Ethers

Chicago's Ethers emerged in 2017 out of the remnants of several longstanding local acts, channeling a high-energy, fuzzy, and jumpy garage-punk approach whose tightly coiled riffs and melodies sit squarely alongside the territory explored by Royal Headache. Their self-titled debut, issued that August, arrived as a briskly melodic explosion of propulsion.

Bo Hansen, formerly of the noise-punk outfit Heavy Times, assembled the lineup shortly after that band's dissolution. He enlisted husband-and-wife pair Russell Calderwood—late of Heavy Times and also a veteran of the manic psych group Radar Eyes—on guitar and Mary McKane, whose résumé includes stints with garage poppers Outer Minds and with Calderwood in the Runnies, on organ, along with drummer Matt Rolin. Drawing on roughly ten years of collective stage and studio experience, the quartet quickly honed an insistent, hook-laden garage-punk sound propelled by overloaded Farfisa organ and as immediately catchy as any Buzzcocks album track.

Once a handful of songs had been prepared, the band tracked the album with Dave Vettraino of the Hecks and forwarded the tapes to ubiquitous mastering engineer Mikey Young. Chicago's Trouble in Mind label provided a fitting home, releasing the self-titled debut in August 2018.