HYPERGLYPH - new Chicago Underground Duo album OUT NOW on all music platforms
(( Photo by Mikel Patrick Avery ))
Chicago Underground Duo
Hyperglyph
Today, Chicago Underground Duo — the long-running project of composer/trumpeter/synthesist Rob Mazurek and composer/percussionist Chad Taylor — release Hyperglyph on all streaming platforms.
It’s the duo’s first new album in 11 years, and to celebrate, they'll be performing in Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia this month — find tickets and more info below.
“Deep and real…Chicago Underground Duo only gets richer.”
The Quietus
“A major artistic statement...Its creators blend stunning instrumental technique — they’re absolute masters — with a love of distortion and weird noises.”
Stereogum
“Click Song’ has an electronic core — a looping synthesizer line — and melodies for trumpet that hint at African music, Ornette Coleman and the Rolling Stones’ ‘Miss You.’ They’re completely surrounded by Taylor’s drums and percussion — multiple overdubs in stereo — slinging exultant variations on six-against-four.”
The New York Times
“Hyperglyph demonstrates that Taylor and Mazurek’s ongoing musical collaboration is as much of an ethos of experimentation as it is as a specific sound…brimming with ideas.”
Aquarium Drunkard
“The electro-acoustic Hyperglyph will sound familiar to long-time listeners who are drawn to the duo’s potent mix of organic earth sounds juxtaposed against cosmic sounds from the stars.”
Bandcamp
“Pretty much the album of August.”
Jazz Times
“The kind of joyful virtuosic work that makes you thrilled to be alive.”
Treble
“This set reveals their mature, fully developed musical language expanded by sonic and harmonic invention.”
AllMusic
“The whirl of ideas is intoxicating…But there's space for moments of straightforward beauty too.”
Uncut
“An electric chemistry courses through the line-blurring electro-acoustic hybrids of Hyperglyph.”
MOJO
“The latest album from Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor is every bit the blueprint for the jazz meets post-rock meets electronica hybridization the duo have perfected over eight studio albums.”
All About Jazz
Chad Taylor records mbira for "The Gathering"
Filmed/recorded by Dave Vettraino at International Anthem Studios, Chicago, May 6th, 2024. From the sessions for Hyperglyph, Taylor's mbira performance ended up making part of album track "The Gathering".
(( album cover 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.
(( 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 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.
Available on Limited Edition *Succulent Amber* Color vinyl for $29 USD.
Also available on Classic Black vinyl for $24 USD.
