Pitchfork

Mahjongg...whoa, now that name's a blast from the past. According to the Pitchfork Time Machine, May 2005 was when we last heard from the Chicago punk/funk (or "junkyard afro-new wave" as our own Pete Macia called it) party-starters. A whole year-and-a-half ago! That's, like, a decade in internet time.

Since then, Mahjongg have been laying low, but they haven't disappeared. In fact, they're gearing up for a busy 2007, working on their debut album for seminal indie label K Records.

Recently, Pitchfork spoke with multi-instrumentalist Hunter Husar about what he and his crew have been up to, including their signing to K.

"We are really excited to be on K," Husar said. "It's the best possible situation we could find ourselves in. Calvin [Johnson, K head honcho] is really nice. On a personal level, I found him to be an interesting guy."

Husar said that he hopes to release a 7" in the spring on K, and then an album later in the year. The 7" will feature the tracks "Problems" and "Those Birds Are Bats"; so far, the only album track title being floated is "Kottbusser Tor", named after "a place in East Berlin where you get drugs," according to Husar.

Not that he'd know anything about that, right? "No. Nothing."

Mahjongg shrank from a five-piece to a quartet between the last record and the current one, as multi-instrumentalist Karyl Czientzar left the band. ("We're a fucking boy band now!" said Husar.)

Another factor affecting the creation of the new record was the fact that the band has its own studio. "It's not like we have to go to another studio where we have to make deadlines," Husar said. "The plus is we get to take our time. The minus is that we take too much time. Everything else we've done we have recorded at home pretty much and then did a little bit of tracking in various local studios. The difference now is that we have our own studio and our own engineer and our own tape machine and everything. So we just totally get to control everything.

"As far as writing, we've taken a lot longer 'cause we are all involved in lots of projects and stuff. In a sense, [the new album] is a compilation of what we've been doing in the last year and a half."

Husar added, "I think that as we move on in life we develop a more unique sound...It gets better and better as time goes along...I think it's a more definite sound. We've never been so happy with our recording in general than with the stuff we are working on now."

As they prepare their K debut, the members of Mahjongg are also keeping busy with various side hustles, including the bands Waterbabies and Lando Mondo. Both will perform, as Lando Mondo versus Waterbabies, at Chicago's Empty Bottle on New Year's Eve, opening for Girl Talk. That shit is gonna be insane.