The Engines by The Engines

"The Engines was a collaborative quartet founded in the spring of 2005. The group began as trio, featuring several mainstays of the Chicago improvised music scene: Dave Rempis on saxophones, Nate McBride on bass, and Tim Daisy on drums. In the spring of 2006, trombonist Jeb Bishop was added to the group for one concert. The dynamic of this lineup worked so well that Bishop immediately became a regular member of the band. The band performed regularly across Chicago at many of the venues associated with creative music including the Empty Bottle, Hideout, Elastic, Hungry Brain, and the Velvet Lounge, and they also toured extensively in the US and Europe from 2006-2013.

All of these musicians distinguished themselves as leaders with their own groups, but formed this band to purposely shirk that duty in favor of a more equal musical relationship that better reflects the nature of their improvisations. Each member contributed original compositions to the group, providing a wide range of expression from high energy jousting over driving bass vamps to quieter moments of melodic exploration. With McBride on both acoustic and electric bass, the band explored some of the sonic textures associated with the early AACM, or could also launch into hard-hitting Zeppelin-like grooves, and they used this range of possibilities to its fullest.

In the fall of 2007, their first self-titled cd was released on Okkadisk. The group toured the US and Canada in December of that year, and followed up with a European tour in the fall of 2008. Their second release, Wire and Brass was a live recording made at Chicago's Hungry Brain in April of 2008, and released by Okkadisk in February of 2010. The band finished a second tour of Europe in support of that release in March 2010. Their third cd, Other Violets was released in March of 2013 on Not Two, and features the legendary saxophonist John Tchicai as a special guest with the group. The band finished a two week, 13-concert tour of North America in April of 2013 in support of that release. After Bishop and McBride both relocated away from Chicago in 2012 and 2013, the band released one more digital-only recording titled Green Knights on Aerophonic Records in late 2015."
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