Deerest Friends’ music, making it feel so familiar and comfortable right away.
The band asked me to end the interview with some fun questions. We went on a few tangents about our favorite pies, catching allergies from people, our fiber intake, liver health, how we eat apples, and the sexiest era of Leonard Cohen. If you feel like you didn’t get to know Deerest Friends well enough, Desi and Frances agreed on 2010s and Nathan said “he never looked sexier than Paul Simon when he looked like a medieval entertainer.” Feel free to debate them on this topic the next time you see Deerest Friends or ask them about their favorite dubstep songs.
Scroll through for more photos of Deerest Friends.
Deerest Friends released two singles “Camaraderie” and “Dearest Friend” earlier this month. Listen to them now on all platforms.
Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week, we have a collection of songs put together by Carolina Chauffe of the project hemlock.
Growing up in Lafayette, Louisiana, Carolina has been untethered to one place, letting opportunities decide where they move next as they plant roots from Louisiana to Texas, the Pacific Northwest and Chicago, spooling connections in every direction that their presence and spirit touches. This year brought us two hemlock releases, amen! and 444, each built on their own path of compassion and understanding of what it means to be a human being.
About the playlist, Carolina shared;
i appreciate the center of the venn diagram between the circles of “doves” and “songs”: frequently airborne, sometimes mourning, often stunning, sounding striking, among other things
this collection of songs all contain a dove — in the lyrics, or the song title, or in a few cases, the sound of the bird’s call itself.
i knew i wanted this playlist to be centered around birds, or a specific bird, in honor of shea’s (ugly hug founder’s) deep appreciation for them. playfully combining passions: music and feathered friends.
doves are a symbol i’ve drawn on most every note (“thank you”s and otherwise) that i’ve written, for long enough now that i can’t remember how it started. i draw them so frequently that they’ve become a sort of mascot that i’ve chosen to represent hemlock, as a sort of signature. besides being gorgeous creatures, i think they’re a powerful representation of hope and renewal. and i remember growing up with my dad talking to them in our yard, mimicking or conversing with them by whistling or by simply cupping his hands and blowing through them. how many mornings of mine have been met with the mourning dove’s call?
it’s a fun challenge to create a playlist centered around a single specific word that still has that feeling of flow and cohesiveness. i’ve tried to do that here best i could, with “dove.” there are a couple of double-ups where two versions of the same song felt apt. thanks to the many friends and inspirations who wrote songs with doves within. and many thanks to a few friends’ recommendations that slid their way into this mix as well – glad for community that can see so clearly where my own blind spots can’t.
honorable mentions (unavailable on spotify): “mourning dove” by sleep habits and “time as a symptom” by joanna newsom
This Saturday, November 30th, Audiotree is partnering up with the surrounding community of Chicago to bring you the first ever Chicago Community Festival at Schubas Tavern. The festival will have performances by Sleeper’s Bell, Morgan Powers, Radium Girl, Memory Cell, Orisun.
Chicago Community Fest is a project dedicated to highlighting local and regional artists, created by Malcolm Riordan and produced in partnership with Audiotree & Schubas Tavern. These 5 bands exemplify the true independent excellence the Chicago music world is known for.
7:30PM Doors | 8PM Show 18+ 11/30/24@ Schubas Tavern, 3159 N. Southport, Chicago, IL
Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week, we have a collection of songs put together by Ella Williams of the Chicago based project, Squirrel Flower.
Squirrel Flower has become a monumental project in the Chicago scene and beyond, not just in the case of sharing beloved releases like 2023’s critically acclaimed album Tomorrow’s Fire or 2020’s I Was Born Swimming, but also as an example of what community should and can be, including being the first artist to pull out of SXSW due to their ties to the defense industry and in support of the Palestinian people. Ella’s writing has always been one of defiance and accessibility, a precursor to keep moving forward even when everything feels so inhibiting and cruel. Yet, at its core, Squirrel Flower blends this confrontation with curiosity, taking personal confessionals through dynamic instrumentation and haunting melodies to lure out the beauty that still exists all around us in the world.
Along with her playlist, Ella shares;
these are songs that i’ve been listening to a lot over the last few months. mostly gentle, warm music that’ll hug you and help you get through~~~~ peace+love
Listen to her playlist here!
Earlier this year, Squirrel Flower released a cover of Neil Young’s “Cortez The Killer” recorded live in Austin, Texas at an unofficial sxsw showcase. The track includes performances by Alex Peterson (alexalone), Greg Freeman, Dimitri Giannopolous (Horse Jumper of Love), Travis Harrington (Truth Club), Michael Cantella, and Kai Wilde (Teethe). Listen to it here.
Having since moved out of Chicago earlier this year, a place in which the beloved and defined community was considered home for quite some time, Elijah Berlow has recently set off to write the next chapter in his life. Today, the now Vermont-based songsmith and multi-instrumentalist returns with his newest single, “Harvest Fields”, the first release since his 2022 EP, Put Out Fires. With a rich and thorough musical upbringing, learning the traditions of Americana music and literature, Berlow’s music is reflective of his life’s journey, both acknowledging the stories of how far he has come, and not forgetting where he has left to go.
