The Chicago bands Natural Information Society and Bitchin Bajas have long seemed like two sides of the same, trancey coin. Both debuted around the same time, in the early 2010s. Both make visual elements a key part of their performances — trippy lighting and projections for the Bajas, harmonium player Lisa Alvarado’s hanging artwork for Natural Information Society. Most crucially of all, both make irrepressible, groove-based music that hypnotically cycles.
“Something both groups do is take a moment that feels expository and (ask), ‘Well, what if that’s actually the whole thing? What if that’s the whole story?’” says Natural Information Society bandleader Joshua Abrams.
The groups released an album, “Automaginary,” together in 2015, but their mutual affinities meant they were all but fated to team up again at some point — cosmically fated, even. Since “Automaginary,” the two bands have taken up the same ephemeral hobby: eclipse chasing. The Bajas have experienced the last two solar eclipses at reedist Rob Frye’s family farm in southern Missouri. Abrams and Alvarado, who are married, have experienced eclipses in both Missouri and Texas.
“It was really inspired by the experience of being in the path of totality,” says Bajas synth player Cooper Crain of the bands’ new album, titled — what else? — “Totality.” “Wendy Carlos (the pathbreaking electronic composer) was an eclipse chaser; she would go around the world for decades. I understand why now.”
Abrams, next to him, nods in agreement. “It really converts you in a way that’s hard to explain.”
Abrams and Crain, representing their respective bands, have tucked into a booth at West Town’s Café Central — a shared favorite haunt — to talk all things “Totality.” They release the album on Wednesday with a show at Constellation, also a mutual go-to. The bands’ experimental ethos and jazzophile tilt — luminaries like Hamid Drake and Ari Brown have dipped in and out of Natural Information Society’s ranks, while the Bajas have made Sun Ra originals a staple — have made them regulars at the West Lakeview venue.
While Bitchin Bajas — Crain, Frye and Dan Quinlivan on electronics — drench their music in synthy sound, Natural Information Society sounds a little more, well, natural. Though its lineup ebbs and flows, acoustic instruments dominate. Abrams and Alvarado are joined by bass clarinetist Jason Stein and drummer Mikel Patrick Avery on the record. But on “Totality” and elsewhere, Abrams’ guimbri is Natural Information Society’s sonic signature: a buzzy, banjoey three-stringed African lute that’s Abrams’ instrument of choice when he’s not playing bass.
That said, the lines between acoustic and electronic sound aren’t clear-cut in either group. Frye covers woodwinds in the Bajas, and Alvarado’s harmonium — a portable organ — can lend the Natural Information Society the same pillowy drone that shows up all over the Bajas’ discography.
“The aesthetics of both groups are very much interested in the whole spectrum of it all — how acoustic sound and electric sound are all just sound,” Abrams says.
“It’s all kind of hinting at the other side,” Crain adds.
The groups have been sharing stages since around 2013, when they first united to close an exhibition of Alvarado’s art. That led to “Automaginary,” and now “Totality,” a four-track meditation that often feels both more brooding and hard-edged than its predecessor. (Alvarado also created the album artwork for both, with “Totality’s” cover evoking a cross between a barn quilt and marble tiling.)
Getting together is never easy, though. Both bands have schedules that are already tough to internally align, hence Natural Information Society’s fluid ranks. Add another band’s schedule to the mix, Abrams and Crain muse, and it’s a wonder they’ve been able to tour at all. Even “Totality” was recorded as long ago as 2021 — since then, they say, life’s just gotten in the way.
That makes this record, and Wednesday’s show, a preciously rare convergence. Kind of like an eclipse.
“Even since the first record that we did, we’ve found a certain patience and collective support of the sound. We’re just building it all together constantly,” Abrams says.
Hannah Edgar is a freelance critic.
Natural Information Society and Bitchin Bajas release “Totality” 8:30 p.m. April 23 at Constellation, 3111 N. Western Ave.; tickets $25, more information at constellation-chicago.com
