Chicago band
Cheer-Accident,
initially just the duo of
keyboardist/drummer Thymme Jones (ex
Illusion of Safety) and
vocalist Jim Drummond, debuted with
a number of independently produced cassettes.
Drummond left and in 1986
bassist Chris Block and guitarist Jeff Libersher joined Jones. The EP
Life Isn't Like That (1986) was followed by the gargantuan
Sever Roots Tree Dies (1988), featuring lots of instruments and studio
tricks, produced by guitarist Phil Bonnet, who
then became a permanent member.
Steve Albini produced the EP Dumb Ask (Neat Metal, 1989)
whose highlight is the dissonant double-guitar assault of Phil Bonnet and
Jeff Libersher. By this time the sound had transitioned towards the kind
of brainy progressive-rock pursued by latter-day King Crimson.
Babies Shouldn't Smoke (Neat Metal, 1991) was an even harsher and
disjointed recording.
The Why Album (1994) was instead a collection of pop songs.
Jones, always hyperactive on the Chicago scene, then formed
You Fantastic and joined avant-punks Dot Dot Dot;
and released the solo piano albums While (Perdition Plastics, 1996) and Career Move (Perdition Plastics, 1997).
Meanwhile, Cheer-Accident recruited bassist Dylan Posa.
Despite Cheer-Accident's pedigree, the mostly instrumental
Not A Food (Pravda, 1996) likes to follow into the footsteps of
Frank Zappa's dadaistic circus (King Cheezamin,
the nine-minute Evan Had A Half-Life). The bold counterpoint and textures used
to derail the jokes are descendants of Slint's school
of avant-rock.
The album's weak point is a stubborn and a little self-indulgent
recycling of progressive-rock cliches (the 11-minute 30 Seconds of Weightlessness).
Piano and organ largely replace guitars on the
72-minute 14-track tour de force
Enduring The American Dream (Pravda, 1997).
Often, the keyboards are used as percussion instruments, like in Steve Reich's
minimalist scores. Nonetheless, "songs" such as
Metaphysical
indulge in melodic romanticism.
What has remained the same is the abrupt rhythm changes (the 13-minute Desert Song),
and the ironic attitude towards songwriting
(Dismantling the Berliz Waltz).
The opening Vacuum is just one 5-minute drone.
The 52-minute song of the EP Trading Balloons (2000), recorded in 1997,
is a worthy, corollary to the demented collage style of the album.
Bonnet, a well-known producer for whom Cheer-Accident was an intellectual
passtime, died in February 1999 at the age of 38.
Thymme Jones released another solo album, While (Perdition Plastics, 2000),
a set of five minimalist piano quartets.
Cheer-Accident's first post-Bonnet album,
Salad Days (Skin Graft, 2000), is another
fantastic excursion in the realms of creative music.
The 11-minute
Graphic Depression (originally composed in 1981)
and the 19-minute Salad Days
rank among the band's most daring ventures, trascending both prog-rock and math-rock and coining a new form of abstract composition.
Insomnia and Post-Premature are cubistic pieces built by
warping melodies into geometric shapes and by assembling collages of
disconnected sounds. The album suffers from the way it was composed (the other
members overdubbing tracks that Bonnet had barely sketched), but it still
provides moments of intriguing theory.
The scores are complex in the tradition of Frank Zappa and Soft Machine.
Jones also released the "home recording" Variations On A Goddamn Old Man (Pravda, 2001).
Gumballhead The Cat (Skin Graft, 2003) sounds, instead, like
Cheer-Accident's less innovative work, a mere routine that surveys the
themes and styles they are more familiar with.
Continuing the stylistic zig-zag,
Introducing Lemon (Skin Graft, 2003) marks, for the most part,
a glorious return to their most abstract and discordant prog-rock roots.
The 22-minute suite
The Autumn Wind is a Pirate is a summation of the band's prog-rock
and post-rock ambitions, a powerful potion of
Yes,
Frank Zappa and
King Crimson
for the
Tortoise
generation, a stylistic tour de force
that is the real reason for the album to exist.
The other 22-minute monolith, Find, that closes the album, is basically,
a medley of ballads bridged by convoluted instrumental passages, but it could
have been edited down to half its length;
and the shortest songs (with the exception of the pretty Smile) are
filler of the worst kind.
By now Cheer-Accident had become the vehicle for Thymme Jones' music, who
surrounded himself with different collaborators on each album.
What Sequel (2006) was his "pop" album: a collection of relatively
straightforward melodic ditties. Unfortunately, they are marred by his vocals,
not the most tuneful in the business.
More changes of line-up led to
Fear Draws Misfortune (Cuneiform, 2009) with Alex Perkolup on bass and Jeff Libersher on guitar, a much more complex album that harked back to
Introducing Lemon.
Sun Dies is an oddly syncopated chant with Carla Kihlstedt of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum on vocals, that draws from both African music and Art Bears, while
the arrangement of saxophone, flute, violin and keyboards evokes early
King Crimson.
Blue Cheadle is another surreal lullabies, sung by a mixed choir and
accompagnied by loud keyboards and guitars.
Marketa Fajrajzlova sings The Carnal Garish City, a disjointed piece
that features saxophonist Dave Smith of Poi Dog Pondering and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm.
Humanizing The Distance is just a confused, hysterical fanfare for
an ensemble that includes cornet, bassoon, saxophone, trombone, tuba.
The longer track, Your Weak Heart, starts out as one of Jones'
piano-driven pop ballads before the piano plunges into a frantic jazzy
improvisation, soon joined by keyboards and reeds.
Cheer-Accident's 17th album
No Ifs Ands or Dogs (Cuneiform, 2011) featured the consolidated line-up of
Carmen Armillas (vocals but everybody takes turns at singing),
Thymme Jones (keyboards, brass, synth, drums),
Jeff Libersher (guitar, keyboards, trumpet, bass),
Alex Perkolup (bass, guitar),
Dudley Bayne (keyboards, trombone),
Andrea Faught (keyboards) and Lise Gilly (saxophones).
The obvious shift is towards melody. The
pop aria of Drag You Down
(despite shivering metallic guitar and
dense and disorienting arrangements) opens the album in a friendly vein,
followed by the
falsetto soul melody and march-like tempo of Barely Breathing and
by the Merseybeat-style refrain of Cynical Girl, while the album ends
with the choral singalong Provincial Din.
Other songs don't push quite that far, drenching the
strained vocal harmonies of Sleep in
Frank Zappa-esque keyboards
and adorning Trial Of Error with pounding industrial beats and emphatic synth lines.
The Cheer-Accident heritage (the limping jagged pseudo-jazz counterpoint) is still in full display in the instrumentals This Is The New That and Salad Dies.
After a six-year hiatus they returned with
Putting Off Death (Cuneiform, 2017), containing the
eleven-minute Language Is and
played by a new line up around the founding trio of Armillas, Jones and Libersher (Dante Kester on bass and keyboards, Mike Hagedorn on trombone, Cory Bengtsen on baritone sax, Beth Yates on flute, Julie Pomerleau on violin, Joan Morrone on french horn, Ross Feller on tenor sax, Rob Pleshar and Todd Fackler on tubas),
which was followed by two brief albums,
Fades (Cuneiform, 2018) and
Chicago XX (Cuneiform, 2019).
Vacate (2024) was a tribute to easy listening music of the 1950s and 1960s.