Pinetop Seven is an American band from Chicago, Illinois. The group initially revolved around three core members, supplemented by instruments such as double bass

Double bass

The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

, accordion

Accordion

The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

, slide guitar

Slide guitar

Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...

, banjo

Banjo

In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

, and mandolin

Mandolin

A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...

; more recent recordings have a more fluid lineup and increasingly orchestral textures. The group is a key representative of the Chicago alt country musical scene.

History

Bandmembers Darren Richard and Charles Kim first met at Vanderbilt University

Vanderbilt University

Vanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...

, and began playing music on the Nashville

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

 club scene starting in 1990; in 1994 they moved to Chicago and formed Pinetop Seven. After adding Ryan Hembrey to the lineup in 1995, the band began touring, and eventually landed a record deal with Truckstop Records, who began releasing the band's material in 1997. 1998's Rigging the Toplights featured clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

 work from fellow Chicagoan Ken Vandermark

Ken Vandermark

Ken Vandermark is an American jazz composer and saxophone and clarinet player.A fixture on the Chicago-area music scene since the 1990s, Vandermark has earned wide critical praise for his playing and his multilayered compositions, which typically balance intricate orchestration with passionate...

. In 2000, Charles Kim left the band, and the group expanded to a larger ensemble featuring more orchestral musical textures, beginning with 2000's Bringing Home the Last Great Strike. Their 2005 release The Night's Bloom and its subsequent sessions release, Beneath Confederate Lake, feature further orchestral exploration, as well as a revamped core of members, featuring original member Richard, trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

er Nate Walcott, cellist

Cello

The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

 Melissa Bach, bassist Andy Rader, guitarist Mack Hagood, and drummer Ned Folkerth.

Throughout its career, the band has garnered considerable critical acclaim from outlets such as Pitchfork Media

Pitchfork Media

Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...

, NPR

NPR

NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...

 radio, One Times One, The Orlando Weekly

Orlando Weekly

The Orlando Weekly is an alternative newsweekly distributed in the Greater Orlando area of Florida. It features local news, views, arts, entertainment, local music coverage, an events calendar and classifieds...

, Paste Magazine, and others.

Discography

• Pinetop Seven (Truckstop Records, 1997)
• Rigging the Toplights (Truckstop/Atavistic Records
  Atavistic Records
  Atavistic Records is an American rock and jazz record label based in Chicago, Illinois, known particularly for its No Wave and free jazz recordings. It has released albums by Glenn Branca, Nels Cline, Lydia Lunch, Peter Brötzmann, various Ken Vandermark projects, Pinetop Seven, Swans, Elliott...
  
  , 1998)
• No Breath in the Bellows EP (Truckstop/Atavistic, 1998)
• Bringing Home the Last Great Strike (Atavistic, 2000)
• Lest We Forget (2001)
• The Night's Bloom (Sky Records
  Sky Records
  Sky Records was a Hamburg, Germany based independent record label specializing in Krautrock/Kosmische Musik and electronic music. Some of their releases could be classified as progressive rock or art rock, experimental music, industrial, ambient, or New Age...
  
  /Empyrean Records, 2005)
• Beneath Confederate Lake (Sky/Empyrean, 2006)