the WHISTLER

Using modern electronics and looping techniques to augment traditional instrumentation, local quartet A Light Sleeper combines percussive guitars with bright saxophones and hushed vocal harmonies to craft flowing epics that alternate between dark, moody atmospherics and breezy, abstract pop. The band has been floating along the periphery of the city’s experimental scene since 2005, and recently released their debut album Amicability on Chicago-based label Another New Calligraphy. The Daredevil Christopher Wright is three dudes from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. In Deference to a Broken Back is the band’s debut full-length. Mixed by fellow Eau Claire friend, Justin Vernon of the acclaimed Bon Iver, each song offers a story, whether centered on the true events of a brother’s move to New England (“The East Coast”), or fictionalized as in the couple who have plans to be a playwright and stewardess (“Stewardess”). It is the depth in the mundane they prefer, “faith and rocks and slings and things”. The Daredevil Christopher Wright are the park bench overlooking a mighty river, the subtitles to a foreign film, and the back screen door left to slam shut on a summer day.