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$25 // 21+
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At the end of 2014, Chicago trio RUSSIAN CIRCLES celebrated the 10-year anniversary of their first show. A decade is a long time for any band to persevere, let alone a band that mines the relatively unmarketable niche of protracted instrumental dirges. But whereas many bands on the louder end of the rock-based instrumental world are content to work within the confines of the crescendos and washed-out timbres laid out by their predecessors, RUSSIAN CIRCLES persistently expand their creative boundaries by working with a wider swath of sounds and structures. In many ways, their last album Memorial was a fitting cap to that first decade; it was an elegy to the past, a token of remembrance to the aural explorations of the band’s formative years. It encompassed the many facets of the band’s catalog: harrowing gloom, cinematic majesty, primitive bludgeonings, bittersweet dexterity, and morose minimalism.
Formed in 2009 by vocalist Kristina Esfandiari, the Bay Area's KING WOMAN began as a solo project then later developed into a full band. Over the course of the last seven years, KING WOMAN have crafted a sound thoroughly their own - a sound that harnesses the elastic textures and temporality of drone and metallic shoegaze alongside the transcendental, melancholic power of doom. The band's debut EP Doubt (released on leading San Fran avant-garde imprint The Flenser in 2014) paired weighty subject matter with wistful, brooding, and hypnotic songwriting. KING WOMAN's mystical sound resonated strongly enough to catch the attention of renowned independent label Relapse Records, who signed the band in 2016.
