Friko

Friko is Niko Kapetan and Bailey Minzenberger, Chicago musicians who met at the DePaul University music program and formed a band that grew steadily through the Chicago indie scene before their 2024 debut Where We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here earned them national attention.

The debut’s range was the first signal that they weren’t content with any particular stylistic lane. Art rock and classical influence and straightforward guitar indie coexisted without feeling like a genre collage. Kapetan’s voice and the songwriting’s genuine emotional directness kept the ambition from becoming indulgent.

Chicago has a particular indie rock tradition that Friko fits into: the city has consistently produced bands that are more interested in ambition and formal experiment than in fitting the coastal indie profile. Tortoise, Wilco at their most adventurous, the post-rock scene, and now bands like Friko and their contemporaries, are all products of a city that takes music seriously without needing to be cool about it.

The expansion to a four-piece for Something Worth Waiting For and the addition of John Congleton as producer suggests a band that’s deliberately investing in the infrastructure for whatever comes next rather than consolidating what worked on the debut.

Something Worth Waiting For is out April 24 on ATO Records.