Biography
A fixture in Chicago's underground music community for years, the vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Azita Youssefi—sometimes listed simply as AZ or Azita—moved from the biting no wave textures of her mid-1990s trio the Scissor Girls toward more introspective singer-songwriter material issued under her own name in later decades. Her turbulent compositions and layered arrangements defined her output across the 2000s, 2010s, and afterward, exploring both subdued and intense territory on releases such as the 2012 album Year.
Born in the United States in 1971, Youssefi passed most of her childhood in Iran, her parents' homeland, before the family relocated permanently to Bethesda, Maryland, in early 1979 following the Iranian revolution. During her teenage years she frequently traveled to nearby Washington, D.C., absorbing that city's renowned punk community, then moved to Chicago in 1989 to enroll at the School of the Art Institute, where she pursued studies in drawing and sound.
After setting aside visual art, she assembled the Scissor Girls in 1991, a theatrical no wave outfit in which Youssefi appeared onstage in outfits ranging from a Catholic schoolgirl uniform to strips of bubble wrap. With Youssefi handling lead vocals and bass alongside fellow D.C. transplants SueAnne Zollinger on guitar and Heather Melowic on drums, the group ranked among the most notorious and sonically extreme of the abrasive no wave acts that surfaced in Chicago's Wicker Park area during the early 1990s; they issued several indie-label singles plus two LPs on the local Atavistic label—We People Space with Phantoms and Here Is the Is-Not, the latter a singles compilation that appeared after the trio disbanded in late 1996.
Youssefi next put out her debut solo album, Music for Scattered Brains, then started another band, the Bride of No No. The new ensemble developed a dense, apocalyptic art-rock approach close to that of the Scissor Girls while retaining the earlier group's theatrical bent, as Youssefi, guitarist J. Braff, and drummer Shannon Morrow performed in all-white garments modeled on traditional Islamic women's attire. In 2000, during sessions for the Bride of No No's first album, B.O.N.N. Apetit!, Youssefi resumed playing piano—an instrument she had studied in childhood—and began composing and gathering solo songs. A piano-and-voice demo secured a deal with the local indie Drag City; after the Bride of No No split in mid-2002, she re-recorded the material with Isotope 217 bassist Matthew Lux and her boyfriend John McEntire of Tortoise on drums, resulting in Enantiodromia, which appeared in early 2003.
The following year's Life on the Fly steered Azita's jazz-pop toward a sharper, more approachable tone, while the 2006 EP Detail from the Mountain Side offered five musical-style tracks each under two minutes. In 2009 she released her third Drag City album, How Will You?, among her most buoyant collections to date; by comparison, 2011's Disturbing the Air arrived as a bare, austere statement. Azita resurfaced in 2012—the year the Chicago Reader named her the city's best singer-songwriter—with Year, a set of songs written for an avant-garde theater piece directed by Brian Torrey Scott.
Born in the United States in 1971, Youssefi passed most of her childhood in Iran, her parents' homeland, before the family relocated permanently to Bethesda, Maryland, in early 1979 following the Iranian revolution. During her teenage years she frequently traveled to nearby Washington, D.C., absorbing that city's renowned punk community, then moved to Chicago in 1989 to enroll at the School of the Art Institute, where she pursued studies in drawing and sound.
After setting aside visual art, she assembled the Scissor Girls in 1991, a theatrical no wave outfit in which Youssefi appeared onstage in outfits ranging from a Catholic schoolgirl uniform to strips of bubble wrap. With Youssefi handling lead vocals and bass alongside fellow D.C. transplants SueAnne Zollinger on guitar and Heather Melowic on drums, the group ranked among the most notorious and sonically extreme of the abrasive no wave acts that surfaced in Chicago's Wicker Park area during the early 1990s; they issued several indie-label singles plus two LPs on the local Atavistic label—We People Space with Phantoms and Here Is the Is-Not, the latter a singles compilation that appeared after the trio disbanded in late 1996.
Youssefi next put out her debut solo album, Music for Scattered Brains, then started another band, the Bride of No No. The new ensemble developed a dense, apocalyptic art-rock approach close to that of the Scissor Girls while retaining the earlier group's theatrical bent, as Youssefi, guitarist J. Braff, and drummer Shannon Morrow performed in all-white garments modeled on traditional Islamic women's attire. In 2000, during sessions for the Bride of No No's first album, B.O.N.N. Apetit!, Youssefi resumed playing piano—an instrument she had studied in childhood—and began composing and gathering solo songs. A piano-and-voice demo secured a deal with the local indie Drag City; after the Bride of No No split in mid-2002, she re-recorded the material with Isotope 217 bassist Matthew Lux and her boyfriend John McEntire of Tortoise on drums, resulting in Enantiodromia, which appeared in early 2003.
The following year's Life on the Fly steered Azita's jazz-pop toward a sharper, more approachable tone, while the 2006 EP Detail from the Mountain Side offered five musical-style tracks each under two minutes. In 2009 she released her third Drag City album, How Will You?, among her most buoyant collections to date; by comparison, 2011's Disturbing the Air arrived as a bare, austere statement. Azita resurfaced in 2012—the year the Chicago Reader named her the city's best singer-songwriter—with Year, a set of songs written for an avant-garde theater piece directed by Brian Torrey Scott.
Albums
Glen Echo
2020
Year
2012
Disturbing The Air
2011
How Will You?
2009
Detail From The Mountain Side
2006
Life On The Fly
2004
Enantiodromia
2003
Singles
