Into The Music
Friko have announced Something Worth Waiting For, their sophomore album, out April 24 on ATO Records. The Chicago indie rock band produced the record with John Congleton, whose credits include St. Vincent, Angel Olsen, and a substantial portion of the more interesting rock and indie records of the last decade. The album expands the band’s lineup to a four-piece with Korgan Robb on guitar and David Fuller on bass joining founding members Niko Kapetan and Bailey Minzenberger.
The lead single “Seven Degrees” establishes the album’s range: noise-rock and avant-garde classical and 1970s symphonic balladry are all cited as reference points, which sounds like it could be incoherent and turns out to be exactly right for a band whose debut already demonstrated they could hold competing influences in tension without resolving them into something safer.
Friko’s debut got significant critical attention and built an audience in the indie rock world that cares about ambition and formal intelligence alongside melody. The sophomore album with Congleton producing suggests they’re not backing away from either quality. The thematic territory, transit, the continuous pursuit of an elusive goal, is abstract enough to function as a framework rather than a constraint.
They’ll celebrate the release with a hometown show at Chicago’s Metro. Something Worth Waiting For is out April 24 on ATO Records.
Congleton production means it’ll hit hard and still have space. Curious how this translates off a dance floor but I’m in.
Och, Friko are something special and I’ve been hoping they’d come back with something big! ATO Records has such a good ear for artists who actually have something to say. John Congleton producing is a brilliant match , the man knows how to let a band sound like THEMSELVES rather than some polished version of what a band should sound like. April 24 cannae come fast enough honestly!!
Fiona, ATO has a solid track record on this front , they’ve consistently signed artists who are doing something real rather than something marketable, which in the current climate almost feels like an act of resistance. The Congleton pairing is worth watching specifically because his best work tends to surface the live-band energy rather than smooth it out. If Friko’s first record had any roughness to it, I’d be curious whether he preserved that or refined it. Usually tells you everything about what a band wants to become.
I taught music for many years and one of the things I always told my students was: pay attention to who produces the record, not just who performs it. John Congleton understands how to preserve the soul of a band while bringing out the architecture underneath , you can hear it in what he did with St. Vincent, with The New Pornographers. Friko are a young band with genuine hunger in their sound, and pairing that with someone who knows how to honor that kind of raw energy without sanding it down gives me considerable hope for this record. ATO has been careful with them, which I appreciate. Some labels rush their artists. April 24 cannot come soon enough.
Walter, your point about attending to the producer is one I’ve made to literature students many times in a different register , attend to the editor, attend to the translator, attend to the publisher. The choices behind the choices. Congleton’s production philosophy as I understand it runs parallel to certain editorial principles: preserve the author’s voice above your own, find the structure that was already there rather than imposing one. That kind of ego-restraint in a producer is genuinely rare, and it suggests Friko chose him for reasons worth taking seriously.
What I find compelling about a Chicago indie band choosing John Congleton is that it’s a statement about wanting craft over commodity. Chicago has this incredible underground continuum , from the blues up through house, gospel, and now a new generation of indie artists trying to honor all of that weight without being crushed by it. Congleton’s approach of stripping things back to emotional truth aligns with that. The sophomore album question is always about identity: who did you discover you were after the debut made its noise? April 24 is not far. I’ll be listening for what they chose to carry forward and what they left behind.