Wandering Genie

Influences

Wandering Genie draws from a large pool of vintage pop culture and twists it into a fresh experience for today. Spanning the 60s into the 90s we mix Psychedelic, Blues, Funk, Progressive Rock, and even Shoegaze into a continuous flow of light and sound. Echos of The Beatles, The Police, Earth Wind & Fire, Depeche Mode, Ride, and others can be heard in the music, sometimes explicitly. But music is only part of our story. Since video is a huge component of our shared cultural experience we feel it important to match the vintage aesthetic of our sound with old TV and movie footage plus our own video creations. The result, we think, is a stirring expedition of new territory in live performance.

History

Wandering Genie have been playing together in various projects since the early 90s covering a wide range of music genres. The most popular of these would be the long running band deepspacepilots (2006 - 2016), a Stoner-Rock / Doom-Metal 3-piece that paved the way for heavier groups in Chicago's music scene. With that genre fully explored, Wandering Genie's lead looked to unearth the music hidden in analog devices of the past, spending months isolated with rare amps and drum machines. Later the duo started the arduous task of arranging and programming a live performance, an evolving process that is constantly tweaked and refined. It's a continuous question of how to mix new and old sounds, new and old technology, and how to make something new out of an old format: playing live music on a stage.

The band name is taken from a portable keyboard made by Chicago's Lowrey Organ Company (Model L-2) from 1980 - 1982.