New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Chicago's MAKS the Fox play melodic, fuzzy folk songs, featuring a quartet of multi-instrumentalists playing guitars, keyboard, cello, bass, drums and percussion with unique arrangements and the entwined vocals of founders Kori Simonson (vocals, guitar, keys) and
Marlon Aguilar (vocals, guitar), Rachel Schuldt (cello, bass, backing vocals) and Jarod Facknitz (drums). Much like the Fox of its moniker, MAKS music has numerous tricks up its sleeve, providing a sly and mischievous frivolity that only comes from the company of close friends. This album has songs about reading minds, sibling rivalry, déjà vu, and honesty.
They will release their third album, "That We Exist" on April 23rd; they produced it in colla-boration with musician/producer Dan Duszynkski (Gold Motel, Any Kind, Cross Record, Loma ). They recorded in
Chicago at
Marlon Recording, and it was mixed at Duszynkski's Moon Phase Ranch in Dripping Springs, TX. The album resides on the same musical spectrum as acts like
Soccer Mommy and Girlpool, with lilting melodies and lyrics questioning life's instability while struggling for human connection. Stand out tracks include the title track "That We Exist" and "Quitting Time".
MAKS the Fox previously released a self-titled debut in 2013 and "From The Deer Forest" in 2016, which Jamsphere reviewed, saying "For any creative effort, sophomore or otherwise, "From The Deer Forest" is remarkably a sophisticated album, with a sound that uses every member to faultless advantage, it is a collaboration with specific accents and it is a really nice expansion of that tension in their sound, that could be called exhilaration."
The album landed on best of 2016 lists, including
Chicago indie radio station CHIRP Radio; the band performed on PRX Sessions from Studio A, appeared on WGN radio and were named in the 'Best of 2016' by New City Magazine. While their previous releases had a haunting orchestral sound, the new album is playful, exultant and celebratory, with lyrics that plead for sanity in an insane world.
Before the pandemic, they could be found performing at local venues like Lincoln Hall, The Whistler and Subterranean, where
Music Connection took them in and wrote that "...they have a diverse sound that spans genres from folk to jazz to rock...their performance is not filled with crazy stage antics, the music is left to speak for itself..." When it's safe again, the band will book some of the Midwestern venues they've performed at earlier, as well as
Chicago gigs.
