Chicago composer and musician Joshua Abrams likes to compare the guimbri (aka gimbri, guembri, or sintir), a traditional three-string bass lute associated with Morocco’s Gnawa people, to the Roland TR-808, an early-80s drum machine that became foundational to hip-hop, Chicago house, and a long list of other genres. “Sometimes I’ll joke that it’s the original 808, because it has a percussive skin mixed with a bass tone,” Abrams says. “It has a strong sub-bass too.”

Natural Information Society Fri 6/28, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 3111 N. Western, $15-$17. 18+

  • The Organic Music Society’s self-titled 1972 double album

In the Wire, Alvarado acknowledges the precedent of Moki’s colorful paintings and talismanic banners. Her article also includes a 1978 photo of a young drummer who’d recently started playing with Don, reclining on a couch in the Cherrys’ house in front of one such banner: Hamid Drake. Renowned for his work with Peter Brötzmann, Bill Laswell, William Parker, and Michael Zerang, among many others, Drake needs little introduction. Based in Chicago but active around the world, he’s been a key figure in the development of Natural Information Society—and not just because he’s one degree removed from the Cherrys. He’s contributed as both a spiritual guide and an active participant, joining the band onstage occasionally and playing on two of its albums, including the brand-new double LP Mandatory Reality, released April 12 by Eremite Records.

Represencing by Joshua Abrams

Simultonality by Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society

The balance of patient ensemble development and strategically complementary individual contributions that characterizes “Finite” is also evident on the album’s side-length opener, “In Memory’s Prism.” Abrams wrote it to soundtrack the film component of artist Simon Starling’s Project for a Rift Valley Crossing. “The film is of a canoe trip across the Rift Valley in a boat made of the magnesium derived from the water which it is traversing,” says Abrams. “That’s a beautiful metaphor for this music to accompany.”