Russian Circles

Russian Circles will be headlining a six week long overseas tour in support of their latest critically praised release Empros out now on Sargent House. Support bands will be announced in the coming weeks. Always check with venues directly to confirm show times and age restrictions.

RUSSIAN CIRCLES APRIL / MAY OVERSEAS TOUR 2012 
Apr 05 - Prague, CZ @ Matrix
Apr 06 - Vienna, AT @ Arena
Apr 07 - Munich, DE @ Feierwerk
Apr 08 - Dresden, DE @ Beatpol
Apr 09 - Berlin, DE @ Festsaal Kreuzberg
Apr 10 - Warsaw, PL @ Hydrozagadka
Apr 11 - Vilnius, LT @ Propaganda
Apr 12 - Riga, LV @ Gertrudes 101 
Apr 13 - Tallinn, ES @ Electric Storm Festival at Tapper
Apr 14 - Helsinki, FI @ Virgin Oil Company
Apr 15 - Moscow, RU @ Gogol
Apr 16 - Stockholm, SE @ Strand
Apr 17 - Oslo, NO @ Revolver
Apr 18 - Gothenberg, SE @ Truckstop Alaska
Apr 19 - Copenhagen, DK @ KB 18 
Apr 20 - Hamburg, DE @ Hafenklang
Apr 21 - Utrecht, NI @ Tivoli
Apr 22 - Brussels, BE @ Magasin 4 
Apr 23 - Esch-Sur-Alzette, LU @ Rockhal
Apr 25 - Glasgow, UK @ Stereo
Apr 26 - Belfast, IE @ Speakeasy
Apr 27 - Limerick, IE @ Dolan’s Warehouse
Apr 28 - Dublin, IE @ Button Factory
Apr 29 - Manchester, UK @ The Ruby Lounge
Apr 30 - London, UK @ Scala Theater
May 02 - Paris, FR @ Point Ephemere
May 03 - Kortrijk, BE @ De Kreun
May 04 - Koln, DE @ Gebaeude 9 
May 05 - Karlsruhe, DE @ Jubez
May 06 - Zurich, CH @ Rote Fabrik
May 07 - Geneva, CH @ Le Kab
May 08 - Milan, IT @ Magnolia
May 09 - Lyon, FR @ Le Clacson
May 11 - Bilbao, ES @ Azkena
May 12 - Porto, PT @ Hard Club
May 13 - Lisbon, PT @ Musicbox
May 14 - Madrid, ES @ Ritmo & Compas
May 15 - Barcelona, ES @ Apolo 2

ALWAYS CHECK HERE FOR UPDATES

Russian Circles featured in Issue #30 of Ghettoblaster Magazine -(Click on text to enlarge) to subscribe to GhettoBlaster or order any issue click here.

Russian Circles are a band that I’ve been wanting to write about for a long time. In fact, they are one of the last shows I saw in 2009 before I started Chicago Jam Scene. Their show at Bottom Lounge was one of the last shows about which I said, “This is awesome. I should write about this,” and just started doing it. This band has consistently been in my rotation since I discovered them around 2006 because they are such a versatile band for a number of situations. While their melodic, instrumental style makes a great soundtrack for studying (or other cerebral activities), their heavy & aggressive sound is the perfect way to get fired up while bike riding (or any other physically demanding task). This is quite the odd combination but Russian Circles is far from an ordinary band.

Lincoln Hall was crush-packed as the members of the band were setting up their instruments following an opening act. I managed to squeeze my way to the front somehow, ending up right in front of the speakers. This would have been a whole lot cooler had I not somehow lost my earplugs on my way to the show. But I was there, dammit, I was gonna get some photos and stand there as long as I could handle it. What’s a little more hearing damage at this point? A small bit of photography room opened up at the stage, which I immediately seized, as they started a long & measured build up to the opening song from their debut album Enter: “Carpe.” Enter is still my favorite album and the one I’ve listened to the most. So it really struck me how much more frantic the drumming of Dave Turncrantz was in the live setting. It might not have technically been much different but it sure felt different. Since they just released a new album, Empros, they could have easily hit us over the head with that material, so it was gratifying that they came out of the gate with a song from their oldest release.

