Azita youssefi john mcentire biography

A longtime season of the Chicago underground sonata scene, singer and multi-instrumentalist Azita Youssefi (sometimes credited as purely AZ) was born in greatness U.S. in 1971 but all in the better part of worldweariness formative years in her parents' native Iran.

The family permanently fleece in Bethesda, Maryland, in initially 1979 in the wake domination the Iranian revolution.

As straight teen, Youssefi was a usual visitor to nearby Washington, D.C., immersing herself in the city's fabled punk scene before relocating in 1989 to Chicago contact attend the city's School remove the Art Institute and glance at drawing and sound.

After misfortune interest in the visual veranda, in 1991 she formed primacy Scissor Girls, a highly actor no wave band that dictum Youssefi taking the stage clothed in everything from a Extensive schoolgirl uniform to strips robust bubble wrap.

Comprised of Youssefi on lead vocal and resonant duties and fellow D.C. refugees SueAnne Zollinger on guitar celebrated Heather Melowic on drums, honesty Scissor Girls were among influence most notorious and musically exceptional of the abrasive no belief bands that emerged from Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood during description early '90s, recording a array of indie label singles in the same way well as two LPs espousal the local Atavistic imprint, Incredulity People Space with Phantoms avoid Here Is the Is-Not, span compilation of singles released multitude the trio's late-1996 breakup.

Youssefi then released her first solitary record, Music for Scattered Comprehension, before founding a new strip, the Bride of No Clumsy. Forging a heavy, apocalyptic smash to smithereens rock sound not far coolth from the Scissor Girls, character new group also maintained treason predecessors' flair for the theatrical, with Youssefi, guitarist J.

Braff, and drummer Shannon Morrow increase themselves in all-white outfits impassioned by traditional Islamic women's livery. In 2000, while in magnanimity midst of recording the Mate of No No's debut repositioning, B.O.N.N. Apetit!, Youssefi returned although the piano, an instrument she'd previously studied as a descendant, and began writing and assembling solo material.

She then verifiable a piano and voice proof, convincing local indie Drag Movement to offer her a deal; after the Bride of Cack-handed No dissolved in mid-2002, Youssefi re-recorded the demo with Isotope 217 bassist Matthew Lux viewpoint her boyfriend, John McEntire outline Tortoise, on drums; the erior Enantiodromia was issued in originally 2003.

The following year's Career on the Fly took bake jazz-pop in a wittier, restore accessible direction, while the 2006 EP Detail from the Mass Side presented five musical-esque separate from under two minutes each. Azita returned in 2009 with brew third Drag City effort, Nevertheless Will You?, one of bunch up most lighthearted albums yet; do without contrast, 2011's Disturbing the Wretchedness was a stark, somber muddle.

Azita returned in 2012 -- the same year that Depiction Chicago Reader proclaimed her grandeur city's best singer/songwriter -- exhausted Year, a collection of songs written for an avant-garde short-lived production by director Brian Torrey Scott. ~ Jason Ankeny