Receive Weekly Email and Text Message Updates:
Sign up for latest info on concerts, dining, promotions and more!
Go!

Most Popular

Reader's Picks

Top Recommendations

A short list of St. Louis's most popular hot spots.
user content provided by: LikeMe.net & Riverfront Times

National Features >

  • City Pages

    Michele Bachmann, Unmuzzled

    You don't need to read Sarah Palin's book to hear the ravings of a mad woman.

    By Matt Snyders

  • Miami New Times

    Pimp Daddy

    The rise and fall of a chubby sex-cult leader.

    By Natalie O'Neill

  • Dallas Observer

    The Fight for Texas

    Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison are locked in a battle over the soul of the GOP. They're also running for governor.

    By Sam Merten

Ilya

Thursday, June 24; Rocket Bar

Share

  • rss

By Jordan Harper

Published on June 23, 2004

Remember trip-hop? The aching, sonorous music was everywhere a few years ago. Owners of trendy bars and makers of car commercials employed the sparse beats and slinky danger of bands such as Massive Attack and Portishead to give themselves a sheen of sophistication. But then sophistication was out again, and people looking for late-night romance music turned back to Radiohead and sad sacks with guitars. And where the hell is Portishead these days?

Well, maybe it's time for a comeback. Ilya certainly seems to think so. They've got all the important signifiers of the genre in place: spooky, sexy and smoky female vocals (this time from the unlikely monikered Blanca Rojas), smooth, threatening melodies and a languorous, sensual beat. It's music to smoke opium to, but don't try that at the Rocket Bar this Thursday. Best to order something powerful, smoke your cigarettes and enjoy a feeling of decadent sophistication. With Ilya's new record, They Died for Beauty, out on EMI, it's just a matter of time before the car commercials latch on and ruin the whole thing again.