The Red Krayola
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Thompson’s first collaborative reinvention occurred during the mid-70s, when he worked with a trans-Atlantic conceptual-art collective called Art & Language. They made several films and videos and one album, Corrected Slogans, which introduced history and left-leaning politics into Thompson’s music. In 1979, while based in London, he worked with Cleveland’s “avant-garage” rock band Pere Ubu on the Red Krayola’s record Soldier Talk. He subsequently played guitar on two of Ubu’s records. At that time Thompson was working for the Rough Trade record company, and the next version of the Red Krayola was composed of musicians drawn from Rough Trade bands whose records he’d produced. Thompson spent the late 80s working in the visual arts in Germany, where he met his next musical partner, a German synthesizer player and painter named Albert Oehlen. When Thompson returned to the United States last year he selected Chicago musicians and a Chicago record company to give life to the Red Krayola’s newest incarnation.
The recent national attention paid to Chicago’s music community has focused on groups and individuals that conform to traditional musical formats: Liz Phair fits the singer-songwriter mold, and Smashing Pumpkins, Red Red Meat, Veruca Salt, and the Jesus Lizard are all four-piece guitar-rock bands with easily identifiable antecedents. But recordings by Tortoise, Brise-Glace, and Gastr del Sol offer evidence that avant-garde rock is thriving here as well. The last band is especially noteworthy because its members make up the Red Krayola’s newest lineup. Gastr del Sol is a collaboration between two multiinstrumentalists, the academically trained sound scientist Jim O’Rourke and postpunk rocker David Grubbs, with occasional help from journeyman percussionist John McEntire. On their Mirror Repair and Crookt, Crackt, or Fly records (both on Drag City Records) Gastr del Sol have mapped out a territory bounded by austere compositions, twisted rocky riffs, static instrumental textures, and angular, thorny improvisations. The Red Krayola is Thompson’s first long-player since 1989 (and his first U.S. release since 1970).
