Mojo - The Music Magazine

David Brewis (pictured left) is one half of Field Music, whose Tones Of Town album so wowed MOJO writers in 2007. Now he has a new “band” – School Of Language – and a new string to his bow: namely, writing for MOJO a bit. Voilà: his take on Chicago indie Thrill Jockey’s recent Anniversary celebrations…

IN MARCH OF 2007, while grumpily manning the merch table at a Field Music gig in Chicago, a kindly soul named Bettina Richards introduced herself to me and offered to send me a few records released by her company, the legendary post-rock/art-rock/electronica/space-jazz/anything-goes label Thrill Jockey.

Now I'm not one to look a gift CD in the mouth, so I handed over my address and promised to send her some of my new music as soon as it was presentable. A pretty good swap from my perspective. This not-so-chance encounter set the ball rolling for Bettina and Thrill Jockey to take up the reins for the US and European release of the debut School Of Language album. Now we’re one of only two UK-based acts on the label (the other being the recently-signed Tunng). It also led to the frankly wondrous opportunity to visit Chicago in December to take part in the celebrations for Thrill Jockey's 15th anniversary, across two nights and two stages, featuring such TJ alumni as The Sea And Cake, Trans Am, The Fiery Furnaces, Bobby Conn, Califone, Tortoise and many more. 16 acts, in fact, altogether.

I've also never been known to make things easy for myself so, not only was I scheduled to arrive back in Sunderland on the same day as the first of Field Music's Xmas extravaganza shows, somewhere along the line it had become the plan for School Of Language's US debut to double as School Of Language's first ever show as more than a one-man band. That didn't mean I could just scrub up the band at home and ship them over - mostly because I don't have a band at home yet. No, for this all-important first show, I would be meeting my band for the first time (and rehearsing for the one and only time) on the evening before the gig. Wow.

Luckily for me, Chicago and Thrill Jockey in particular are more blessed than most when it comes to drummers who can handle the tricky stuff and I hit the jackpot with a tall fellow sporting a mischievous smile called Ryan Rapsys (sometime touring drummer for The Sea And Cake and an artist in his own right as Euphone) and his esteemed long-time bass-fishing buddy Mr Nick Macri (a partner on several Euphone records and currently funking up the bottom end for another TJ act, The Zincs).

And so, after arriving on the evening of Wednesday, 12th December and meeting the Thrill Jockey crew (lovingly referred to as “Bettina and her little pixies” later that weekend by Rick Rizzo of Eleventh Dream Day) at their office-cum-stockroom on Thursday afternoon, I talked nonsense on an excellent local community radio show before convening with my new band at a local rehearsal room. It has been known for Field Music practices to last exactly as long as the combined length of our three or four most difficult songs, but my new cohorts and I had some seriously proggy hurdles to overcome on this particular wintry evening. Aside from a 20-minute break resulting from one of the bands based at the practice room needing to run through their own set prior to a gig that evening, we rehearsed solidly from 5pm until midnight and wrapped it up feeling quietly confident that, if the stars were correctly aligned, we could just about pull it off and come Friday we'd be able to serve up some tasty rock'n'roll, Thrill Jockey-style.

Sadly, even by this point, my internal clock was still stuck on GMT and I woke up at 4.30 on the morning of the show (I'd done the same the previous morning too and was starting to suffer for it). Ryan and I met at the venue - a grand, 700-capacity ballroom with an undeservedly bad reputation for sound, called the Logan Square Auditorium - and after a brief soundcheck retired to a restaurant underneath the venue, where I continued my adventure with a bowl of pasta with cinnamon, feta and garlic, which was curiously delicious.

The evening's entertainment kicked off with Doug McCombs' Brokeback, whose languid instrumentals recalled the uneasy beauty of Angelo Badalamenti's Twin Peaks soundtrack. After that the action flicked from stage to stage - Eleventh Dream Day (featuring Doug again) followed Archer Prewitt, who followed Thalia Zedek. The Sea And Cake's set was masterful. Sam Prekop's voice and guitar oozed with melody while the propulsive and fluid bass-playing of Eric Claridge didn't display a trace of the jet-lag he'd been lamenting backstage (having only just returned from Japan - it's much worse when you're heading eastwards, as I'm discovering now). I would have enjoyed their set even more had I not known that we were on next.

But I needn't have worried. The crowd were open and appreciative, Nick and Ryan gave each song exactly the right momentum and I was having so much fun I forgave myself every duff note almost instantly. It really couldn't have gone much better and after our seven-song set we ambled to the wings in a triumphant daze amid a flurry of hugs, handshakes and back-slapping. We whipped the gear offstage and settled down with a tot of whisky to watch the Fred Anderson Trio engulf the audience in a tumultuous wave of ecstatic jazz.

Yet for me the highlight was still to come. The Fiery Furnaces were astonishing - a totally original mélange of untamed and intricate keyboard riffage, word-twisting monologues and Zeppelin-esque thunder. I can't believe I didn't have any of their records beforehand. I feel quite ashamed. The night closed with the equally original Bobby Conn but by this time I was feeling the six hours’ time difference and bowed out.

A fluke of flight-pricing meant that I was still in Chicago to witness the next night of the party, along with a flurry of true Chicagoan weather - heavy snow which lasted right through that day and night. Tortoise (Doug McCombs yet again!) were the unannounced but widely-rumoured special guests, with Jeff Parker's guitar particularly incandescent. I managed to stay awake long enough to catch Frequency - another incredible trance-inducing jazz trio - and the Zincs - my new pal Nick Macri back at the day job. I said my farewells just as Califone's horn section began to play from the balcony and, for the second time this year, missed out on seeing Trans Am play live.

Luckily the snow didn't delay my flight too much the next morning. Unluckily, my jet-lag had subsided enough for me to curse my alarm clock when it buzzed into life at 5 o'clock, just in time for me to hop on the CTA Blue Line to O'Hare International and beyond.

David Brewis

Check out David Brewis’s new bag at www.myspace.com/schooloflanguage

…And there are some pics of the Thrill Jockey show on Pitchfork… where else?