FACS use minimalism and space to create abstract and modern art rock. Playing dark, propulsive music that stands at the intersection of post-punk and post-rock, Facs formed from the ashes of the like-minded Chicago outfit Disappears. They stripped their music down to its starkest rhythmic foundations on their 2018 debut Negative Houses, then added more experimentation and melody on 2020's Void Moments and the following year's Present Tense.

The band formed in late 2016, when Disappears bassist Damon Carruesco left to concentrate on his visual art and his electronic project Tüth. The group's remaining members -- guitarist/vocalist Brian Case, guitarist Jonathan Van Herik, and drummer Noah Leger -- wanted to keep making music together, so Case switched to bass and the trio rechristened itself Facs. After posting demos online, the band signed to Trouble in Mind and recorded their debut album, Negative Houses, at Chicago's Electrical Audio studio with John Congleton in June 2017.

Shortly before the release of Negative Houses in March 2018, Van Herik left Facs. Case then returned to guitar, and the band looked to an old friend, former We Regazzi drummer Alianna Kalaba, to take over on bass. To make their second album, Facs reunited with Congleton and also worked with Jeremy Lemos, the other half of Case's electronic project Acteurs. Focusing on the interplay between Kalaba and Leger -- as well as Case's mercurial guitar textures -- Lifelike appeared in March 2019. The band's melodic undercurrents came to the surface on Void Moments, which Trouble in Mind released in March 2020. At the end of the year, Facs returned to the studio, working with engineer Sanford Parker at Electrical Audio and taking a more spontaneous approach to the creative process. Their fittingly unpredictable fourth album, Present Tense, appeared in May 2021.

Biography by Heather Phares
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