We introduced you to Chicago’s Chord last fall. The novel post- music theory project concocts compositions based solely around the construing and exploration of the notes or combination of notes within a single chord. Truth in advertising, eh? The resulting fury sounds like a freeform, tone driven cross-pollination of John “El Jefe” Cage’s high-brow modern compositional theory and the tenacious apocalyptic drones of Sunn o))). Chord offers up a simple yet high impact approach to avant-leaning ambience.

The dudes just dropped their latest EP, Gdim13, today, and explain how this digital-only release was inspired by the behavior of physical records: “Gdim13 was conceived as a lock-groove vinyl EP. The locked groove on a vinyl pressing would provide chords that never end, each side containing an extreme variation of the same chord — one very raw, approaching noise, the other very minimal, approaching pure ambiance. This is in contrast to most of the group’s long-form work where the forces of noise and texture are explored in degrees of balance rather than in focus.”

The EP’s online release comes in conjunction with the launching of their Bandcamp portal, where you can find all the chords Chord dug deep on, including their Live Series bootleg recordings and the new EP. Take in the sonic reconnaissance below; seven minutes so heavy, it can only be measured in scientific notation.

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