RUSSIAN CIRCLES- Celebrating 20 Years
Across the span of their previous seven studio albums, Chicago based instrumental trio Russian Circles traversed a diverse topography of sounds, moods, and approaches with their limited armory of drums, bass, and guitar. It’s difficult to chart an evolution in their sound when their records have always felt like well curated playlists. It wasn’t uncommon to hear drone heavy meditations, dazzling prog exercises, knuckle dragging riff fests, haunting folk ballads, and tension baiting noise rock all within the span of one album. Still, it’s difficult to ignore the progression from the pensive and intricate melodies of Enter (2006) to the layered distorted dirges of Blood Year (2019). It’s been a gradual sonic shift owing to the band’s rigorous tour schedule and a predilection towards playing their more authoritative material on stage. Russian Circles always man age to eschew the varied terrain of their past work and bulldoze a path through the most tumultuous and harrowing territory of their sound.
DJUNAH
Djunah is the Chicago-based post-metal / noise-rock project of singer-guitarist Donna Diane. She pulls triple duty, simultaneously playing guitar, singing, and pulverizing a Moog bass organ with her foot. Known for a massive, intense live sound, the one-woman band is fueled as much by big emotions as it is by love of gear. Diane, who has been featured on Premiere Guitar’s Rig Rundown, is a self-described gearhead and multi-instrumentalist who blends analog and digital instruments to create a sound that’s truly unique. “Femina Furens,” Djunah’s second album, was named one of the best metal records of 2023 by Bandcamp Daily. The album fuses influences from formal poetry to tell the story of diagnosis and continuing recovery from complex post-traumatic stress disorder, or C-PTSD.
