Chicago Underground Duo's HYPERGLYPH in stores this Friday, August 15th
(( album cover photo by Mikel Patrick Avery ))
Chicago Underground Duo
Hyperglyph
LP, CD, DD out
this Friday August 15th, 2025
(+ out in full on streaming platforms September 3rd, 2025)
Hyperglyph is 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.
"Hyperglyph finds the duo continuing to innovate, drawing from a vast well of influences that range from jazz visionaries like Don Cherry and Wadada Leo Smith to electronic pioneers such as Éliane Radigue and the dub mastery of King Tubby."
- KLOF Mag
"Its rapturous horn incantations and formidable polyrhythmic textures reaffirming a deft, longstanding command on jazz music’s farthest outer reaches"
- Fruit and Grooves Collective
"Chicago Underground Duo has been the centerpiece of the whole out-jazz/indie rock/electro-acoustic Chicago Underground movement that sprung up in the Windy City back in the mid 90’s, and with so many vistas for expanding on their original vision already exploited, they ain’t done yet."
- Something Else!
( in situ at Rattleback Records, Chicago IL )
!!! Buy it IRL !!!
Hyperglyph is available in record stores worldwide this Friday August 15th, three weeks before the full album hits streaming platforms.
To encourage the rewarding, microcosmically generative experience of buying records from your friendly neighborhood record store... we've compiled below (and here on our website) a list of independent record shops that confirmed they are stocking the album this weekend. Support local business, support brick/mortar mom/pop and the essential historical, archival, cultural industrial work being done at indie record stores, buy this album IRL !!!
London, UK - Foyles
London, UK - Rough Trade
London, UK - Stranger Than Paradise Records
London, UK - World of Echo
Long Beach, CA - Fingerprints
Los Angeles, CA - Amoeba Music
Loveland, OH - Plaid Room Records
Madison, WI - B-Side Records
Madison, WI - MadCity Music
Manchester, UK - Piccadilly Records
Miami, FL - Sweat Records
Minneapolis, MN - Electric Fetus
Montpelier, VT - Buch Spieler Records
Montréal, QC - Atom Heart
Montréal, QC - Atom Heart
Montréal, QC - Frequences Le Disquaire
Montréal, QC - Le Backstore
Montréal, QC - Sonorama Disques
Mooresville, NC - Sell Your Soul Records
Nashville, TN - Grimey's
New York, NY - Rough Trade
Norridge, IL - Rolling Stones
Norwich, UK - Venus Vinyl
Oak Park, MI - Street Corner Music
Odessa, ON - Something Else Records
Orlando, FL - Park Ave
Oshkosh, WI - Eroding Winds
Oxford, UK - Truck Store
Phoenix, AZ - Stinkweeds
Portland, OR - 2nd Avenue Records
Portland, OR - Everyday Music
Portland, OR - Music Millennium
Princeton, NJ - Princeton Record Exchange
Red Bank, NJ - Jack's Music Shoppe
Richmond, VA - Plan 9
Rock Island, IL - Ragged Records And Music
San Francisco, CA - Amoeba Music
San Francisco, CA - Stranded Music
San Luis Obispo, CA - Boo Boo Records
Seattle, WA - Hex Enduction Records & Books
Seattle, WA - Silver Platters
Seattle, WA - Sonic Boom Records
Somerville, MA - Vinyl Index
St Petersburg, FL - ARTpool Records
St. Louis, MO - Euclid Records
St. Louis, MO - Vintage Vinyl
Tacoma, WA - Hi-Voltage Records
Taylorsville, UT - Graywhale
Tonawanda, NY - Soul Stop Records
Toronto, ON - Flow Records
Toronto, ON - Sonic Boom
Vancouver, BC - Audiopile Records
Vancouver, BC - Red Cat Records
Wallingford, CT - Redscroll Records
West Palm Beach, FL - Rust & Wax
Winchester, UK - Elephant Records
Winnipeg, MB - McNally Robinson
Asheville, NC - Harvest Records
Austin, TX - End of An Ear
Austin, TX - Waterloo Records
Baltimore, MD - Sound Garden
Belfast, UK - First Press
Berkeley, CA - Amoeba Music
Birmingham, UK - Polar Bear
Bloomington, IN - Landlocked Music
Boise, ID - Record Exchange
Brighton, UK - Resident Music
Brooklyn, NY - Finer Sounds
Calgary, AB - Blackbyrd Myoozik
Calgary, AB - Melodiya Records
Cambridge, UK - Lost in Vinyl
Carlsbad, CA - Spin Records
Carp, ON - Birdman Sound
Charleston, SC - Monster Music & Movies
Charlotte, NC - Lunchbox Records
Chciago, IL - Tone Deaf Records
Chicago, IL - 606 Records
Chicago, IL - Dusty Groove
Chicago, IL - Laurie's Planet of Sound
Chicago, IL - Orbit Records
Chicago, IL - Pinwheel Records
Chicago, IL - Rattleback Records
Chicago, IL - Reckless Records (Belmont)
Chicago, IL - Reckless Records (Loop)
Chicago, IL - Reckless Records (Wicker Park)
Chicago, IL - Torn Light
Chilliwack, BC - Chilliwax Records
Cincinnati, OH - Shake It
Columbia, SC - Papa Jazz
Columbus, OH - Records Per Minute
Dallas, TX - Josey Records
Davenport, IA - Ragged Records
Dearborn, MI - Dearborn Music
Denver, CO - Twist & Shout
Denver, CO - Wax Trax
Doylestown, PA - Siren Records
Dundee, UK - Le Freak Records
Dunham, QC - Le Sillon
Durham, NC - Bull City Records
Edmonton, AB - Blackbyrd Myoozik
Edmonton, AB - Listen Records
Glasgow, UK - Mixed Up Records
Golden Valley, MN - Down in the Valley
Grand Rapids, MI - Black Dog Books & Records
Grand Rapids, MI - Vertigo Music
Greenville, SC - Cabin Floor Records
Guadalajara, JAL - Tea Recs
Houston, TX - Cactus Music
Huddersfield, UK - Vinyl Tap
Indianapolis, IN - Luna Music
Iowa City, IA - Record Collector
Kamloops, BC - Barnacle Records
Kitchener, ON - Encore Records
Lawrence, KS - Love Garden Sounds
Leeds, UK - Jumbo Records
Little Canada, MN - Cheapo
Little Rock, AR - Control
Hyperglyph
Bandcamp Listening Party
Join us for an online Hyperglyph hang !! Enjoy a full album listen-through with Rob Mazurek, Chad Taylor, and the 𝗜𝗔𝗥𝗖 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝘄 in the chat!
Friday August 22nd, 2025
10am PST / 12pm CST / 1pm EST
(( photo 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.
...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 shot 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.
