Mixing punk ideals and the experimental traditions of their Chicago hometown, Mako Sica craft spacious excursions that touch on post-rock, prog, and avant jazz without owing too much of a debt to any particular influence. The trio is comprised of guitarist/trumpeter Przemyslaw Drazek and percussionist Michael Kendrick, both formerly of the electro-acoustic group Rope, and guitarist/vocalist Brent Fuscaldo. Fuscaldo came up with the name Mako Sica for the group on a trip to Arizona’s Painted Desert; a Sioux Lakota Native American term meaning “land bad,” it fits the band’s sprawling, sometimes menacing, expanses perfectly. Their debut was Noise Attic Session 2, a cassette-only release of 100 copies by PlusTapes; along with September 2009’s live EP Mayday at Strobe, it captured the nuances and immediacy of their largely instrumental sound. Mako Sica’s full-fledged debut album, Dual Horizon, arrived in spring 2010 on La Societe Expeditionnaire. ~ Heather Phares, Rovi