ACID KING, OXBOW, THE ATOMIC BITCHWAX, FISTULA, MINSK, BEHOLD! THE MONOLITH, AND MORE CONFIRMED FOR SCORCHED TUNDRA VIII AT THE EMPTY BOTTLE
Scorched Tundra is proud to announce the lineup for its eighth edition. The second installment of 2017 – taking place September 1-3 at The Empty Bottle in Chicago – will feature the showcases’ most diverse and extensive lineup to date.
Friday September 1st
The Atomic Bitchwax
Fistula
Electric Hawk
Saturday September 2nd
Acid King
Minsk
Wolvhammer
Bottomed
Sunday September 3rd
Oxbow
Behold! The Monolith
RLYR
Scorched Tundra’s mission is to give a new generation of talented artists a unique live platform in Chicago and Gothenburg. Scorched Tundra’s billing – based on sound not stature – creates a unique aural experience for the audience. “The forthcoming eighth edition was the most enjoyable to put together as the lineup is extremely eclectic and in many ways different from past iterations. All of these artists are newcomers to Scorched Tundra; they are very difficult to pigeonhole; and transcend categorization. Intimate, historic, and highly respected, The Empty Bottle in Chicago will once again play as a perfect host to this unique set of artists,” states organizer Alexi Front.
Scorched Tundra VIII marks the event’s much anticipated return to Chicago after last years two day sold out event. The third ever Scorched Tundra beer – brewed in collaboration with Pipeworks Brewing Company –an India Pale Ale dry hopped with Australian and American aromatic varietals – will be available at select bars and stores in Chicago in August and at the festival. Longtime Scorched Tundra collaborator Axel Widén created artwork for the beer label and festival poster. Seven other Pipeworks beers will be available as part of a tap takeover throughout Scorched Tundra VIII.
STVIII - LINEUP
Friday September 1st:
The Atomic Bitchwax is an American Stoner Rock Super Group from Long Branch New Jersey formed in 1993 by bassist/vocalist Chris Kosnik (Monster Magnet), guitarist Ed Mundell and drummer Keith Ackerman. The Atomic Bitchwax mixes elements of 60s psychedelic and 70s riff rock, filtered through modern progressive rock.
The group originated as a jam band, playing local bars in the New Jersey and New York area. This lineup released two full-length albums; the self-titled debut in 1999 and Atomic Bitchwax 2 in 2000 via Tee-Pee records. In addition, 2002 saw the release of the Spit BloodEP via Meteor City Label. Guitarist and vocalist Finn Ryan (ex. Core) entered the fold in 2005 as the band focused on writing and touring before entering Trax East Studios in South River, New Jersey to record their followup, aptly titled 3. The subsequent album cycle included two European and North American tours along with a visit to Seattle’s “Sound House” to record the 2006 EP, Boxriff. Engineered by Jack Endino, the EP included a DVD of the live show filmed in Seattle’s Sunset Tavern.
Current Monster Magnet drummer Bob Pantella joined the band in 2007 and The Atomic Bitchwax toured heavily, with the band’s fourth full-length album T4B released that same year on Tee-Pee Records and Meteor City Label. In 2011, the band released The Local Fuzz, one 42-minute track with over 50 riffs back-to-back. The band spent 2012-2015 touring Europe and North America. The band’s sixth full length Gravitron was released on April 21, 2015 on Tee-Pee Records.
Ohio’s Fistula formed in 1998 by musical partners in crime Corey Bing (Guitars, Vocals) and Bahb Branca (Guitars, Vocals). Over the bands near twenty-year career, it released innumerous studio albums and split EPs through numerous lineup changes featuring the creative talents of bands such as -16-, Sloth, Hemdale, The Disease Concept, and Accept Deathamong others. Fistula is difficult to categorize, combining elements of remedial sludge, hardcore, punk and a “bad case of the Mondays”. Fistularemain the kings of doomed out miserycore.
In 2015 and 2016 the band hit its stride; recording and releasing two full-length studio albums Longing for Infection and The Shape of Doom To Cum; and on the live front touring Europe with Accept Death and headlining the iconic Het Patronaat stage at Roadburn Festival. The will record split albums in 2017 with Come to Grief and -16- in addition to performing an exclusive set at Scorched Tundra VIII.
