I’ve gotta level with you. I’d never heard of Marvin Tate before I was sent Controlled Burn for review. His name sounded like he might have played right back for Preston North End in the early 2000s. OK, I’ll give it a go. But only ‘cos I’m a really nice guy. But I’m telling you now: if this is some earnest folky poppycock, then I’m going to go ape shit with a jar of Nutella and my bare fingers.
But, boy, was I wrong on every level. Mr Tate is like a one-person Mount Rushmore on the Chicago poetry scene. His storied career spans decades and artforms. He’s collaborated with members of Tortoise and Wilco and founded the experimental jazz/poetry collective D-Settlement, as well as winning various awards for poetry and solo art exhibitions in some of America’s most garlanded institutions.
That’s all well and good, but what has he done for me lately?
Well, his new album Controlled Burn (on Amalgam Records) is a hallucinogenic portal into a world that’s similar to ours, but the furniture is rearranged, and the pavement convulses beneath your feet like piano keys and shadowy figures stalk the corridors of your neurosis. Opening track Up At 6 has a gorgeous, sun-bursting synth that’s pitch-shifted to sound like it’s continually melting in on itself, with Tate intoning “Happiness is strange/ Happiness is strange… I called you by your dead name/ My bad”. The slap-back delay on Tate’s voice and kaleidoscopic accompaniment give a dual sense of expansiveness and claustrophobia, setting the tone for the rest of the album.
The first single, First You Hear, is a musical firework exploding in your cerebellum. Clattering drums and ascending guitars fight in midair, with Tate speaking in tongues about meeting a woman “who believed in past lives… and champagne enemas”. Genius Shit is a melancholic dreamscape of phased electronics with Tate in a more ruminative mood: “Tragedy starts in the mind first. Death is only imminent if all else fails… There’s a song stuck in a loop in your head”. Album closer, Best Side, manages to bridge these two approaches, as minimal space-age bleeps gather into cathedralic organ and Tate’s urgent and beatific meditations on the caprices of the heart.
After a series of larger-ensemble releases, Tate decided to record Controlled Burn with longtime collaborator Leroy Bach as a series of duo improvisations which they would remodel and refine into the tightest 12 tracks. This method is reminiscent of late-period Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, where they explore in the studio, unencumbered by the burden of public expectation and twist their creations into unforeseen, pleasingly deranged shapes; there are some sonic parallels with Controlled Burn, although spiritual torchbearers like Don Byron and Amiri Baraka guide Tate’s sound world. This situates it closer to the hypnagogic hip hop of cLOUDDEAD and Saul Williams. Whichever way you slice it, the method is brave, and the results speak of the angelic geometry of the universe within. Here’s looking at Euclid.
Controlled Burn (August 29th, 2026) Amalgam Records
Live Dates
Fri, Aug 28
Amalgam Records Presents
Listening Party: Marvin Tate’s Controlled Burn
moderators: Sharon Udoh & Ben LaMar Gay
w/ beats by: Dave Says Never Play A Cover
Donations: suggested $10
BYOB
Theatre Y
3611 W. Cermak Rd (Doors: 7pm / Show time: 8:30pm)
Sat, Aug 29
Amalgam Records Presents Controlled Burn
performance w/ Marvin Tate & LeRoy Bach
w/ beats by: Dave Says Never Play A Cover
special guest: author Kenyatta Rodgers
Donations: suggested $10
BYOB
Theatre Y
3611 W. Cermak Rd (Doors: 7pm / Show time: 8:30pm)