Showing posts with label Czarny Sen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Czarny Sen. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Time Out on Rabid Rabbit

A nice preview for the band's Sunday (4/29) show...

Rabid Rabbit at Empty Bottle | Concert preview

Chicago doom purveyors drown their sorrows in low end.
By Areif Sless-Kitain
 

Rabid Rabbit
Photo: Mariah Karson

Don’t let the name fool you. Rabid Rabbit moves at an ominous, glacial pace. The Garfield Park group has grown into a unique and potent purveyor of doom, with an outlook that extends from a placid grimace to an imposing scowl. After several iterations, the lineup has solidified into a quartet unified in vision and intent, featuring not twin guitars but two basses. The subsuming low end is hardly the only way in which the band deviates from its peers.
That much is startlingly evident on the band’s impressive second album, last year’s Czarny Sen, which translates to black dream in Polish, a nod to vocalist-bassist Andrea Jablonski’s homeland. Her haunting monotone approaches a drone, set against guitarist Dan Sullivan’s grim power chords and pro shredding. Her voice lends tonal variation to an otherwise proudly bleak palette. Second bassist Arman Mabry and drummer Mike Tsoulos thicken the concoction to a cosmic funeral dirge.
The group’s talent for the unlikely includes improvisation, as saxophonist Dave Rempis demonstrates via scalding skronk both on the record and often live. He’s not on hand at the Bottle tonight, but Rabid Rabbit’s devastating art-sludge never fails to leave a glorious stain on the local scene.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Rabid Rabbit - 12-11-2011 - Reggie's - Chicago, IL - Photographs

Rabid Rabbit - 12-11-2011 - Reggie's - Chicago, IL
On December 11, 2011, Rabid Rabbit played at Reggie's, in Chicago, in support of the legendary group Psychic TV.  This was the broader public unveiling of the new Rabid Rabbit LP on BloodLust!, "Czarny Sen."  The band were kind enough to ask me to join them for "Suicide Song" (AKA "Gloomy Sunday"), which appears on the album.  Mariah Karson was there to photograph the show, and I recently saw her excellent shots of that night for the first time.  The full Rabid Rabbit set is here.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Monday, December 12, 2011

Rabid Rabbit LP - Out Now!


B!169 Rabid Rabbit "Czarny Sen" LP - LIMITED EDITION

B!169 Rabid Rabbit "Czarny Sen" LP (regular edition)

"Czarny Sen (BloodLust!), the second full-length from local quartet Rabid Rabbit, has been long awaited around these parts—Reader music editor Philip Montoro wrote back in August about how great the album is. The double-bass-guitar attack has always given their doomy weight a grave-deep foundation, and their newest member, guitarist Dan Sullivan (Arriver), brings a spectacular, nimble style that distills the whole history of heavy music into a crisp palette... I'll match them up against any other avant-doom merchants in the world." - Monica Kendrick / The Chicago Reader


Rabid Rabbit hails from Chicago's west side, East Garfield Park, a beautiful, run down neighborhood populated with survivors and working folks. Rabid Rabbit itself is comprised of survivors and working folks, veterans of bands that embraced rock's more abrasive boundaries. The band emerged on the Chicago Doom scene a few years ago, unapologetically throwing down a raw, stripped down sound that stood out for its attraction to noise and psych rock, anchored by brutal low end sludge. At its core is wife/husband team Andrea Jablonski and Mike Tsoulos playing bass and drums respectively. Later joined by Arman Mabry (bass) and Dan Sullivan (guitar), the sound both thickened and expanded. As Andrea's vocals took on a greater role, Rabid Rabbit's sound simultaneously became more unclassifiable as it developed more character.


"Czarny Sen," Rabid Rabbit's second full-length album (and first with new guitarist Dan Sullivan), captures the band's sound in five songs, using psych, noise, and improv to temper heavy doom metal and sludge. "Eclipse" slowly unfolds around an unstoppable, meditative riff, tied together with vocals chanted in Andrea's native Polish. The dark landscape of "Goliad", alludes to the violence associated with its namesake, a Texas town that was the scene of a massacre in the 19th century. "Suicide Song" inserts the lyrics from infamous torch song "Gloomy Sunday", along with screeching saxophone, rattling percussion, and growled vocals in a 12 minute epic. "Land of the Glass Pinecones" completely reimagines a lost hit by 80s postpunkers Human Sexual Response, supplanting the original's percussive shimmer with a giant, evil riff. Finally, the pagan incantation of "Raven Man" uses bristling slide guitar to build to a ferocious climax. Joining the band intermittently on "Czarny Sen" are heavy hitters from Chicago's noise, metal, and free jazz scene, including Mark Solotroff, Dave Rempis, Bruce Lamont, and Michael Zerang, earning Rabid Rabbit the sometimes accurate label of "improvi-doom."


* To date, Rabid Rabbit has performed alongside the likes of Melt Banana, Thrones, Monarch, Yakuza, Grief, Unsane, Wolf Eyes, Jucifer, Stinking Lizaveta, BLOODYMINDED, Anatomy of Habit and more, and will be announcing upcoming regional live dates in support of their new album coming soon.


Tracklisting:
1. Goliad
2. Eclipse
3. Suicide Song
4. Land of the Glass Pinecones
5. Raven Man

Monday, December 05, 2011

Rabid Rabbit update

The Rabid Rabbit LPs were finally just delivered by UPS... merely the third UPS shipping screw-up in a row!  The driver did not seem at all pleased about having to drive back out here at 6:30 PM with 18 cartons.  Release update to follow, once the band gives these things the old tar-paper treatment...

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Rabid Rabbit "Czarny Sen" Update

The Rabid Rabbit test pressings finally arrived yesterday.  I think the LP sounds great!  Once the band gives me their final word, the records will be pressed.  Stylish metallic silver ink on white jackets were already produced, while the band will be topping things off with their trademark tarpaper and wax seal treatment...  Soon...