Like Chicago's weather, TENKI spans some extremes. Amidst the periphery of Chicago’s burgeoning band scene, two guitarists and a trumpeter formed TENKI in 1999. Since then they’ve recorded a couple CDs and gone through two drummers and bassists on top of breaking a guitar hand, getting divorced, getting married, getting arrested, and drinking way too much Old Style. We'll just call it a "purging period".
In 2000 TENKI released Red Glow - a 5-song “eclectic pop” EP with material inspired by a film experiment. They followed up in 2002 with a debut full-length Red Baby - a lyrical canvas of relationships and emotions filled with their signature guitar-driven washes, horns, and keyboards. Derived pop influences and/or similarities peaked through: a Beatles-esque bass line, a Clash-like swagger, a Built to Spill-ish vocal riff. Critics called the recording “mature” “kinda new and sharp” and claimed the band holds “a firm grasp of pop sensibilities”.
But it is their newest CD, View of an Orbiting Man, released in October, 2003, that features a band MORE poised AND pissed while taking a dramatic personal turn when looking back at life’s more tumultuous occurrences. Using the metaphor of a satellite to observe his own losses from a distance, lyricist J. Toal looks back on divorce, death and failed love experiments, only to finally come to terms with a sort of abstract redemption (“In the Darkness, we’ll walk into the sun” – title song). The album is at once both personally reflective and imaginatively futuristic.
The band traverses a broader musical landscape in View. Now with Sean Burke on drums and Brian Daley on bass, the band still features dual driving guitars, old-school keys and a horn section, but has a more robust Chicago rock/pop sound: a melding of Midwestern twang, power rifts, and ghostly incidentals. The result is an album that fades in and out of aural arenas sometimes dark and sometimes sparkling. CMJ said View features “pristine scuzz-pop” with “sugary sweet harmonies over irresistible pop hooks” and “searing aural assaults...It becomes apparent that this is hardly just another Albini-biting rock band from Chicago.”
To aid in the albums undertaking, the band hired on Jacob Ross as its Producer. Ross has made his name in the Chicago area as an experimental musician, composer & sound designer. He’s worked with a wide range of artists, including Michael Zerang, John Corbett, Mark Booth, Music For, Cap Au Gris, Field Grade, and Low Skies. Left-handed-right-hand-man, Scott Adamson took up reigns as engineer. Adamson, part owner of Semaphore studios, has played and toured with Chisel Drill Hammer, Joan Of Arc, Abilene, and currently with Just A Fire.
For more information, visit their website: http://www.tenkimusic.com
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