Just moments into Animate Objects’ debut, “Riding In Fast Cars With Your Mama” (Nutta), rapper CZAR Absolute spells out the group’s ethos: “If I could tell you a story of a gun I owned or someone I murdered, I might, but these are stories I don’t possess.”
Instead the six-member hip-hop collective promises “stories of triumph [and] stories of joy,” about spiritual rebirth (“Phoenix”), burgeoning romance (“This Dance”) and the struggle of escaping urban ghettos (“Midnight Blue”). The jazzy musical backdrop comes courtesy of live instrumentation — still somewhat of a rarity in hip-hop — and songs are fleshed out with everything from the standard bass/guitar/drums combo to saxophone and violin.
It’s an anything-goes sound the group has strived for since first getting together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign more than four years ago. Initially cobbled together to compete in a battle of the bands (which it won less than two weeks after forming), the band gelled over its shared musical interests and continued rehearsing and recording following the contest. “The band has always been about the six of us getting in a room together and playing,” stresses drummer Brian Derstine. “We’ll play [a song] over and over again until we’re all happy with each part.”
For that reason, the group’s debut took nearly four years to record, costing its members nearly $20,000 in the process (“I have three credit cards and they’re all for the band,” says Derstine). Animate Objects began the recording in Champaign before concluding in Chicago late last year, though more exotic locales inspire several of the tunes. “We have some songs on here that were written in the ancient city of Pompeii,” notes CZAR, who wrote a handful of rhymes while studying abroad in Italy.
“The music we all listen to is from all around the world,” continues Derstine. “But at the same time we are a product of our surroundings. Chicago is imbued in our soul and spirit.”
CZAR affirms his bandmates’ words, noting how important his upbringing in nearby Oak Park was to his development as a writer. “I come from a city of great poets and writers,” says the MC, pointing out that the likes of Ernest Hemingway also cut their teeth in his hometown. “Writing was just something that came naturally to me.”
But it wasn’t until he was in his mid-teens that he turned to music, absorbing an array of classic funk, jazz and blues records from his parent’s collection. He soon began patterning his style after the preachers he heard as a child — people who knew how to “speak with power” — spitting freestyle rhymes over classical records.
“I already knew what I wanted to talk about,” says CZAR. “It was just a matter of finding a way to say it.”
Anna Fermin’s Trigger Gospel
A large part of the appeal behind Anna Fermin’s Trigger Gospel can be summed up by a quotation from country legend Jimmie Dale Gilmore posted on the band’s Web site: “Have you heard her sing? She’s great.” The group’s sound, a mellow brand of country rock, is centered on Fermin’s sweet-yet-swinging vocals, the singer cooing, growling and yelping her way through songs like “Yellow Rose of Texas” off the band’s latest, “Go” (Sighlow Music).
Animate Objects
Global influences, a worldly hip-hop sound
When: 8 p.m. Friday
Where: Funky Buddha Lounge, 728 W. Grand Ave.
Price: $20 (21+); 312-666-1695
Anna Fermin’s Trigger Gospel
Sweet country in the rock
When: 9 p.m. Saturday
Where: FitzGerald’s, 6615 Roosevelt Rd., Berwyn
Price: $10; 708-788-2118
———
localheroes@gmail.com
