WEDNESDAY JULY 10TH 8PM
$10 Suggested Donation
(pay what you can)
Sfyria Trio is a free-improvising band comprised of Sam Decker on saxophone, Charlie Kirchen on bass, and Matt Carroll on drums. The group played its first concert in December 2016 to a packed house at Chicago's Elastic Arts. The music that night was electric and full of mystery and it was clear to each of the members that there were depths to the sounds they were making that needed to be further explored. This performance was followed by a recording session the next day (the results of which were released in November 2017) and a band was born.
The opportunities to perform, however, have been few and far between. While the band came together as a result of the shared time they spent living in Chicago, they have since dispersed, as Decker and Kirchen are now based in New York City and Carroll lives in Denmark. Furthermore, each player is kept busy by a wide range of other projects: Carroll with bands such as Ohmme, Rooms, and Typical Sisters, Decker with Shrove, Green and Glass, Secret Sibling, and the Logan Strohsal Team, and Kirchen with projects such as the Few, Rooms, and the Charlie Kirchen Quartet. But as a result of the infrequency of its activity, each opportunity the band does get to make music is charged with purpose and urgency. Over the course of a handful of tours, the group has refined its approach to improvisation, developing an idiom informed by each player's engagement with jazz, American folk musics, and various strains of twentieth century classical music.
As Sfyria Trio moves into the future, they continue to seek ways to push the music forward. In particular, the group is carving a niche for itself by finding acoustically and architecturally unique spaces in which to perform. To this end, the band presented a concert at Rockefeller Chapel in Chicago in May 2017, a recording of which will be released by Astral Spirits in July 2019. Furthermore, the group is currently working with the Chicago Architectural Biennial to produce a concert/recording in the empty foundation of the Chicago Spire Tower at the infamous 400 N Lake Shore Driveplot in the fall of 2019.
Window Light Collectors is a duo of guitars and voice comprised of Shane Parish (Ahleuchatistas) and Corey Parlamento (Livingdog). Both originally hailing from South Florida and eventually ending up in the mountains of NC, they found a musical kinship through collaboration and exploration. Pulling from elements of folk, avante-garde, and ambient music, they create songs through a combination of composition and improvisation that are meditative and simple while at the same time dynamic, complex, and engaging.