Moth Cock Hauslive 3: Chicago Twofer

Hausu Mountain continues the HausLive series of live show recordings that capture some of the headiest moments in Chicago underground music with a pair of Chi-town gigs from Kent, Ohio’s legendary carnival-core-free-jazz-noise duo Moth Cock — compiled together into HausLive 3: Chicago Twofer. The series channels the spirit of the informal bootlegging and tape trading of audience recordings as pioneered by the community surrounding the Grateful Dead, honing in on the raw live energy and in-the-moment emotions that make each show stand out in the stream of time. Selected as part of the label’s ongoing collaboration with the prolific Chicago taper and HausMo mega-friend Joel Berk, HausLive 3: Chicago Twofer documents two of Moth Cock’s sets at beloved DIY spaces in Chicago in 2023: one in May at Not Not, and another in December at DADS. Presented as a single release with two 40+ minute sets, HausLive 3: Chicago Twofer continues Moth Cock’s streak of continual evolution as an unpredictable live act whose loosely structured improvisations spiral off into confounding zones capable of inducing the deepest altered states of mind and body.

Brought to life by the Moth Cock’s stripped down rig of drum machine, guitar pedals, microphones, saxophone, and trumpet, the music captured on HausLive 3 completely defies the humble physical reality of its origin and blasts into the outer reaches of brain-scrambling electro-acoustic noise improv. Always delivered with a wink, or even the full-on grimace of a mutated clown, the duo’s music rejects notions of noise performance as an outlet for aggression or aural violence in favor of a sense of cartoonish whimsy and gonzo tomfoolery.