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Artist
Isotope 217
12+ albums
post-rockjazzinstrumentalexperimentalelectronic
about
Isotope 217° were a Chicago based band composed mainly of members from Tortoise and the Chicago Underground Orchestra that was formed in 1997. The New York Times described the band as "..adept to varying degrees at rock and funk and jazz and electronics, turn those introspective moments into jams that are messier and warmer than Tortoise's." The music of Isotope 217 is as complex and varied as the influences of its members: John Herndon (drums, percussion) and Dan Bitney (drums, percussion) from Tortoise, Jeff Parker (guitar) from, among others, Tortoise, New Horizons Ensemble and Chicago Underground Orchestra, Rob Mazurek (Cornet) from Chicago Underground Orchestra, Sara P. Smith (Trombone) from Chicago Underground Orchestra, and Matt Lux (Uptighty, Tranquility Bass). In the mid 1990s, these Chicago musicians got together for a weekly engagement at the Rainbo Club, a neighborhood tavern just south of Wicker Park. Their experiments were improvisational, exploring the electro-acoustic realm much in the fashion of Miles Davis' electric music, but with a bit of a Jamaican dub sensibility and a focus on collective group movement, as opposed to climactic individual improvisations with "funky" accompaniment. The weekly engagement gradually transformed into a weekly workshop - an open rehearsal for the general public as they started to compose and rehearse sketches for the group, crafting a unique method of group improvisation and collective musical arrangement. They had become a
