RUINS
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The long-running Japanese duo Ruins–drummer and composer Yoshida Tatsuya and a series of bassists, most recently Sasaki Hisashi–burns the fat out of 70s progressive rock until all that’s left is a chewy, blackened crust. They’re terrifyingly tight even at warp speed, barking and crooning nonsense words through headset mikes as they hammer out impossible chains of number-crunching riffs. They blast through tortuous, near-random tone rows in unison, like video-game whizzes on the first level of Doom; their greatest song, “B.U.G.” (available on the 1990 Shimmy Disc album Stonehenge), slows all the way down for a “bridge” but then just wallops a single note over and over like an assembly-line robot. Last year’s Symphonica (Tzadik) decked out a handful of older compositions in Magma-esque splendor, adding keyboards and two wailing divas, but the music didn’t benefit from that treatment–the Ruins’ greatest strength is their willingness to sound abrupt and grubby. (I’ve seen Sasaki break two of his six strings in a single set–these are bass strings, remember–and keep going without replacing either one.) When the band’s just Yoshida and Sasaki, as at this show, it’s a kick to watch–you’ll wonder which one has the brain that’s controlling all four hands. And their favorite encore is a party-trick medley that strings together blurts from several dozen prog-rock classics and obscurities, insane time changes and all, in three minutes flat. Opening is Mainliner, a screaming acid-freakout power trio fronted by High Rise bassist (and frequent Yoshida collaborator) Asahito Nanjo; their 15-minute ultradistorted psychedelic jams ought to blow the speaker stacks a few new holes. Saturday, 10 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western; 773-276-3600. DOUGLAS WOLK