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Metacritic Top 25 Highest-Reviewed Albums of 2011 is a rundown of the best albums of the past year as determined by their Metascores — an average of all reviews given by professional critics at the time of each album’s original release. Note that live albums, reissues, compilations, and the like are excluded from this chart. - Click to See Top 25

​As I was standing in the photo pit of the Murder City Devils’ stage the Friday evening of Fun Fun Fun Fest, a band started playing on the other side of the large, divided stage. I couldn’t see them, as I was 40 yards to the band’s right, literally with my elbows on the unused stage but, boy howdy, could I ever hear the act kicking things off.

Who was the band that blew me away? It was Chicago’s Russian Circles. In the span of 40 minutes, their pulverizing, rhythmic and ravaging set was made all the more intense by the fact that I could only hear the raging riffs and the percussive propulsion. My view of the enraptured, fist-waving fans in front of the stage, backdropped by the always majestic Austin skyline, proved to be the perfect live-action visual accompaniment to the explosive tunes.

Of course, after looking the band’s history up when I got back to the hotel, I was a combination of embarrassed and excited. As it turns out, Brian Cook, Mike Sullivan and Dave Turncrantz have been a big deal to many people for a few years now. How had I missed out on them? While I pondered that thought, I realized I had multiple albums of Russian Circles material to unearth and that was enough to get over my easily bruised music-geek ego.

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Ten albums I really liked in 2011, in no particular order.
Death Grips - Exmilitary
Helms Alee - Weatherhead
Christina Vantzou - No. 1
Steve Hauschildt - Tragedy & Geometry
Adebisi Shank - This Is The Second Album Of A Band Called…
Rotten Sound - Cursed
And So I Watch You From Afar - Gangs
Bloodiest - Descent
Moholy - Nagy – Like Mirage
Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive To Death - Some Of Us Are In This Together

Ten of my favorite shows/bands I saw in 2011
Rorschach @ El Corazon, Seattle
The Body, Braveyoung, A Story of Rats @ The Comet, Seattle
The Secret @ Miodi Festival, Milan
Satelliti @ Mountain Sessions, Bolzano
Drowning Horse @ The Bakery, Perth
Big Business, Torche, Helms Alee @ Neumos, Seattle
The Raveonettes @ Lincoln Hall, Chicago
Slayer @ Fun Fun Fun Fest, Austin
forgetters @ The Vera Project, Seattle
Nomeansno @ Neumos, Seattle

(Source: seattlerockguy.com)

  Russian Circles: Empros (Sargent House, 10/25/11

In 2009, instrumental rock trio Russian Circles released Geneva, an album that both introduced the worming bass lines of Brian Cook (of These Arms are Snakes) and showcased the band’s balance of metallic fury and melodic beauty. Complementary strings and horns also dotted the sonic landscape, creating a superlative post-metal opus.

Empros cuts away the complementary pieces of Geneva, instead focusing on the trio’s interplay. Cook has further ingrained himself in the Russian Circles sound, allowing the galloping rhythm section just as frequently to play the lead as Mike Sullivan’s effects-heavy, overdubbed guitars. And the usual ear for dynamics is present once more, building moments of tension and release to go with the killer riffs.

Click HERE to see Full Lists

Russian Circles contribute their list of Albums to check out from 2011 for Pitchfork’s end of the Year Guest list.

Craft: VOID
Do you know how long we’ve been waiting for this album to finally come out? They’ve been posting teasers about it for a couple of years now—a studio update here, a snippet of a song there. And as with most elusive underground black metal, getting solid information on what was actually going on with the band was damn near impossible. But at least Craft made up for the five year wait after their 2006 masterpiece Fuck The Universe by delivering another solid album of discordant hooks and punishing riffs.

