The Aluminum Group - Biography
Chicago-based chamber-pop band The Aluminum Group emerged in the mid-1990s after its originators—brothers John and Frank Navin—had toiled in various bands among the Windy City’s Wicker Park scene. The group’s lush arrangements and pristine, easy-listening alt-rock sensibilities have distinguished them as pop perfectionists through six full-length albums, drawing comparisons to one of their deepest sources of inspiration, The Carpenters, as well as others that they’ve paid homage to, The Magnetic Fields and Burt Bacharach. Into the aughts, the band is often coupled familiarly with fellow Chicago indie-rock group, The Sea and Cake.
Named after a line of furniture by Charles and Ray Eames, The Aluminum Group evolved when the Navin brother’s decade-old pop ideologies caught up to the times in the early 1990s. Having played in Chicago-based bands (including, unbelievably, hardcore groups) and on their own for much of the 1980s, John and Frank Navin branched out and self-released The Aluminum Group’s first album in 1995, Wonder Boy. Using only the most delicate acoustic guitars and keyboards, as well as a cerebral approach to literary songwriting, all the lapidary-smooth elements of future output was there (including a cover of Guns N’ Roses “Sweet Child O’ Mine”), but the album came and went without gaining much more than regional notice.
Three years later, The Aluminum Group released their sophomore album on local indie label, Minty Fresh. The Dave Trumfio-produced Plano (1998), named after a small-town outside of Chicago, was beautifully centered on the oft-maudlin lyrics of the Navin’s and the mellifluous playing of John Ridenour (guitar), Liz Conant (keyboards), Eddie Carlson (bass) and John Blaha (drums). The summery currents of instrumentation combined with the stark, candid lyrics about relationships (“A Boy in Love”) and homoerotic quandary (“Sad Gay Life”) jumped the band into the pantheon of chamber-pop’s brightest.
The following year the group released Pedals (1999 Minty Fresh), a 10-song opus which was critically regarded as a potential-realizing effort. Jim O’Rourke produced the album, and his stamp was obvious enough that Pedals drew comparisons to O’Rourke’s own masterpiece, Eureka, which came out the same year. The album opens with a grandiose nine-minute-plus song, “Rose Salve’s Valise,” which was as symphonic as it was easy lounge. O’Rourke, along with Jeb Bishop (trombone) and Rob Mazurek (cornet) added many new dimensions of epic gloss to the already synth-washed songs, while the Navin’s use the canvas gracefully (and with the usual brutally honest lyrics) throughout.
Pelo (2000 Minty Fresh), The Aluminum Group’s fourth album, introduced a red carpet of sampling and electronic vibe to the songs. This time produced by John Herndon (Tortoise), the electro-pop warble on tracks like “If You’ve Got a Lover, You’ve Got a Life” proved that the Navin’s vocal melodicism fit well with driving, madder beats. On other songs, such as “Geraldine,” things were taken further, as the futuristic sounds broke new ground for the band.
The group’s fifth album, Happyness (2002 Minty Fresh), was hailed by the Navin’s as the first in a trilogy, and was really a retro-feeling return to the synth-driven days of Plano. With vocals and music that were both crystal-bell clear and polished of any rough edges, the themes of this album range from enigmatic to betrayal to vague philosophy. The platforms for the vocal forays on all ten tracks were production slick and cinematic.
As the second installment of the trilogy, The Aluminum Group released Morehappyness (2003 Minty Fresh), which was a pristine (often cold-feeling) album that John Navin produced. Again boasting ten tracks, the longest clocking in at just over six minutes, the album didn’t contain any more of a linear connection to the previous album than Happyness did to Pelo, but there was an emotional plateau that holds throughout Morehappyness, which grows sufficiently chilly enough that one reviewer accused it of slipping into “insular cocktail electronica.”
Rounding out the trilogy was 2008’s synth-fueled Little Happyness (Minty Fresh), which was produced by John McEntire (The Sea & Cake) and drew the most critical accolades since Pelo. As with the previous albums in the set, and dating through their entire catalog, the Navin’s were lauded critically as much for their precision as for their strange dismissal of rock & roll daring.
The band is the subject of Patrick McGuinn's documentary film The Pursuit of Happyness.
Though the band has never enjoyed tremendous commercial success, The Aluminum Group continues to release infinitely clean electro-pop music that helps define the indie-rock scene’s whole, in Chicago and otherwise.
