*Announcing* Chicago Underground Duo - HYPERGLYPH // LP/CD/DD out August 15th, 2025
(( photo by Mikel Patrick Avery ))
*** Announcing ***
Chicago Underground Duo
Hyperglyph
LP, CD, DD out August 15th, 2025
Today we're thrilled to announce Hyperglyph, the first new album in 11 years from composer/trumpeter/synthesist Rob Mazurek (Exploding Star Orchestra, Isotope 217, New Future City Radio with Damon Locks) and composer/percussionist Chad Taylor (jaimie branch’s Fly or Die, Marshall Allen’s Ghost Horizons, Luke Stewart’s Silt Trio) under the Chicago Underground Duo moniker, out August 15th, 2025. The album’s opener “Click Song” is available on all DSPs today as a lead single.
(( album cover image by Mikel Patrick Avery ))
Mazurek and Taylor have played music together in a multitude of formations over nearly three decades, including their ongoing partnership in Mazurek’s large-format-skyward-expressionism vehicle Exploding Star Orchestra, the expanded Chicago Underground Trio, Quartet and Orchestra (all with guitarist Jeff Parker), and a plethora of other assemblages. The early albums by the Duo have proven to be embryonic blueprints for the avant-jazz / electronic / indie rock hybridizations of the time, making them majorly important moments in the articulation of the “jazz” dimensionality of the then-burgeoning "post rock" sound. That sound, of course, was being transmitted far and wide due to the success of these groups as well as the Mazurek/Parker project Isotope 217, and the Chicago Underground’s frequently-intersecting collaborators in Tortoise.
That said, the sounds being created by this extended family are and were far from static. Just as most of the still-working projects born of that era have evolved, reconfigured, and grown, the Chicago Underground Duo has undergone a number of musical moltings, with the project always in the background of Mazurek and Taylor’s disparate individual investigations. As the project has dropped off and picked back up over the years, their concurrent personal evolutions make the Duo a true reflection of their own lives and friendship.
“Rob is my longest collaborator and also one of my best friends,” says Taylor, who first performed with Mazurek at a club in Chicago in 1988, aged 15.
“When it feels right we do it,” says Mazurek of the gaps in duo activity. “We have worked together and have been friends for a long time. This creates a kind of continuity not only in the music, but in our lives.”
While Mazurek and Taylor’s musical language can be clocked in the slew of projects that they participate in together, the sound of a Chicago Underground Duo album is singular among them. Combine notes of AACM composers like Wadada Leo Smith; albums like Don Cherry & Ed Blackwell’s “Mu” and El Corazon; the classic cut-and-paste jazz production techniques pioneered by Miles Davis and Teo Macero; deep electronic sounds by Bernard Parmegiani, Morton Subotnick, Xenakis, and Éliane Radigue; transformative processing in the realm of Autechre, King Tubby, Mouse On Mars, and Carl Craig… and that gets us close to understanding the alchemic avant-garde sound of the Chicago Underground Duo. Taylor articulates further: “There has always been a lot of African influence in the rhythms we play. With Hyperglyph specifically, we utilize rhythms from Nigeria, Mali, Zimbabwe and Ghana.”
Hyperglyph was mostly recorded in three days at International Anthem Studios, Chicago, in May 2024, where the Duo worked intimately alongside engineer Dave Vettraino. The album’s title is a reference to geometric structures that seem complex at first but, when arrayed particularly in three-dimensional space, enhance perception and lead to new insights. The album’s cover photo was shot by Mikel Patrick Avery in Philadelphia, outside of mainstay creative music venue Solar Myth.
The album opener “Click Song” - available as a lead single on all digital music platforms today - kicks off with a blown-out horn chant from Mazurek, doubled by tuned bells and nestled into a muscular and symmetrical stereo-overdubbed polyrhythm from Taylor. Synthesized bass pulls the song along cyclically, dropping in and out to almost severe dynamic effect while Mazurek and the subtle-yet-persistent bells elaborate upon the melody and ultimately depart from their repetitive psalm in favor of improvisation. It’s all held together by the steady, deep, chest-thump boom of Taylor’s kick drum pattern.
(( photo by Mikel Patrick Avery ))
(( Photo by Dave Vettraino ))
...about...
Chicago Underground is an avant-garde music project formed in Chicago in 1997 based around the core duo of composer/trumpeter Rob Mazurek and composer/percussionist Chad Taylor. They have recorded and performed as the Chicago Underground Duo, Trio, Quartet or Orchestra depending on how many additional musicians are included. The ensemble has released numerous recordings on the Thrill Jockey, Delmark and Northern Spy labels. In 1996, Mazurek founded a workshop at Chicago jazz club The Green Mill called Chicago Underground for the performance of avant-garde, improvisatory jazz. By 1998, a new ensemble had formed around this idea, featuring guitarist Jeff Parker, drummer Chad Taylor, bassist Noel Kupersmith, and trombonist Sara Smith. After this ensemble released an album on Chicago's Delmark Records as the Chicago Underground Orchestra, Mazurek and Taylor continued to form groups under the Chicago Underground umbrella, performing as the Chicago Underground Duo, Chicago Underground Trio and Chicago Underground Quartet.
Deluxe Vinyl Package
Hyperglyph features an album cover image by Mikel Patrick Avery, and comes on a 140g LP in heavyweight reverse-board jacket, with IARC 2025 obi strip & poly-lined inner sleeve. Pressed at Pallas in Germany, with lacquers cut by Daniel K @ SST.
Available on Limited Edition *Succulent Amber* Color vinyl for $29 USD.
Also available on Classic Black vinyl for $24 USD.
𝗦𝗨𝗠𝗠𝗘𝗥 ‘𝟮𝟱 𝗕𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗟𝗘
The 𝗦𝗨𝗠𝗠𝗘𝗥 ‘𝟮𝟱 𝗕𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗟𝗘 collects the three new IARC releases of this season (including Tortoise's Oganesson Remixes EP, Chicago Underground Duo's Hyperglyph, and one more 2xLP TBA) and ships them as a single parcel.
Purchase gets you a bundle-exclusive discount of 10% off the LP prices as well as a discounted shipping cost.The bundle will ship from our warehouses in the US, EU, and UK, but don’t wait too long, the quantity available in each warehouse is limited! Early purchase is recommended to ensure the lowest possible shipping, tax, and VAT costs.
All items will ship together in one package around September 12th. Bandcamp downloads will be sent via email for all the releases by the ship date.
