Chicago Underground Duo @ The Garrison Thursday

Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor will be presenting new work from their boldly eclectic Locus album.

Locus is the seventh album by the Chicago Underground Duo (Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor), following their acclaimed Northern Spy label release Age of Energy in 2012. Bits of breakbeat and Afropop are heard within the jazz, ambient and electronica elements of their unmistakable grooves captured by engineer John McEntire. Also in the mix is a Ghanian folk tune and Ennio Morricone played on cornet, drums, mbira, ballophone, bamboo flute and Game Boy.

The pairing came out of the Chicago Underground Orchestra founded by Mazurek almost 20 years ago during a series of weekly workshops at the famed Chicago nightclub Green Mill Cocktail Lounge. The Orchestra morphed into the Chicago Underground Duo, Trio and Quartet as situations demanded, and while the orchestra has counted among its members such jazz greats as Sun Ra drummer Robert Barry and the late bassist Fred Hopkins of Air, the younger wunderkind Taylor has been the only other consistent member of the Underground bands.

The duo remains core to most everything the uncompromising Mazurek takes on. With Taylor (championed timekeeper behind Marc Ribot’s Spiritual Unity Trio and projects with Peter Brötzmann, Ken Vandermark and many others), Mazurek has crafted an ever expanding sound, based in elements of jazz, techno, film music. The nine tracks on Locus find the tireless Duo exploring, as always, new sounds and new combinations. Preview the Locus album right here.