Four decades after they formed, Chicago’s ONO are about to release their eighth album Red Summer. Two of the band’s co-founders, poet and performance artist travis and bassist and composer P Michael, remain at the core of their current line-up, joined by American Dreams label founder and vocalist Jordan Reyes. The record also features Rebecca Pavlatos on vocals and keys, Connor Tomaka on samplers and electronics, Ben Karas and Ben Billington on drums and percussion, Dawei Wang on guitar and Shannon Rose Riley on vocals and saxophone.

The term Red Summer typically refers to the summer of 1919, when race-driven violence broke out across the continent, taking in various cities including Chicago. The summer also saw the Elaine Massacre in Phillips County, Arkansas – “by far the deadliest racial confrontation in Arkansas history and possibly the bloodiest racial conflict in the history of the United States”, according to the Encyclopedia Of Arkansas. In ONO's latest recording, frontman travis's lyrics reference these events as well as his own personal experiences “from the position of the politics of blackness”, as he put it to Dave Segal in The Wire 435. “We’re talking about a lot of tough things,” adds Reyes. “You gotta be able to deal with history – especially history that’s not taught in whitewashed schools. You’re gonna learn a lot very quickly.”

Red Summer is released on 1 May by American Dreams. Read the full ONO story in The Wire 435. Subscribers can access the article via the online archive.