With rolling instrumentation, “Harvest Fields” plays from the roots of a feel-good folk groove, both sincere and eager, as guitars swirl with heart and melody, a piano voices its gratification and percussion leads with full hearted faith to the unknown ahead. Following an ecstatic guitar solo, Berlow sings with gracious deliverance, “And we scraped up our knees / And we ran us around / Said that nothing can get better / Unless it can be found” – full of bewilderment and study, the understanding of both time and maturation as life continues on. Soon, Berlow and co. round the corner, elated trumpets soar before dropping out, the melody of a guitar, sparingly and lone, plays to the open sky – cherishing the newfound clarity that Berlow has to offer.
About the song, Berlow shares, “this song encapsulates the effort of betterment, the bereavement of not being witnessed within ones full capacity, steeped in naturalistic metaphor yet also a dialogue between a course of action, wild yearning and one’s own obscure place within the repeated seasonal cycles.”
“Harvest Fields” is accompanied by a music video shot and edited by Esteban Alarcon. Watch here.
Chicago’s own Kristyn Chapman, performing under her new project name Morpho, has shared her latest single “Half of Two” today, marking the second single released from her upcoming debut EP, Morpho Season, out November 15 via Hit the North Records. As an expansive guitar player, having played across Chicago’s beloved underground scene for some time now, Chapman melds ferocious grit with alluring delicacy as “Half of Two” expands on natural endings and the fear within the uncertainty that can follow.
Partnering up with Henry Stoehr of Slow Pulp to mix the EP, “Half of Two” sets out with a determined drive, waiting with astonishing patience to explode, as little glimpses of feedback manage to escape throughout Chapman’s steady melody. Written back in 2021, “this song’s about finally making peace with endings,” she explains. “Untangling from the past and old stories.” The song soon breaks from its enduring groove into a vivacious guitar solo, swarming amongst crushing distortion, toned feedback and melodic temptations, finding its own ending as Chapman sings, “It’s beyond mending / Can’t undo the unraveling / Beyond mending / Can’t undo the unravel,” settling within the layers of her gentle vocals.
Listen to “Half of Two” here along with an accompanying lyric video.
Morpho Season is set to be released November 15 via Hit the North Records. Morpho will also be embarking on an East Coast and Midwest tour with fellow Chicago group, Rat Tally. They will be celebrating the EP’s release with a show at Schubas in Chicago, IL on December 12 with support from Rat Tally and Sprite. You can buy tickets here.
Written by Shea Roney | Featured photo by Leah Wendzinski
Through the faulty wiring and warm hiss of old tape recorders, Chicago’s latest addition, Harrison Riddle, has offered up his latest album, Lo Stereo, taking over the static waves and ecstatic ears of the local scene and beyond. Having performed under the pen name Riddle M since 2018, Lo Stereo finds Riddle in a continuation, arranging episodic moments that live out their own concise lives in the limelight of DIY antiquity and absorbing pop hooks.
Where flying cars and chrome exteriors used to imply happier times ahead, Lo Stereo kicks off with the retro shine of “Keyhead (Outer Space)” – daydreams push through with no intention of landing – “You don’t have to race / Up in outer space”, he sings over laser synths and a pleasant chicken pecked melody. Songs like “Sunset Inn” and “Falling On Off” play out with clunky whimsy, where melodies float through the air with ease above the strength of instrumental voicings that never feel to be restrained by the limitations of lo-fi recording. And to his credit, dusting off the old 4 track recorders, drum machines and synths, these new songs don’t feel weighed down by past sounds or ideas, but rather find Riddle embracing new life in an old and beloved style, bridging the gap between nostalgia and a continuation of homemade pop excellence.
Lo Stereo Limited Edition Homemade CD
Throughout all of the methodical interpretations that each song offers in their own unique way, Riddle’s performance and attitude towards writing becomes a needed reminder of how much fun making music should be – a marvelous feeling of universality that comes when connecting the world around you with silly stories and cordial characters. Songs like the clinky folk ditty of “Peaches and Cream” or the riff spilling of “Scarecrow” exudes charm and personality that sits with you long after the initial listen. “Silver Dollar Queen” jangles and dances along with its vibrato melody and driving hook, while “Bubbles” and “Pin Holder” find the off-center pop sensibilities of lived in new wave classics. There is a soothing pull to the studious electro motives that shine with a rusted sheen throughout the album, where songs like “Sleeping On Earth” and “Modern People” fit neatly between rugged rockers like “Fight Little Truffle” and “Bird Claw” that could easily be a part of the substantial catalogs of bands like Guided By Voices or The Magnetic Fields.
The album takes a turn as the end becomes inevitable – not so much a crash landing, but a quick return to our own atmosphere and the notable gravitational restraints. “Haunt In Bed” vibrates with darkened synths while accolated, ghostly vocals come out to say their brief piece before they are off on their way to complete other ghostly tasks. “Waken (Your Love)” brings a natural ‘down-to-earth’ ending to a rather adventurous collection of songs, as a heavy, somber synth is brought out by a field recording of light waves finding their own, breaking on the shore with a soothing, methodical washing. It’s quite a distance from where the journey began, but considering the care put into this charming little world, becomes one to take over and over again.
You can listen to Lo Stereo everywhere now. You can purchase a limited edition CD of Lo Stereohere.
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