When Josh Siegel confided to one of his Berklee professors that he was dropping out to move home and start a band, that professor had one response: “don’t procrastinate.” A Craigslist ad went up immediately upon Siegel’s return to Chicago:

Do you consider Radiohead to be soul music?
Do you hear Muddy Waters in between the notes on the White Album?

Drummer Ren Mathew, newly liberated from a dissolving power-pop outfit, answered the ad. The two ambled through Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue,” talked about their shared love of Bernard Purdie, and Bailiff was born.

The band’s earliest musical efforts borrowed heavily from American blues and the British Invasion – snippets of John Lee Hooker and John Bonham swirling in and out of a foreboding rock miasma.

After years of collaborating with a rotating cast of supporting sidemen, in 2012 Mathew and Siegel recruited NYC transplant and multi-instrumentalist Owen O’Malley to the official roster. Fast forward through eight months of songwriting boot camp (with mentors Dan Smart and Jon Alvin) and a $16k-raising Kickstarter campaign, Bailiff kicked off production on their second LP – entitled Remise – in April of 2013. Bunkered in a sub-suburban studio with engineering wunderkind Beau Sorenson (Death Cab for Cutie, Superchunk, Bob Mould), the band spent two weeks forging their most eclectic work to date. Remise is imbued with flourishes of West African blues, Celtic folk, and jagged electro-pop, while reaffirming Bailiff’s knack for writing a durable hook.

Remise will be released on April 22nd.

‘Remise’ LP Tracklisting

1. Lookin’ Away
2. Helicopter
3. Build It Again
4. Love Like Mine
5. Out of the Blue
6. Shake My Heart Awake
7. Golden Hour
8. Head in the Clouds
9. You and I

04.10 – St. Louis, MO – Off Broadway
04.11 – Kansas City, MO – Czar Bar
04.18 – Chicago, IL – 1st Ward (Album Release Show)
06.18 –  06.22 -Toronto, ON – NXNE

http://bailiffmusic.com/