Photo by Drew Reynolds

Case informed us that the songs they’ve already recorded with Shelley are available on an EP, titled Live at Echo Canyon, which currently only available at Disappears’ live shows. Soon, however, the EP will be available to all, through Chicago’s excellent tape label Plustapes no less, on Tuesday, March 8.

One of the tracks on Live at Echo Canyon is a cover of the song “Radiation” from electro-punk duo Suicide. Disappears, of course, do it up in their style and dispense with the lo-fi synthesizer of the original in favor of skin-tight snare work and reverb-dripping guitar work. Listen to the cover, via Thedecibeltolls.com, right here: Disappears – “Radiation” (Suicide Cover)

• • The Tribune’s Greg Kot talks Disappears and their new drummer Steve Shelley, who you might also know from a little band called Sonic Youth.
• • Jim DeRogatis continues his always entertaining Vortis Diaries with a look at the band’s most recent show at Cal’s.
• • Chicago Garage reviews last Friday’s Michael Lux & the Bad Sons show at the Bottom Lounge.
• • Liz Phair talks about Wicker Park at Blackbookmag.com.
• • Sun-Times’ Mark Guarino reviews the Jayhawks’ recent stop at the Vic Theatre.

“Superstition” is from their upcoming release, Guider, which is set to drop on Tuesday, January 18, and that’s the album’s cover art to the left. The track is just what you’d want in a Disappears song: noisy, rapidly-strummed guitars, reverb-soaked vocals and driving drums. Listen to the song here: Disappears – “Superstition”.

As we previously reported, Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley has joined the band as a temporary replacement for departing drummer Graeme Gibson. Shelley will be joining the band on their tour that kicks off early next year. And don’t forget to catch Disappears for the Guider album release show on Friday, February 2, at the Empty Bottle. Tickets are available right now at Ticketweb.com for $10.

photo by greg simpson

…STEVE SHELLEY WILL BE FILLING IN FOR AS LONG AS HE IS ABLE OR WANTS TO. WE’RE HONORED TO BE PLAYING WITH SOMEONE WHO’S BEEN SUCH AN INFLUENCE ON US.

Great timing for this move seeing how the local psychy, garage rockers have a new album, Guider, scheduled to be released on January 18. Around that time, Disappears will also be hitting the road including a Guider record release show on Friday, February 2, at the Empty Bottle. Here’s hoping we’ll get to see Shelley in action! Check out the rest of Disappears tour dates after the jump.

Disappears Tour Dates

01.19.11 BROOKLYN NY UNION POOL
01.20.11 NEW YORK NY CAKE SHOP
01.28.11 MILWAUKEE WI CACTUS CLUB
02.03.11 DETROIT MI LAGER HOUSE
02.04.11 CHICAGO IL EMPTY BOTTLE GUIDER RECORD RELEASE
02.10.11 – 02.28.11 EU/UK

Neu!

2. Hey, look, speaking of Sonic Youth, Chicago’s Disappears are opening! Actually not one of the local bands that directly uses the Neu! template, Disappears still make a fine opener as they do use their love of late 80′s dissonant guitar rock to great effect on their debut, Lux. So maybe it’s a few degrees of separation in that Disappears clearly love Sonic Youth who clearly love Neu!, but that’s not too much of a stretch to put these two together. All you need to know is that you’re going to hear some rad music tonight. All the words above really are just a fancy way of me saying that.

3. Two bands means…a video! Well, I found a sweet one for y’all. It is literally a dude playing side one of Neu’s debut on what looks like the turntable he originally played side one on in 1972 and nothing more. Nine plus minutes of that. Enjoy:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbAWBElA6dA

Photo Credit: Anna Maria Cerniglia

Per Stereogum:
The 5-song/50-minute collection’s a slow-release patchwork of dark clattering tones, drum rolls, drone, outbursts, noise-rock, shades of Current 93, weird industrial chatter. The old-school post-rock opener “Mistaken For Cops” is a scene-establishing intro that makes way for the four challenging, satisfying 10 minute epics that follow it.

Slow is the key word in the above paragraph. Turning Lead Into Gold is full of slow-building atmospheric noise rock with Shelley’s drums surfacing as the main course as they thud like bricks hitting a wooden floor. No track exemplifies that better than “Dead Tenements.” High Confessions move into more melodious and psychedelic territory with the closing track “Chlorine and Crystal” while still maintaining a slow and steady rhythm.

Turning Lead Into Gold with the High Confessions was released by Relapse Records on July 20. So, if you haven’t done so already, stream the album and then pick it up.

Time Out Chicago reported yesterday that Chicago post-rockers Tortoise joined magical freak-of-nature Beck in his Los Angeles studio for his Record Club project.

Beck’s Record Club project is a relaxed studio session where Beck and his coolest rock star friends get together to re-record classic albums.

Beck’s Record Club manifesto:

Record Club is an informal meeting of various musicians to record an album in a day. The album chosen to be reinterpreted is used as a framework. Nothing is rehearsed or arranged ahead of time. A track is put up here once a week. The songs are rough renditions, often first takes that document what happened over the course of a day as opposed to a polished rendering. There is no intention to ‘add to’ the original work or attempt to recreate the power of the original recording. Only to play music and document what happens.

Beck recently recruited members of Liars, St. Vincent and Os Mutantes to help him recreate the classic 1987 INXS album Kick. He has previously worked with Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy and his son, Spencer, Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, Feist, Devendra Banhart, and actor Giovanni Ribisi in past sessions.

Also joining Beck and Tortoise in the studio session was Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore. No word yet on just what album the group recorded together, but Tortoise band member Douglas McCombs told Time Out’s Areif Sless-Kitain that the music selection was “sort of appropriate.”

If that doesn’t get you excited, here is Beck’s Record Club covering INXS’s “Never Tear Us Apart” with St. Vincent’s Annie Clark on vocals to tide you over.

Photo Credit: Anna Maria Cerniglia

The band recently signed to Relapse Records and will release their debut, titled Turning Lead Into Gold With the High Confessions, this summer. According to the article, a rep from Relapse describes the band’s sound as…

“…a real heavy, psychedelic rock.”

Awesome.

Additionally, Shelley will perform with White/Light at the Museum of Contemporary Art on March 20, and they’ve even collaborated with noisy Chicago rockers the Disappears on a single that will soon be released by Sixgunlover Records.

You can catch White/Light the throughout the entire month of March at MCA performing with guest musicians including not only Shelley, but Tortoise’s John McEntire, Disappears, Tim Kinsella and more as part of an interactive art installation and music performance. Details can be found at MCAChicago.org.

Additional details from Pitchfork.com:

According to the label, the record is more song-oriented than his excursions into avant-electronics (see: stuff like 2001′s I’m Happy, and I’m Singing, and a 1, 2, 3, 4 or 2007′s collaboration with Merzbow and Carlos Giffoni, Electric Dress). It’s apparently more in line with O’Rourke’s somber instrumental LP Bad Timing than his sly pop records, Eureka and Insignificance.