INCOMING: Dirty Beaches at Empty Bottle 9/12 & Beacon at Bottom Lounge 9/18

Two incredible acts, Beacon and Dirty Beaches, are coming through Chicago this fall and they're rumored to be some serious standouts for the season.   So check 'em out live while you can.

With a Best New Music on Pitchfork for his outstanding new double record Drifters/Love Is The Devil, Dirty Beaches has again proven to be one of the most innovative and compelling artists today, and will be playing on Thursday, September 12th at Empty Bottle with a full band. Heard recently in an interview on NPR's All Things Considered, they call Alex Zhang Hungtai's compositions "washy, dreamy rock music that often feels nostalgic" while Pitchfork see it as "both sprawling and detailed, a sonic travelogue that takes the textural aspects of his work to impressionistic heights." In a recent interview with Stereogum, they write that the record is "equal parts beautiful, heartbreaking, and (occasionally) terrifying," an apt description for his fascinating new video for "Casino Lisboa."

Beacon and Shigeto will be co-headlining a fantastic tour this summer, playing Bottom Lounge on Wednesday, September 18th with support from Nightmoves. A Brooklyn-based male duo, Beacon released their debut album, The Ways We Separate, on Ghostly earlier this spring to much acclaim, with Pitchfork writing, "Mullarney's voice is light, but it's grounded with an earnestness that is strengthened with each new instrumental flourish." An intoxicating blend of R&B and electronic grooves, The Ways We Separate captures smooth, sensual rhythms and lays them atop silky vocals and deep basslines, coming together into what Exclaim call "one of the most compelling and authentic-sounding albums of the year." Having toured with How To Dress Well, Gold Panda and Matthew Dear, Beacon put on a stellar live show and are sure to impress alongside Shigeto's vivid, beat-heavy electronic sound.

