Wax Tailor @ Schubas 10/12/2009

Mondays are notoriously burdensome, but added with the encroaching autumn temperatures and drizzle, last Monday night could be called downright ominous…except at Schubas Tavern. While everyone's scavenging for scarves and coats, Wax Tailor tempered our Midwestern weather with a coalescence of hip-hop, jazz and trip-hop. For his Chicago debut, the French producer warmed hearty hip-hop enthusiasts with his flutist, cellist and two collaborators; Norway's Mattic and Paris' Charlotte Savary.

Wax Tailor, who previously opened for RJD2, unveiled what the Midwest has been missing with the quivering strings and swagger of No Pity. Accompanied by a projected turntable with pulsating skyscrapers visualizations, Matthiew Detton and Ludivine Issambourg lent an uncommon organic sound via cello and flute to a genre currently dominated by computers and auto-tune. Further providing evidence to Tailor's particular trip-hop vision, the chanteuse Charlotte Savary segued her ethereal voice into the underwater, dreamy jazz-funk of Dragon Chasers as smoking red dragons floated above the stage. Then as the audience got animated, Norwegian emcee Mattic stepped on stage and racheted up the room over his rhymes on Until Heaven Stops The Rain.

Silhouetted by the spotlights, Tailor provided a diverse soundtrack for the evening from the funk-infused B-Boy on Wax and bobbing Sit & Listen off his newly minted album In The Mood For Life to the floating, foreboding flute and organ of To Dry Up. Infrequent interspersions from Jean-Christophe Le Saoût, the man behind the turntables, expressing his appreciation were the only moments when the flow would begin to settle. These brief moments and the night itself were accentuated whenever Charlotte and Mattic shared vocal duties, especially during Fireflies, an uptempo convergence of the soothing jazz of Savary's singing melding into Mattic's determined delivery. For those unsure of how hip-hop artists with multiple collaborators manage to tour, the last moments gave hints. Positively Inclinded, a single with A State of Mind, was essentially an extended music video with live cuts giving way to the highlight of the evening. The finale, I Own You, was sung by Charlie Winston, a burgeoning British singer who's captured French ears to the sound of 300,000 albums, through a special tour visualization featuring the crooner's visually expressive pop punctuations to the surprise of many in the crowd.

Taming the weather for those who ventured to extend the weekend one more day, Wax Tailor's first Chicago date was an extended example of the creative hip-hop being produced across the Atlantic. For nearly ninety minutes, it delved deep into the Midwest to our Lakeview, giving the near full, more than enthusiastic crowd a view into Western Europe. A refreshing organic, jazzy break into the cloudy, at times audibly cold, hip-hop genre.

Click here for the complete photo set.

Comments

[Algarve Villa Rentals]

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