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Playfulness and purposeful converge in the music of Microplastique. The quartet’s membership includes some of Chicago’s busiest and most engaged rising improvisers. Percussionist and composer Adam Shead leads his own bands, plays in a collaborative free-improv trio with Jason Stein and Damon Smith, and runs the Irritable Mystic label—which just released Microplastique’s debut album, Blare Blow Bloom! Molly Jones (woodwinds, percussion) and Ben Zucker (brass, percussion, toy piano) both participate in projects that straddle improvised music and new-music composition; together they’re half of the collective that curates the Improvised Music Series at Elastic Arts. And finally, Josh Harlow (who also plays toy piano and percussion) leads or coleads several duos and larger ensembles, including Jewish spiritual-jazz quartet Teiku. The sound world they explore together as Microplastique combines two streams of emancipatory mid-20th-century musical practice. Since John Cage first presented his Suite for Toy Piano in 1948, composers and keyboardists have used the humble instrument to make music that isn’t burdened by its adult relative’s centuries of cultural ubiquity. And Microplastique’s use of handheld percussion and noisemakers, including toy bells and clown horns, is directly inspired by the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s use of “little instruments” to create a novel and flexible sonic space. Shead’s compositions are sufficiently open-ended that the quartet’s improvisations can transform the same tune into a fragile atmospheric exploration or an antic scrum.
Microplastique Sat 12/14, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 3111 N. Western, $15, $5 livestream, 18+
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