How many bands can two people be? Chicago Underground Duo, made up of Rob Mazurek on synths and trumpet and Chad Taylor on percussion, seem to take up that question seriously and mine between the two of them as many possible colors as they can possibly find. Chicago Underground, the titular collective, has expanded and contracted as needs require, with the most common throughline being guitarist Jeff Parker, but it is always these two bouncing off of each other and pushing each other. Hyperglyph isn’t just the first record from the collective in a long stretch but also their first as a duo in about a decade. With all the noise on this record, you’d hardly believe it’s two people, let alone that they hadn’t stripped it down (as stripped down as Hyperglyph ever is, which isn’t much) in so long a span.
For instance: Within the first four tracks alone, they jump from a dense Afro-Cuban jazz vamp that feels right out of the bayous of New Orleans with its raucous energy, straight into a Macero-era edit-heavy Miles Davis style piece, before breaking open into Autechre-aligned electronic music laced with jazz, straight into ECM. You could easily pass off any of these tracks as by an ensemble; more so, you could pass them off as completely different ensembles sharing no members. To make a record that reads like a compilation showing the full expanses of jazz and thus why every aging music critic, fan and obsessive inevitably finds their way to these shores while actually being two guys cooking up tunes in a short span of time is mind-boggling. It’s the kind of joyful virtuosic work that makes you thrilled to be alive.
Jazz teaches us something that youth does not, which is that while innovation is great, repertoire and the ability to joyfully play is even more important; we do not invent ideas to discard them but to use them. Hyperglyph showcases a meta-virtuosity, pivoting to wildly different styles asking for often extremely different skillsets and sensitivities for the instrumentalists, only to execute them with a level of comfort and aplomb that makes me fearful I’d get vibed off the stage in a heartbeat if I ever found myself on stage next to them. However, given their obvious incredible comfort with so many different approaches not just to jazz but to music in general, you also get this sense that they could bend to accept any kind of instrumentation that found its way to them, taking it as a challenge to their overall ear and capacity to compose spontaneously rather than flubbed notes and bad timing.
I’m required with this collective to mention their work with members of Tortoise (and in Mazurek’s case, Tortoise itself), but they also found themselves both together and apart working with a veritable who’s who of Chicago underground rock acts like Gastr del Sol, Jim O’Rourke’s solo material, and Stereolab. Hell, they backed Pharaoh Sanders on two records, billed as Pharaoh & the Underground; Promises, the universally beloved collab between Sanders and Floating Points, plus the London Symphony Orchestra, shows that Sanders doesn’t take collaborations that won’t just work but knock the ball out of the god damn park. Their ensemble material is superlative and well worth the time for any fan of jazz, electronic, experimental, progressive or adventuresome music. Hyperglyph is a prismatic display of the totality of a love for music and what can be achieved through it. It’s no wonder they get hired by so many greats. Who wouldn’t want these guys on their team?
Label: International Anthem
Year: 2025
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Langdon Hickman is listening to progressive rock and death metal. He currently resides in Virginia with his partner and their two pets.