Born in New Jersey but linked to the continuing richness of Chicago’s musical legacy, Rob Mazurek has created around himself a whole dimension of constant activity that includes music, performance, installation, painting and sculpture. As a musician, Mazurek has blazed one – or several – trail(s) that, starting from the teachings of jazz, whether formal or spiritual, have found ways to take it to places where it is also rock, electronic or electro-acoustic, when it doesn’t stop being so. To be another music. A central presence at ground zero of what, more for bad than for good, has come to be called Chicago-based post-rock, Mazurek instigated its adventurousness with his role in Isotope 217 and, above all, the creation of Chicago Underground, a floating collective that in its various permutations – Duo, Trio, Quartet, Orchestra and Pharoah and the Underground with master Sanders – has approached jazz as a moldable material for reinventions and deviations, from the inside out and vice versa. From there, and corresponding to the period he lived in Brazil, he founded the São Paulo Underground branch with Mauricio Takara, and in more or less recent times he has been particularly active and creative with his Exploding Star Orchestra, a large and enlightened ensemble that includes artists such as Nicole Mitchell, Damon Locks and Mike Ladd, as well as his usual Chicago pandilla. And the Rob Mazurek Quartet-Quintet-Octet. Or Starlicker. And more.
A cornetist at heart and at school, Mazurek has also created a giant mosaic of collaborations, including participation in albums by the likes of Gastr Del Sol, Tortoise or Stereolab, as well as encounters with legends such as Bill Dixon, Roscoe Mitchell or Naná Vasconcelos. Tireless, he has also found time and space for a challenging solo and solo career, where he uses his breath as a medium for an infinity of possibilities that are continually revised in the light of electronic processing, extensive techniques, synthesizer tangents, silences and noise. From contemplative passages to fractal harmonies, passing through moments of abstract expression – nothing surprising coming from a self-confessed Mark Rothko fan – and lines full of lyricism, Mazurek’s music vibrates in this state of continuous exploration and certainty – something that is not necessarily antagonistic – as recorded on albums for labels such as eMego or Aesthethics, to be witnessed now in situ in this house. BS

Drummer and composer mineo kawasaki from Japan builds electronic soundscapes with both live drums and a MIDI controller. The solo project employs vinyl sampling infused with elements of house, techno and experimental music to carve tracks that work well both on the headphones and the dance floor.
In 2024, he toured Canada for the third time and Iceland for the first time, and participated in several European label compilation albums.