The original soundtrack performed by Tomeka Reid & co. for the critically-acclaimed, feature-length 2014 documentary, Hairy Who and The Chicago Imagists, directed by Leslie Buchbinder of Pentimenti Productions.

Hairy Who and the Chicago Imagists is a lavishly-illustrated romp through Chicago's art history, and the first film to tell the Imagists’ whole story. The narrative begins with the artists' explosion onto the scene in the 1960s, follows their precipitous fade from prominence in the 1980s and '90s, and concludes with their 21st century resurgence in popularity. Over the last 50 years, the Imagists have influenced generations of artists, including contemporary figures like Jeff Koons, Chris Ware, Kerry James Marshall, Peter Doig, and Gary Panter. The Imagists' roller-coaster ride through art history is re-created in this film with a wealth of archival footage and photographs, and over forty interviews with the Imagists themselves, critics, curators, collectors, and contemporary artists.

Chicago-based cellist and composer Tomeka Reid, a mainstay on the Windy City scene and an important contemporary member of the A.A.C.M., was commissioned to create original music for the first documentary to chronicle the Imagists, Chicago’s hometown post-surrealists who exhibited together starting in the mid-1960s. Reid composed theme music for the film and made a wide range of multi-track improvisations based on moods, creating a tableau from which the film drew as it unwound the artists’ circuitous tale. For the CD, Reid returned to the studio to make new versions of some of the tracks and to transform the extant material into a fully realized suite of music. It retains a sense of light-heartedness and depth, whimsy and melancholy, adding voice and percussion to her indelible cello.

Released in collaboration with Corbett VS Dempsey. Design by Sonnenzimmer. 

Credits

Tomeka Reid - Cello, vocals
Kiara Lamier - Vocals on tracks 12 and 19
Adam Vida - Percussion

Compositions by Tomeka Reid 2013 (ASCAP)
Improvisations by Tomeka Reid and Adam Vida 2014

Recorded May 2013, April-May 2014
Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Alex Inglizian at Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago, IL

John Corbett - Musical Advisor
Sonnenzimmer - Design