I am not a dancer. I don’t hit up the hottest night clubs or hope for a beat in the construction as I pass Tech Auditorium every day just so I can bust out my sweet moves. Yet I do shamelessly dance to the music of the Chicago based nine-piece band Sonia Dada.
The best explanation I have for why I’m struck with the urge to dance to Sonia Dada, of all bands, is that the group injects soul into its music. There is an apparent obscurity in Sonia Dada’s sound that denies the need for definition and allows one to connect with the music on an emotional level. It’s out there for open and obscure interpretation and, in my opinion, it’s music to groove to. Although this might not have been what guitarist and songwriter Dan Pritzker had in mind as the overall theme of his music, he said my individual connection is what truly counts.
“It is less important what it means to me than what it means to you,” Pritzker said. “What makes a song a success is that it resonates something inside that attaches to you emotionally.”
Listeners will have a chance to make a connection when Sonia Dada plays the Vic Theatre, 3145 North Sheffield Ave., on Saturday — their third stop on a U.S. tour that will keep them on the road through New Year’s Eve.
The group is a melting pot of music, mixing blues, rock, soul, R&B, funk and gospel into an unearthly fluid groove. With musical influences ranging from New Orleans jazz to Billie Holiday to ’60s and ’70s psychedelia to Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones, it’s no wonder the band’s sound is hard to peg.
Pritzker opted for a label of R&B, but said his dedicated to each individual song results in Sonia Dada’s overall eclectic sound.
“We treat each song separately,” Pritzker said. “As a songwriter, I deal with melody and words. After I write the songs, then we go put clothes on them, dress them up this way and that way and another way and find a place where each song seems to sit most comfortably.”
Sonia Dada has been making exotic, genre-bending music since they formed in 1990 when Prtizker met the three lead singers — Michael Scott, Paris Delane and Sam Hogan — harmonizing a cappella at the State Street El stop during lunchtime.
“They would doo-wop, then collect their money and eat whoppers at the Burger King across the street,” Pritzker said. “I thought they were unbelievable.”
Sonia Dada demonstrates its ability to achieve fluid diversity on its sixth album, “Test Pattern.” Released in June, it gracefully erases the lines that divide genres and combines everything from mandolins to congas to achieve a universal pulse that connects and sustains each highly diverse song.
The concept for making the album came from one of Pritzker’s high school art class assignments.
“Re-orchestration was this legendary project where we would choose a famous impressionist or realist painting, then tear up a zillion pieces of magazines and paper to recreate the image,” Pritzker said. “The way we recorded the album was like the re-orchestration piece. I would write a song, then we’d record them and send them to our producer Ron Schwartz, who would chop and recreate the song a zillion ways to Sunday and send them back to us.”
This constant slicing and dicing of the album produced a natural and organic feel that allowed the band to mix twangy strings and soulful R&B melodies over soft Bollywood chants in the opening song “Moons of Jupiter,” combine a thumping bass and scruffy blues vocals on the song “Temple,” and achieve a soulful otherworldly feel for the entire album.
The record includes a DVD with a 30-minute film and a project Pritzker headed called “See The Music.” Unlike the title suggests, it is not a simple visualization of the lyrics, according to Pritzker. Rather, the images that accompany the album distort shots of a bustling city to an abstractness that looks like an undulating and contorting psychedelic computer screen saver.
“I didn’t want to spoon feed the listener,” Pritzker said. “I don’t want to see someone else’s interpretation (on the screen) because I have this image of my own in my mind. Like when I finally watched the movie ‘Moby Dick’ I was like ‘That’s not Ishmael! That’s a Hollywood actor!’ I want each viewer to have their own experience. Their opinion is as valid as whatever it meant to me.”
Sonia Dada’s music also has been picked up for United Airlines flights where passengers can listen to songs from “Test Pattern” and view clips from “See The Music.” This isn’t only a great way to expand Sonia Dada’s fan base, Pritzker said, but also a fantastic way to allow the listeners to build their own connections to the music, diversifying the band’s sound even more.
The only downside to this, I told Pritzker, is that if I heard Sonia Dada on a flight, there would be no room for me to dance.
“Well you can dance,” Pritzker laughed and told me to brush this spatial inconvenience aside and let out my inner groove child. “There are always the aisles.”4
Medill freshman Kate Puhala is a PLAY writer. She can be reached at [email protected].