Event Detail

TNK: Rose Hotel, Morinda, sleeper's bell
with Rose Hotel, Morinda, sleeper's bell
Thu January 19, 2023 8:00 pm CST (Doors: 7:30 pm )
$15.00

GOLDEN DAGGER & TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS WELCOME: 

ROSE HOTEL

w/ Morinda, sleeper's bell

$12 In Advance // $15 Day Of Show // 21+

ABOUT TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS: Founded in 2005 by the team at lincoln hall and schubas, Tomorrow Never Knows has proven for over a decade that music fans will brave the brutal chicago cold for a good show.

Taking place over the course of five days in january, tnk gathers the best of rising local indie artists as well as acclaimed national acts, including both musicians and comedians.

For full lineups, please visit www.tnkfest.com

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Tickets are required to attend. No Refunds. This event is 21 and over. Any Ticket holder unable to present valid identification indicating that they are at least 21 years of age will not be admitted to this event, and will not be eligible for a refund.

Rose Hotel

I have always been interested in what’s lost in translation. In novels, I wonder what essential character of the author’s voice I’m missing when reading their texts filtered into English. In film, what dubiously appropriate words get stuffed into the mouths of actors to match the vowel shape rather than the sharpness of the line. But most of all in the expression of human experience, from human to human, the limits of language always somewhat curbing our ability to truly peer into the interior world of a loved one. In the forthcoming EP, The House That We Knew, from Atlanta based musician Jordan Reynold’s project Rose Hotel, we’re offered meditations on the relationship between these inner and outer worlds. 

Although Rose Hotel does sometimes consist of a full band, a recurring roster of musicians who contributed to 2019’s rousing, psych folk debut full length I Will Only Come When It’s A Yes, the thread that holds the project together is undeniably Reynolds - her voice, her songwriting, her visions, and her world. In January of 2019, before the release of her first full length album, Reynolds quietly released an EP of four songs called Conversations, produced by Graham Tavel in his home studio. The intimacy and warmth of the arrangements make you feel as if you were in the living room with Reynolds as she spoke on the phone, perhaps turning to mouth to you with her hand over the receiver, sorry, I’ll be with you in a minute. On Conversations, Reynolds seems to be in dialogue with lovers, friends. She describes small, sweet moments, like coffee at the breakfast table: “You take your eggs the same way as I do, you always like things easy”. 

Similarly to Conversations, The House That We Knew was produced again by Tavel and recorded without the full band. A return to form, as if the conversations between Reynolds and her listeners never really ended, only expanded. Fitting then, that the opening track should be titled “Expansion”. Reynold’s lyrical scope has broadened here, along with the production which, while still minimal and delicate, feels darker, moodier, more grown. Piano and strings creep in at just the right moment, in a way that never feels overly embellished, with vocalizations that are emotional yet refined. 

On Expansion, Reynolds sings: “Silence isn’t just absence, silence is penance for doing you harm”. It’s a beautiful line, and a weighty way to classify introspection. She moves on from internal contemplation to After, which brings her external concerns into view - the physical landscape changing, climate catastrophe on the horizon. On Omina, she sings “Ice is melting, but I’m all thumbs”, a reference no doubt to our constant, helpless scrolling as the world burns around us. And on Space, the inner and outer realms seem to battle - “I’ve been trying to function, in this cloud that I’m in every day”, the double meaning of “cloud” unmistakable in the recognition that the digital extensions of ourselves are contributing to our perpetual mental haze. 

THTWK closes with a dreamy, blissed out and synth laden cover of the Bobbie Gentry song Courtyard, a fitting nod to a classic Americana artist who paved the way for musicians like Reynolds to run the gamut of what it means to be a femme singer songwriter who envision and produce their own material. Ending the EP with Courtyard feels like a wistful placement: not only is it sonically a palate cleanser, the fantasy of the courtyard, marble fountain, and bountiful garden feel like the dream of someone tired of negotiating with liminal space. “Patterns on a courtyard floor, illusions of all I’m living for”. Courtyard closes out the EP with an ode to a dream - now that the house we knew has burned down, what will our future home look like? What physical environment will be left for us? Where will we rest? Here, the synthetic and organic are married perfectly - Reynolds’ timeless voice swirling above the bright, calm pads - and this union brings the themes of the album home. A home with a clear, sparkling pool.  

And while we’ll never know exactly what may have been lost in translation, Reynolds transmits her world to her listeners faithfully - with honesty, care, and grace. 


- Grace Bellury

sleeper's bell