Helms Alee: Weatherhead
The greatest yell in recorded history, in my humble opinion, is that last round of howls to spew out of Black Francis’s muzzle on The Pixies’ “Tame.” It’s a frightful roar on it’s own, but embedded in the song’s loud-quiet-loud structure and set against the feminine sigh of Kim Deal, it becomes all the more ferocious and menacing. Weatherhead employs this tactic across the board, marrying moments of guitar jangle and the ethereal vocals of Dana James and Hozoji Annie Matheson-Margullis with heavy-as-fuck moments of low-end stomp and the imposing bellow of Ben Verellen. It makes the graceful passages even more beguiling and the bouts of volume and distortion even more massive.

Deafheaven: Roads to Judah
I saw Enslaved earlier this year and the singer was cracking jokes in between songs. C’mon man, part of the allure of black metal is the thoroughness of the whole introverted ultra-serious facade. Granted, sometimes it can be a bit much. Can we please stop paying attention to the racist ramblings of Varg Vikernes and ignore that unnecessary “transcendental” manifesto written by the dude from Liturgy? It makes one thankful for a band like Deafheaven, a humorless and imposing Bay Area band so uninterested in extending the theater of misanthropy beyond the confines of the stage that you’d be hard pressed to get anyone in the band to acknowledge their ties to black metal. So yeah, it might not be a band for the true kvlt dudes out there (most of whom are too young to have been listening to music when black metal first made the cover of Kerrang anyways), but for anyone that wants to hear blast beats, washes of tremolo-picked guitars, and harrowing banshee wails without having to deal with either entry-level Paganism and shady political affiliations on one end or fart jokes on the other, Roads to Judah is highly recommended.

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29. Russian Circles - Empros
Released: October 25, 2011 (Sargent House)

Click to See Full Top 50 List

01. Russian Circles /Album: Empros  Label: Sargent House

Why I Chose This: In reality Russian Circles and Tom Waits have tied for first. I place this instrumental album ahead of Waits simply because he’s a fucking legend and these guys aren’t…..yet. Russian Circles have completely outdone themselves with Empros. They have made a perfect record, an album so flawless that every time I listen to it I discover something else I missed. Empros is not a perfect record because the songs are so good, which they are or because the musicianship is above reproach, which it is. Empros is the best record of the year because there is no easy way to figure it out. You can’t just listen to this album and get it, you have to scratch, you have to listen and embrace the experience

Don’t let my pretentious rock musings fool you, Russian Circles still bring the rock. The grooves are huge on Empros, menacing and pit stomping fun. However, that’s not all that goes on. There are also bits of electronica, delicate notes and even some nods towards dance and funk. These other elements combined with the huge rock are what keep Empros from being easily defined. You can pick out the elements of a song, but now how they work or how one song bleeds into another even when they are so different. That lack of definition is what keeps you coming back to Empros and trying to figure out why it makes you feel the way you do. Russian Circles have written an album that will confuse you, rock you, confound you and, above all else, make you feel. Empros forces you to think while it nourishes your soul and that’s what makes it record of the year.

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Russian Circles will be playing this New Years Eve in Austin, TX at Red 7. Get tickets here.

Mike Sullivan of Russian Circles is featured in a 5 page story in this months December 2011 issue of Guitar Player.

Thanks for the video, sent to us by Charles Cors - the track is Schiphol from the album Empros.

On one hand, it was almost ridiculous having Russian Circles play the Cactus Club Friday night—the room was jam-packed an hour before sound check, presumably due to glowing reviews of the band’s latest (and best) album, Empros, and a reputation for impressive live shows. On the other hand, the show was probably booked well in advance of the unprecedented publicity, and Russian Circles have played exclusively at Cactus when they’ve visited Milwaukee for several years now. In celebration of the venue’s 15th anniversary, this was another potential “I-was-there” moment for folks lucky enough to arrive early.

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