Electric Hawk is an instrumental metal band from Chicago. Over two full-length releases - I (2011) and II(2015) - the three-piece successfully fuses post-rock soundscapes with math-metal informed progressive song structures and sensibilities. Electric Hawk is one of Chicago’s brightest new bands and will set a strong tone as openers for Day 1 of Scorched Tundra VIII.
Saturday September 2nd:
Bathed in distortion, baptized in a plume of smoke, and born again in 2015, Bay Area trio Acid King—Lori S. [vocals, guitars], Joey Osborne [drums], and Mark Lamb [bass]—re-emerged with their first offering in a decade, Middle of Nowhere Center of Everywhere. Tastemakers such as Noisey, Blabbermouth, Invisible Oranges, Ultimate Guitar, and New Noise lauded the album. They embarked on tours of the States and Australia, appearing on festivals including Psycho Las Vegas, Erosion Fest, Desert Generator, and more as well as sharing the stage with everyone from Sleep and Down to Blue Öyster Cultand Red Fang. It extended a celebrated discography that encompasses three EPs and three full-lengths, namely Zoroaster [1995, Sympathy For The Record Industry], Busse Woods [1999, Main’s Ruin Records], and Acid King III [2005, Small Stone Records]. It’s no surprise strains of their style infect luminaries such as The Sword and Kylesa, and they’ve earned a place in tomes like The Encyclopedia of Heavy Metal and the A to Z of Doom, Gothic & Stoner Metal.
Forever etched in the Acid King Necronomicon, Joey and Mark announced an amicable split during late 2016. Kicking off the new year, Lori invited an old friend Black Cobra’s Rafa Martinez [bass] and avowed Acid King fan Bil Bowman of Hornss behind the kit for a string of shows in 2017. The new year sees the group primed for Upstream Festival with Dinosaur Jr. followed by Maryland Death Fest, Modified Ghost Festival, Electric Funeral Festival and Scorched Tundra VIII.
MINSK broke into the scene in early 2005 with their first full length, Out of a Center Which is Neither Dead Nor Alive, released by At A Loss Recordings. During the recording process, the band’s producer Sanford Parker (Pelican, YOB, Rwake) joined on bass guitar, solidifying the final lineup and priming the band for their next move. Positive coverage by outlets such as Kerrang!, Decibel, and The Village Voice, along with the band’s ground-shaking live shows generated excitement that carried MINSK into appearances at SXSW 2006 and Emissions from the Monolith Festival. By mid-year, MINSK had signed with Relapse Records, and the composition of their sophomore full length was underway.
In late 2006 the band headed to Volume Studios in Chicago to hammer out their February 2007 Relapse debut, The Ritual Fires of Abandonment, with Parker handling production once again. Transcending the crop of heavy music imitators, The Ritual Fires of Abandonment blended MINSK‘s tribal and spiritual convictions into a heavy atmosphere of psychedelic delirium. The band’s 2009 follow-up, With Echoes in the Movement of Stone, continued the trend of elaborate, drawn-out psychedelic metal landscapes, while introducing lyrical ruminations on personal struggle, mental illness, societal and generational guilt, the suicidal urge, and philosophical destruction and re-growth. Both Ritual Fires and With Echoes received overwhelming critical praise from publications such as Last Rites, Metal Hammer, and Time Out Chicago. MINSK toured relentlessly in support of those releases, sharing stages with stylistic colleagues Boris, Sunn O))), Brutal Truth, High on Fire, Torche, Pig Destroyer, Rwake, and Baroness.
