Plus Tapes

As one-third of Zelienople, multi-instrumentalist Brian Harding (guitar, keyboards, clarinet, etc.) has helped create a decade’s worth of whirlpooling psychedelic rock/folk/jazz. The music seemed to originate from a clouded and ghosted country, but also drug unmistakable characteristics of their hometown Chicago’s ambercolored sonic landscape: subtly euphonious, billowing, experimental. Ill Professor, Harding’s solo outfit, is an isomeric approach to this atmosphere. It’s whittled down and encompassed by wraithlike sounds. Precise and obtuse melodies are interrupted by shards of feedback, sibilant clarinets or unexpected silence, like rudimentary Mark Hollis compositions caught to tape or a collaboration between Flying Saucer Attack and Guillermo Gregorio. The Miracle of Luck is a solo headphone listen, one that only benefits from the warmth, depth and inaccuracies of the analog cassette tape format.