Chandeliers is what happens when a quartet of dudes from Chicago art-rock bands (Icy Demons, Killer Whales, and Michael Columbia, among them) decide to escape the city’s notoriously brutal winters by making nothing but shimmering, beach-ready electronic jams. Holed up in the studio with racks of analog gear and classic synths, they’ve created three albums full of startlingly lush soundscapes, along the way receiving praise from XLR8R, 20 Jazz Funk Greats and The Wire, who called them “music for a perfect world, the soundtrack for a club where the dawn never comes and the lights are never turned on.” While deeply inspired by their involvement in artist loft/punk collective the Shape Shoppe, the Chandeliers take a DIY aesthetic and marry it to smoothed-out arrangements that are perfectly ready for your avant-disco dancefloor. It’s clear this foursome has deep record collections – you can hear echoes of rhythm from Liquid Liquid, Acid House, and Arthur Russell, as well as soaring synth melodies plausibly inspired by Roger & Zapp or Tangerine Dream.

Tadoma is the work of Joe Patitucci, multi-instrumentalist and sound collage artist.

Inspired by journeys physical and chemical, Tadoma’s 2010 release, Field Notes, presents the listener with a sonic slideshow. Places reveal themselves through a fog of reverb and drones as tracks seamlessly move us from one image to the next. Each piece weaves melodies through sounds the way memory is entwined in our senses. They feel familiar but confounding, leading us to listen deeper and find new places within ourselves.

Tadoma’s performances incorporate live-looping of toy instruments, drum machines and samples to create enveloping lo-fi soundscapes that morph into everything from 70s kraut pastorals to fuzzy idm; drawing comparisons to legends like Popol Vuh and Vangelis as well as contemporary artists Chris Clark, Bibio and Boards of Canada.