NIGHTMARES ON WAX
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Over the course of eight years and three albums, George Evelyn–aka Nightmares on Wax–has grown from DIY fanboy to sampladelic soul auteur. As interesting and influential as his first album, A Word of Science: The 1st and Final Chapter (Warp), was for its novel fusion of hot-tub funk samples and adeptly programmed breakbeats, it sounds downright quaint next to his new Carboot Soul (Matador). The blueprint for his current sound–electric keyboard motifs, disembodied vocal snippets, fractured horn charts, and cherry-picked string-section swells over seductively danceable beats and bass lines–was laid out on the fine, entirely sampled Smokers Delight (Wax Trax!/TVT) in 1995, and now Evelyn’s tossed live bass, keyboards, and some vocals into the mix in an attempt “to prove that we can perform music [without] ignoring the fact that we come from a…technical background,” according to his PR. But the improvement I hear on Carboot Soul has less to do with instrumentation than arrangement, and I mean the arrangement of samples–of which there are still plenty–as well as the real instruments. The interaction between the layers of both original and clandestinely nabbed parts is what distinguishes this stuff from generic acid-jazz mouthwash like LTJ Bukem or Guru’s Jazzmatazz. Despite the rump-shaking rhythms, it’s pretty laid-back stuff; in fact, it wouldn’t sound out of place next to electric Les McCann or old-school Roy Ayers. For his Chicago debut, Evelyn will probably spin records by those cats as well as other soul, jazz, and hip-hop inspirations; hell, maybe he’ll even play one of his own. Sunday, 10 PM, Smart Bar, 3730 N. Clark; 773-549-4140. PETER MARGASAK
