Tucked away on a residential block on the East Side is a recording studio with a long history, Victor DeLorenzo’s The Past Office. The Verve Pipe, Willy Porter and Semi-Twang are some of the prominent acts that have recorded there over the decades, along with DeLorenzo’s former band Violent Femmes, but for a good stretch of time the studio sat dark, as DeLorenzo lost interest and sold much of his original analogue recording equipment. It’s only recently that DeLorenzo says he’s fallen in love with recording again, through his recent projects with his duo Nineteen Thirteen.
The band has evolved considerable since its beginnings as a trio in the early 2010s, with DeLorenzo and a second percussionist backing cellist Janet Schiff. Although the group shrank by one, their musical palette expanded, as Schiff and DeLorenzo have explored additional instruments, tricks and textures on each release, while enjoying the freedom the studio allows them to experiment. And most noticeably, the duo is no longer an exclusively instrumental project anymore. Like their 2016 EPs Music For Time Travel and The Dream, their new Sci-Fi Romance EP features vocals from both band members.
“In recording, we’re open to anything now,” DeLorenzo says. “When we first started playing, it was pretty much just documenting what we did as a three-piece. We weren’t really adding outside instruments too much.”
The EP features guest keyboards from Matt Meixner and bass and guitar from Mike Hoffmann—both of whom performed a set with the band at their EP release show last month—as well as outside violins and vocals. Even at just five songs, it covers a lot of ground. “So Fine” spotlights the duo’s pop instincts with a modernist reimaging of 1960s bubblegum. “Hot Garbage” combines late-night jazz and moody beat poetry, while “Whistle Breath” casts a fusion of jazz and trip-hop against Schiff’s cello.
But it’s the opening title track that captures the group at their most regal. “It started off as a drum improvisation,” DeLorenzo says of the piece. “I presented it to Janet and she came up with that simple, elegant piano melody, and it started reminding me of Alice Coltrane, then I was reminded of John Coltrane and the romance that they had. Then I started thinking about some of John Coltrane’s sci-fi titles, like Interstellar Space, which was the improvisational record he did with Rashied Ali, just drums and saxophone, and Crescent Moon and Steller Regions. So I brought in that sci-fi theme and I said to Janet, ‘What do you think of that title, ‘Sci-Fi Romance?’”
“And I loved it!” Schiff recalls. “I was in a book store and I saw a sign in my head that said Sci-Fi this way, Romance that way.” Those two genres also seemed to describe her playing: the traditional romance of the cello, and the almost science-fictiony effects of her looping pedal.
Perhaps the thing that’s surprised the band the most about their sound is how portable it has proven to be. As niche as their cello/drums setup sounds on paper, it’s enabled them to play for an unusually wide array of audiences at venues of all sizes, ranging from the intimate Jazz Estate, where they’re regulars, to the sprawling BMO Harris Pavilion, where they opened for the Avett Brothers.
“If you looked at the band’s resume, if there were a Nineteen Thirteen CV, it would show quite the variety, from the basement punk shows to symphony-quality events,” Schiff says. “And it’s the same music. That’s what I’m so impressed with: That we can play the same music at the rock clubs in Chicago as we can for a major fundraiser for the ballet or art museum.”
Nineteen Thirteen’s music is available at nineteenthirteen.com.