DIRTY BEACHES Photo Credit: Anna Zelikova North American Tour Dates 2013 / 09.04.13 - Societe des Arts Technologiques - Montreal, QC # 09.05.13 - Church of Boston - Boston, MA #  09.06.13 - Bowery Ballroom - New York, NY # 09.08.13 - Rock & Roll Hotel - Washington, DC # 09.09.13 - Johnny Brenda's - Philadelphia, PA # 09.11.13 - The Garrison - Toronto, ON #  09.12.13 - Empty Bottle - Chicago, IL # 09.13.13 - Firebird - St. Louis, MO #  09.14.13 - Exit In - Nashville, TN #  09.15.13 - Bottletree - Birmingham, AL #  09.17.13 - The Mohawk - Austin, TX #  09.19.13 - Rhythm Room - Phoenix, AZ #  09.20.13 - Echo - Los Angeles, CA # %  09.21.13 - The Void - San Diego, CA # %  09.22.13 - Bottom of the Hill - San Francisco, CA # % 09.24.13 - Mississippi Studios - Portland, OR # % 09.25.13 - Barboza - Seattle, WA # %  09.26.13 - Biltmore Cabaret - Vancouver, BC # %  * with Heathered Pearls, Xray Eyeballs  ^ with Heathered Pearls & Eola (collaboration), Porcelain Raft, Andy Boay  # with Sisu % with Chasms Alex Zhang Hungtai, AKA Dirty Beaches, started off as a one man band in 2005 in Montreal. A trans-pacific nomad and genre hopping sound smith, his past releases include drone instrumentals, film scores and a fascination with dissecting popular american music like blues, rockabilly, soul, RNB, and hip hop, often rendering them to the point where its no longer recognizable. His latest release, Drifters/Love Is The Devil, is a double LP that chronicles the musician's life on the road over the past 2 years, as we follow him down the rabbit hole through the labyrinths of Berlin, Belgrade, Paris, and many other cities through heartbreak, rebirth and masochistic existential self reflection. Recorded between Montreal and Berlin in the winter of 2012, the double LP is separated only by aesthetics, as they are tightly woven together thematically as one conceptual piece. If 2011's Badlands was an exercise in exorcising past ghosts in a semi-fictional world, then Drifters/Love Is The Devil is a reflection on the fragility of reality. One, of the surface world in which he explores the night life of bright neon temptations dwelling in hedonistic irresponsible values, and the other of the inner world, one of remorse and lovelorn tragedies. As stated by the artist himself, "the most honest piece of music I've ever written." Drifters/Love Is The Devil is out now on ZOO MUSIC. "Drifters/Love is the Devil is a pair of poignant records. Hungtai’s ideas swing rapidly from beautiful to chaotic to completely atonal...Fortunately, Hungtai has let us into his world, no matter what darkness we might find there." Consequence of Sound "The gloomy and beautiful tracks on Love is the Devil may be pointing a way forward for Dirty Beaches, they may have been conceived as a spiritual complement to Drifters, or they may just be a temporary detour; whatever their intent though, their presence is a welcome addition to the Dirty Beaches catalog." Paste Links / Dirty Beaches on Facebook Dirty Beaches on Twitter Dirty Beaches Official Website ZOO MUSIC Drifters Tracklisting / 01. Night Walk 02. I Dream In Neon 03. Belgrade 04. Casino Lisboa 05. ELLI 06. Aurevoir Mon Visage 07. Mirage Hall 08. Landscapes In The Mist  Love Is The Devil Tracklisting / 01. Greyhound At Night 02. This Is Not My City 03. Woman 04. Love Is The Devil 05. Alone At The Danube River 06. I Don't Know How To Find My Way Back To You 07. Like The Ocean We Part 08. Berlin  Quotes / "Both sprawling and detailed, a sonic travelogue that takes the textural aspects of his work to impressionistic heights." Pitchfork "Washy, dreamy rock music that often feels nostalgic." NPR "Ambitious new double album, Drifters/Love Is The Devil, stylishly reflects the dislocation of the road more traveled, hovering on the edge of dread...the oblique confessionals and elegiac atmosphere belie a certain cinematic grandeur." Interview Magazine "A double album steeped in grainy nostalgia that ventures further into the heart of film noir...an Oscar-worthy soundtrack waiting to happen." NYLON "Drifters sees Hungtai dabble in spartan post-punk, rickety industrial and devil-at-the-crossroads blues. Love Is The Devil, meanwhile, is an instrumental song-suite, alternately redolent of Angelo Badalamenti and Forest Swords." FACT "This double album is really good, and Alex Zhang Hungtai rules." VICE "It's a demanding, damn good and rewarding listen, one that squeezes your heart and head through shaking fingers." Filter "Laying down a rattling, distortion-heavy foundation while the man spits semi-intelligible venom from a mouth that seems caught in a permanent rockabilly sneer. There are echoes of both Tonetta and Brian Eno, with hints of the utter nothing that awaits us at the end of this crushing existence." SPIN

