bio
Ian Wilson is a keyboard-based loop artist from Chicago, filling the vacancy between singer-songwriter and band with piano-centric electronica and a lyricism both dark and humorous.
In 2008, Ian released his debut studio recording, The Crater EP, a fusion of classically deviant piano and wry, good-natured brooding. The influence of the queer music canon—artists like Tori Amos and the Magnetic Fields—is easily heard in The Crater, and the tight-knit queer music scene in Chicago was fast to bring Ian into the fold. The Crater earned recommendations from the Windy City Times and EDGE Chicago, the nationally-featured Feast of Fun podcast, and a place on Outvoice.net’s Top 10 LGBT Charts. But to resist the cabaret labels associated with “gay boy + piano,” he introduced a loop pedal to his keyboards, following the influence of prototypical loop artists such as Owen Pallett, Andrew Bird, and Zoe Keating. Like this new breed of singer-songwriters, Ian had a classical training in theory and composition to draw upon, enabling one performer to produce the same fullness of sound as an entire band.
Following The Crater’s release, Ian spent two years with Canasta, an orchestral-pop sextet and one of Chicago’s best-known bands. Ian’s numerous performances with Canasta included a slot at the CMJ Music Marathon, live radio and TV performances on WBEZ’s Eight-Forty Eight and WTTW’s Chicago Tonight, and frequent shows with nationally touring acts like White Rabbits, Hello Seahorse! and Clem Snide. Ian was one of three new members that joined in the spring of 2008, and the dramatic lineup change evolved into a burlier and more eclectic incarnation of ork-pop, culminating in the band’s second LP, The Fakeout, the Tease and the Breather (RWIM Chicago, 2010). The album was released in May 2010 to two sold-out shows at Schubas (Chicago, IL) and a wave of critical superlatives including “one of the best Chicago albums of the year” (Matt Pais, Chicago Red Eye) and “so perfect…that you’ll swear you’ve heard it before” (Monica Kendrick, Chicago Reader).
Always the social butterfly, Ian can also be seen in the local performing arts scene. Most recently he has appearaed as a guest recording and performing artist for Chicago Tap Theater and in the pit band for Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus, one of the city’s largest community arts organizations. He teaches keyboards, voice, and songwriting at the Chicago School of Rock, the nation’s premiere educational institution for the corruption of well-mannered and quiet children.