The M's

When the M's rose from their basement studio and released their eponymous debut album in 2004, it quickly garnered critical praise and a few thousand fans and pushed them to the forefront of the always eclectic and ever-burgeoning Chicago music scene. The record made many Chicago and national year-end best-of-lists and perked up ears around the world. The tunes were dense and lush, driven by rich vocal harmonies and shambling beats Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune decribed as "back-alley lovers loaded on cheap wine." (Dec. 2004)

In between the release of The M¹s and the completion of Future Women, the band's Polyvinyl debut, the M's have lost and found, tripped, traveled, stumbled, fallen and gotten back up. All the while dreaming of a far-reaching and ambitious sophomore effort that would add to the already rich palette. Such highs as touring with fellow windy city rockers Wilco and signing to Polyvinyl Records have overcome the lows­ their van being stolen and losing their home studio to the always-hungry urban-gentrifier. Through it all, the quartet stuck to its guns -- songwriting, collaboration, and sound, unmoved by the hype or setback.

The M¹s began recording almost immediately after they met in the summer of 2000 and with the aid of many, many beers, they recorded a hundred or so songs over the next few years never intending or wishing to be a rock band. Most of those tunes will never be heard, but some stuck and the band was born out of it. Their first album was an amalgamation of three distinct recording sessions and creative intents, blended together in a bombastic happy accident with soaring highs and soaring lows. As Rolling Stone described,"Vox-tastic guitar and organ riggs and street-corner shuffling beats and fills. Every tune is tailored to a stylist¹s specs and put forth with east." (May, 2004)

Never content to repeat themselves, the band has expanded their sound on Future Women, broadening their boisterous brand of psych-flecked power-pop, with plangent touches of strings and brass, always tasteful, always spot on. For Future Women, the M's have maintained careful control, again self-producing with a sincere and patient dedication to the expansion of ideas wherever they¹re born.