In 2011, MINSK announced an indefinite hiatus. But two years later, the hiatus was over––the band continued on with three new members. Over the following two years, MINSK started playing shows once again and prepared to record their fourth full-length. In 2014, the band entered the studio alongside Sanford Parker. Parker, though no longer a member, still contributed his unique expertise to this release. The Crash and The Draw, a 76-minute epic that encompasses all of the MINSK’s past sonic experimentation (and much more) was released in April 2015 on Relapse Records to nearly universal acclaim: Decibel, Stereogum, Terrorizer, and MetalSucks all declared it the band’s best. The record also landed MINSK a spot on the 2015 Roadburn Festival, which they followed up with an expansive European tour. Like their namesake city, MINSK have proven that they can recreate themselves again and again, the same entity birthing grand new ideas
Wolvhammer is a four piece extreme metal outfit hailing from Minneapolis and Olympia. Founded in 2008 - featuring current Abigail Williams and Skeletonwitch members - Wolvhammer’s 2010 debut album Black Marketeers of World War III was followed by two releases via Profound Lore (The Obsidian Plains 2011 and Clawing Into Black Sun 2014). These three albums cemented Wolvhammer as a force in the American extreme metal scene, featuring unique death n’ roll elements with black metal foundations. Earlier this year the band independently released a live album WorkingClass : AntiChristians prior to an American tour with Swedish underground metal legends Shining.
Wolvhammer entered New Constellation Studio in Orlando, FL to begin recording its fourth full-length album in early June together with Jarrett Pitchard (Goatwhore, 1349). According to guitarist Adam Clemans: “Without giving away too much, the new record has a bit of a throwback vibe to the more punk based sound and roots that originally birthed the band. But we are still expanding our sound and influences simultaneously as we are all very much into goth and deathrock bands. I truly and firmly believe that this record will be our strongest and most venomous yet. “
Bottomed is a Chicago-based dark, avant-garde noise project consisting of Nick Dellacroch of Bongripper. Recorded live with hardware electronics, Bottomed’s material is oppressive, intense, and uncompromising, transporting the listener through a range of emotions and feelings.
Sunday September 3rd:Over the 30 years of Oxbow’s operations, no one has come comfortably close to classifying the Bay Area group. This could arguably be the result of Oxbow’s ongoing evolution, but accurately describing any particular phase of the groups’ seven-album career is no easier than describing the broader metamorphic arc of their creative path. This is especially true with their seventh album Thin Black Duke, where Oxbow’s elusive brand of harmonic unrest has absorbed the ornate and ostentatious palate of Baroque pop into its sound, pushing their polarized dynamics into a scope that spans between sublime an completely unnerving.
As throughout its history, Oxbow grapples with channeling man’s most primal urges through a framework of meticulous, culture and cerebral instrumentation. But the unadulterated electric roar and percussive barbarism of their past wasn’t as wholly satisfactory as it had been. Other flavors were deemed necessary, both to slake unnamed thirsts and to suitably fit The Thin Black Duke’s lyrical themes, but also to explore the further reaches of Oxbow’s studied approach to tension and release, structure and dissonance, and melody and abstraction.
Led by multi-instrumentalist Dan Adams (bass), guitarist Niko Wenner and vocalist, lyricist, and author Eugene S. Robinson, Oxbow is known for its extremely intense and at times confrontational live performances. The bands headline appearance at Scorched Tundra VIII marks the bands first appearance in Chicago in almost ten years.
Behold! The Monolith was formed in 2007 by guitarist Matt Price and bassist/vocalist Kevin McDade. As a trio – inspired by death, doom, and thrash metal - the Los Angeles based group released an EP and self-titled debut followed by the Billy Anderson produced sophomore full length Defender, Redeemist.
Following the sudden passing of McDade and regrouping period, Behold! The Monolith returned as a four piece, self-releasing Architects of the Void to domestic and international acclaim. The band toured Europe with CHRCH and Brothers Of The Sonic Cloth in 2016, including an appearance at the legendary Roadburn Festival. Behold! The Monolith continued its destruction in the American West - performing at Psycho Vegas – and capping the year off by showcasing the latest addition to its ranks, vocalist Ekaterina Gorbacheva, at Southwest Terror V. Scorched Tundra VIII marks the first Behold! The Monolith’s first Chicago appearance.
RLYR is a Chicago-based instrumental trio founded in 2013. Featuring Trevor Shelley de Brauw (Pelican), Colin DeKuiper (Bloodiest, ex. Russian Circles), and Steven Hess (Locrian) the band released its debut album Delayer in June 2016 via Magic Bullet Records. Known for its energetic live performances, RLYRhas quickly made a name for itself across the Midwest and East Coast, touring with Cloakroom and Young Widows, while locally supporting Coliseum, Deafhaven, and Mutoid Manamong others. Following the bands Do Division performance in early June the band has begun recording new material to be released by The Flenser
