Thanks for your patience this week. Been one for sure. This is how it goes these days.

I can still be reached at [email protected] and mail can still be sent to PO Box 25717 Chicago IL 60625 in the USA.

CANCER HOUSE The Moth LP (Motion Ward)

This week’s clamored-for heater comes from Chicago’s Cancer House, and we’re all gonna have to wait on a repress because the records simply aren’t around – the label only put 40 copies up on Bandcamp (and I feel this, packing records isn’t an ideal use of one’s time), the rest went on a tour very few of us saw or knew about, and it’s so good that now we’re all shook. It’s a pensive, taut journey into the sad shadows, and lands for the same reason that respected epics like Come On Die Young did for Slint before them: it modernizes and improves upon something we expect, super-introverted, careful music in the right lane, where slower traffic finds its patient little moves forward. There’s enough studio sculpting in here to call back to groups like Bark Psychosis or early Labradford moreso than Codeine, but they hit the zone precisely and often, killing the listener softly. It’s not a fluke on the shorter tracks, and after a few completed statements in the resting heart rate centerpiece “Bloodchimes” come to a close, and the track keeps inching forward until it’s completely on top of you with its over-the-head guitar halos and wavers, it’s a sure thing – the band has found a way to personalize the glacial drip of longing in a special way. Whitney Johnson (Matchess, Winged Wheel) offers up some treated-sounding viola on a couple of tracks to layer their music more appropriately. I was not anticipating being moved by something like this, but Cancer House has got what it takes to do that, and if they can keep it going we’ll all be hearing about them again very soon.