On The Verge

A Lull

Chicago, Ill.
A Little Different Than Pop
www.alull.com

“It usually starts with a beat, with a rhythm we really like,” says Nigel Evan Dennis of the Chicago-based experimental pop quintet A Lull. Along with Todd Miller, Mike Brown, Ashwin Deepankar and Aaron Vincel, the band explores dense layers of drum and percussion lines infused with delicate vocals, psych-tinged guitar and instrumental offerings, and electronic overtones. Toss in the odd crackle of a trash bag or explosion of a shattering bottle and you have the cacophonous sound that A Lull is known for. “When we started, we didn’t know what it was going to sound like,” admits Dennis. “We wanted to write pop music, but do it a little differently.” The release of their first LP, Confetti, was the outcome of a feverish burst of energy that resulted in 78 songs. “It was nice because we were able to record ourselves,” relays Dennis. “We would sit around and come up with a beat we liked and build on that.” They chose 11 of these for the album and released an additional four on the Confetti Reprise follow-up EP. With new songs in the works, Dennis says the band will still incorporate at least two drums in their live performance, and that he thinks “the new stuff is way better than Confetti. ”