You know Fruit LoOops are fun because of the three Os in their name. Imagine yourself on the back half of the greatest sugar high the cereal aisle can provide as you’re excitedly swirling around a toilet bowl shouting “Fruit LoOops!”—that’s how the Cincinnati five-piece’s music hits. Front person Jackie Switzer sings in a manic, stunted style similar to Melt-Banana’s Yasuko Onuki, and they pair it to varying effect with drums, keyboards, synths, and samplers, interrupted by saxophone skronks and less identifiable noises that might sound like a piano getting crushed like a soda can. Fruit LoOops have put out two releases with Bucktown record store and label Torn Light (which came to Chicago by way of the Queen City this spring), most recently last year’s You’re Somebody’s World, and they share with Torn Light an imaginative, knowledgeable free spirit.
Fruit LoOops have spent years gigging with Chicago’s art-rock elite (notably Weasel Walter’s long-running outfit the Flying Luttenbachers) and some of the most exciting genre-shattering weirdos emerging on the national scene, including Philadelphia extreme electronics artist Morgan Garrett and experimental Texas noise punks Sexual Jeremy. To say Fruit LoOops are rock would be reductive: they’re taking rock ’n’ roll into stranger, more turbulent territory, which is exactly where it needs to go to stay relevant. The band’s live shows can switch between the raw, stripped-down aesthetic of punk and the rehearsed technique of performance art, but they’re never pretentious. They’re just fun. At this Hideout gig, Fruit LoOops will share the bill with Tasha’s Hideous Laughter (a newly formed duo of digicore mainstays Mukqs and Cocojoey) and footwork aficionado EQ Why. It’s exactly the brain-busting send-off you’ll need before subjecting yourself to holiday time with family.
Fruit LoOops EQ Why headline; Fruit LoOops and Tasha’s Hideous Laughter open. Sat 12/21, 8:30 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, $12, $10 in advance. 21+