rehab.

Coalescing in Wicker Park during the sweltering Chicago summer of 1995, rehab. marked the first experimental collaboration between Brian Kelly (Supplement) and Bob Davies (pal:ndrøm) and later engineer Jon Taccona (Danger Guy). Born partly as a reaction to ‘orchestrated band material and boring DJ mix tapes’ and partly out of the therapeutic need for ‘a departure from the everyday grind of school, work, and the city’ rehab. production sessions blurred the lines between sampling, practice and performance.

The duo made instruments of modest and incongruent equipment: turntables, cymbals, single mic’d field recordings, guitars, found sound, borrowed pedals and processors — and most importantly the Tascam Portastudio 424 MKI. Sessions were ideologically structured to realize the ‘rehabilitation of sound into music’. Audio was generated and heavily processed during improvisational performances captured on 4-track then mixed, further processed and bounced down to make room for more and this method repeated.

Though scattered across the country from ’96-’98 rehab. swapped tapes, DATs, and Zip disks through the mail and met for sessions or live performances at forward thinking raves, shows and art galleries:

“Even Furthur ’96 was ample proof that Milwaukee’s Drop Bass Network, Minneapolis’ Communique and David Prince really know how to throw a party... ‘Who’s playing inside?’ I asked one young gabber. ‘I don’t know, but they’re playing guitars!’ He replied incredulously. It turned out to be rehab. from Chicago, churning out a quiet storm...”
-Alternative Press magazine Vol. 11 #98 (Sept ’96).

In 1998 they reunited in Chicago to focus on curating what would become ERD.00:14421-023Z.

In many ways rehab. was the prototype for what is now Harlem & Irving Presents. But it also is an entry in the history of Chicago’s experimental music tradition and 90s underground music scenes. A time when a fearless and naive Kelly and Davies began the concepting and dialog that would become their Harlem & Irving label. To this end, rehab. even had a manifesto that accompanied early promotional materials. Though somewhat cavalier as is the result of untempered youth the themes therein still ring true 26 years later:

if all music is sound

then all sound is music

composition becomes a matter of

orchestrating the environment

generating and manipulating

we take anything as instrument

anything as image

sculpt sound

describe space

present mood

at base

the most universal of languages