Actually, Records
FUNCTIONAL DISPLACEMENT
Friday-Sunday, September 21-23, 8pm
$10 per night, $25 for three-day pass

This three-day event benefits the Foundation for Asian American Independent Media, the Midwest’s premier organization dedicated to promoting film, video, and other media by and about Asian Americans, and supporting the artists who create them. FAAIM also stages the annual Chicago Asian American Showcase, which is the Midwest’s largest Asian American arts festival.

Hosted by Actually, Records, this is a showcase of the best of new indie-rock, experimental, electro-pop, post-metal, and other musical genres. Investigate the intersections between analog and digital, Chicago and both coasts, boys and girls, and everything in the cracks between harmonica players, soundboard operators, record collectors, laptop performers, and melancholic songwriters. www.faaim.org; www.actuallyrecords.com

The Gold Medalists is the solo project of Pete Nguyen, drummer and vocalist for indie rockers eE and noise artists Total Shutdown. Combining indie-pop, slowcore, and noise to create beautifully textured post-rock pop, The Gold Medalists redefines the indie rock status quo with his sonic live debut. Featuring Dan Lee of Scrabbel.

Unfortunaut was conceived in a bar after shots of Irish whiskey and an intense discussion over the state of music. Memories of the original 120 Minutes, Rikki and Headbangers Ball, WNUR's Fast and Loud, and cassette tapes came to mind and the seed was planted. Imagine saddling up in an improvised noise group with the guitar player of your first high school cover band, familiar, but not rocking the same old Minor Threat or Husker Du songs. Their sound is based in the common musical past that brought them together and is unwound and bullied back with the energy of individual influences into eight minute epics.

[Unfortunaut] weaves its sound blanket around the listener like a giant cobweb with no way out. Yet being held prisoner by Unfortunaut is a great experience and I can't wait to hear more of them soon. – Lords of Metal

Jienan Yuan is a sound artist who creates soundscapes steeped in emotional isolationism and internalized melancholia. He recently composed the scores for three award-winning shorts and developed a sound installation project for the 312 Gallery exhibition, 100 Cuts.

“Kris Racer plays sweet acoustic pop, the type of heartfelt music embraced by sensitive boys with shaky voices around the world. The obvious musical touchstone here would be Dashboard Confessional, but Racer mostly avoids that group's saccharine mewling." - The Onion AV Club

Kite Operations is a rock band based in New York City which blends its taste for delicate melodies with an insatiable lust for feedback and abrasive noises. Although sometimes categorized as shoegazer, the band considers itself more indebted to artists such as Slint, Sonic Youth, and early U2. The band was formed in 2003 by former Theselah singer-guitarists Joseph Kim and David Yang, rounded out by Jie Whoon Kang, a classically trained bassist who quickly learned the ways of rock bass and Sung Shin, a self-taught drummer with a hard-hitting and unpredictable style. The name Kite Operations was chosen for its richness of imagery and metaphorical meaning - the illusion of control one has over one's life, mirrored in the activity of flying a kite while one merely holds onto a thread.

...a shimmering, eardrum-shattering ore of blissful indie pop...
– Westword

...a burgeoning lyrical delicacy... – Splendid

Central Ohio's newest folk hero, Joel Walter is the premier spokesperson for underdogs everywhere. Armed with only his guitar and harmonica, Joel investigates the core of blue-collar life and the dreams that are often buried within it a la great songwriting aesthetics a la Dylan and Springsteen.

Jack Tung's songs are precisely composed instrumentals performed by Jack alone in real-time on an electric guitar, a drum machine, synthesizers, and a sampler. His moody aesthetic is equally informed by the exhilarating and harsh thrash of his youth in the Long Island hardcore scene, and by the atmospheric film soundtracks absorbed as a lifelong cinephile. In live performance, Jack uses no pre-recorded parts and no backing tracks, save for the spare drum machine patterns which propel his arrangements. His precise execution and control of multiple layers of sound is a feat to witness.

Oishi is the collaboration between singer/songwriter Carly Oishi and Jon Monteverde (aka XYZR_KX). Their music exemplifies the most charming and delicate qualities of indie-acoustic pop.

XYZR_KX
Pronounced ‘Scissor Kicks’, XYZR_KX is Jon Monteverde, Chicago-based Chinese-Filipino indie-rock/electro-pop wunderkind. With this project, Monteverde redefines the boundaries of the traditional pop song by simultaneously incorporating hushed vocals, serrated guitars, and chaotic beats.

More passion than purity, more brash than composed, the sound explodes out of the speakers. - Grooves Magazine

Quietly earnest folk-pop, narcoleptic electronica... jaw-dropping power. - Splendid Magazine

backGammon is a large ensemble devoted to the exploration of group composition through both electronic and acoustic media. The ensemble uses a variety of acoustic and electric instruments for sound production, group processing, and dynamic sound distribution. From the vintage Arp Odyssey to contemporary laptops, the ensemble seeks to embrace the entire legacy of electronic music. backGammon's music is about sharing responsibilities, constructing sonic textures, building rhythmic structures, and exploring a vast array of musical idioms and languages. backGammon is Caroline Davis, James Diomede, Casey Farina, Matthew Golombisky, Theron Humiston, Jonathon Kirk, and Stephen Syverud.