Motorhome lives less in a loft than in an environment. Outside a van covered in painted yellow daisies sits patiently. Inside, in a converted bank building in west Lakeview, two band members live with a couple of friends in a cozy and cluttered warren of rooms. Paintings by guitarist Josiah Mazzaschi and bassist Kristen Thiele are arrayed in the hallways: the rest of the available wall space is covered with painted flowers and trees. Art, musical equipment, and shelves of CDs and knickknacks mark the space, as do two biggish dogs and at least one cat.
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Unfortunately the Motorhome environment is about to be disrupted: the gentrification of the Lincoln-Ashland-Belmont intersection is forcing them out. They’ve been evicted. The move is symbolic of this transitional time for the band, who are on the verge of releasing their first album, Sex Vehicle, on New York’s Dirt records. Even in the overheated hotbed of creativity that has been the Chicago rock scene over the past two years, Sex Vehicle should command attention: it’s an extremely ambitious 21-track psychedelic song cycle of arresting performances and beguiling tunes, put together with a refreshing lack of pretension. Motorhome attempts and largely pulls off a difficult trick: creating a sonically imposing album that never falls into the zones of testosterone freak-outs or indie noodling. Mazzaschi is a sound geek who has a different guitar effect for every song, running his instruments through all manner of pedals and studio treatments to construct five- and six-minute sonic thrill factories. At the same time, with a disarming matter-of-factness, he confesses to being a bit uncomfortable with his masculinity; with no little help from Thiele, who writes about half the songs herself, the band undercuts the muscular nature of the guitar attacks with tape snippets, moments of delicate ballads, and interludes of homemade four-track whimsy. And anchoring the assemblage in the real world is far more than its share of straightforward rock dreaminess: Thiele’s “Whole in My Head,” with its ethereal vocalizings and trippy guitar tracks, is probably the most delectable of these, but there’s also Mazzaschi’s by turns rumbling and extravagant “Sweet Valentine” and a coursing rocker called “Superstar.”
A bit guiltily, Thiele and Mazzaschi worked on old-fashioned songs while taking an Art Institute class in experimental sound manipulation. But a cheerful affection for the strange remains in the band–treated vocals, static, and pops, buzzes, and snorts from a vintage synthesizer dot the record. To make their first single, “Whole in My Head,” last year the trio hooked up, happily, with Kingsize studio’s Dave Trumfio, who oversaw the recording of Sex Vehicle too. “We really liked his style,” says Mazzaschi. “He’s definitely into quirky sounds.”