BEACON

Photo Credit: Will Calcutt

Press / "Mullarney’s voice is light, but it's grounded with an earnestness that is strengthened with each new instrumental flourish." Pitchfork "Massagingly minimal R&B." FADER "Mullarney’s slight tenor neatly fits Gossett’s knack for electronic groove." Consequence of Sound "Beacon manage to craft one of the most compelling and authentic-sounding albums of the year." Exclaim! "They fuse the deceptively sweet melodies of R&B with an intoxicating undercurrent of darkness." KEXP Co-Headlining Fall 2013 Tour with Shigeto / 08.29.13 - Brighton Music Hall - Boston, MA * 08.30.13 - Johnny Brenda’s - Philadelphia, PA * 08.31.13 - Bowery Ballroom - New York, NY * 09.03.13 - Brillobox - Pittsburgh, PA *  09.04.13 - U Street Music Hall - Washington, DC * 09.05.13 - Asheville Music Hall - Asheville, NC * 09.06.13 - NV - Knoxville, TN *  09.07.13 - Cosmic Charlie’s - Lexington, KY * 09.08.13 - Zanzabar - Louisville, KY *  09.10.31 - Mahall’s - Lakewood, OH *  09.11.13 - Bug Jar - Rochester, NY *  09.12.13 - Le Belmont - Montreal, QC *  09.13.13 - The Garrison - Toronto, ON *  09.14.13 - Laneway Festival - Rochester Hills, MI !  09.18.13 - Bottom Lounge - Chicago, IL #  09.19.13 - Miramar Theatre - Milwaukee, WI #  09.20.13 - The Frequency - Madison, WI #  09.21.13 - 7th Street Entry - Minneapolis, MN #  09.22.13 - Bourbon Theatre - Lincoln, NE #  09.23.13 - Larimer Lounge - Denver, CO #  09.25.13 - Kilby Court - Salt Lake City, UT #  09.27.13 - Decibel Festival (The Crocodile) - Seattle, WA @  09.28.13 - Electric Owl - Vancouver, BC # %  09.29.13 - Holocene - Portland, OR # %  10.02.13 - The Jambalaya - Arcata, CA #  10.03.13 - The Independent - San Francisco, CA #  10.04.13 - Echoplex - Los Angeles, CA #  10.05.13 - Casbah - San Diego, CA # % * with Heathered Pearls  ! with Matthew Dear, ADULT., Heathered Pearls  # with Nitemoves  @ with Lusine,  Dauwd,  Nitemoves  % with Phaeleh The Ways We Separate Tracklisting / 01. Bring You Back 02. Feeling's Gone 03. Between The Waves 04. Drive 05. Overseer 06. Late November 07. Studio Audience  08. Headlights 09. Anthem 10. Split In Two Thomas Mullarney and Jacob Gossett, aka Brooklyn duo Beacon, introduced themselves to the world with the No Body and For Now EPs, both released last year on Ghostly International. The EPs were united by minimalist, R&B-influenced instrumentation, and also by a lyrical theme, with both serving as meditations on the darkness that underpins the most intense of human emotions: love. The duo's debut album The Ways We Separate both consolidates and develops these ideas. The album focuses, as the title suggests, on the idea of separation — both within the context of relationships and in a more intimate, psychological sense. As Mullarney explains, "The narrative contained inside The Ways We Separate deals with two kinds of separation: one where two entities grow apart, and the other where we grow apart from ourselves. Over the course of a relationship, the two sometimes happen together, one being the result of the other." Desires, passions and regrets are central to the songs on The Ways We Separate, which take a variety of perspectives to construct a nuanced reflection on the album's central theme. 'Between the Waves' draws a clever analogy between relationships and soundwaves falling out of phase: "I know all the ways we separate/ Where we start to fade at different frequencies." 'Overseer' catalogues a parting of the ways with discomfiting clarity: "Isn't it fine?/ Taking it slow?/ Watching you watch me walk out your door." And album closer 'Split in Two' explores how the extremes of love and loss can take you far away from being the person you thought you were, making explicit the connection between the two ideas of separation: "What I'd do for you?", sings Thomas Mullarney, "Split myself in half/ Divided into two." Musically, The Ways We Separate finds Beacon working with a richer sonic palette than ever before —as Gossett says, "The production on this album is much more expansive than anything thing we’ve done thus far. We spent a lot of time exploring new gear and experimenting with how to pull a wide range of sound out of various instruments. Some of the key sonics that shaped this LP are analogue synthesis, lots of heavily processed guitar work, and vocal layering/processing." While the abiding mood remains that of late-night introspection, the production draws from elements of hip hop and a wide gamut of electronic music, marrying intricate beats and subtle textures to honeyed pop melodies that belie the album's conceptual depth. Rarely has bleakness sounded so pretty — this is a record that's deceptively, compellingly beautiful, an exploration of a place both discomfiting and darkly seductive. Links / Beacon Official Tumblr Beacon Official Bandcamp Beacon Official Facebook Follow Beacon On Twitter Ghostly International