The new EP Dream Void from Chicago-based drummer and experimental musician William Covert is out July 25th via Coup sur Coup Records. Its first single, “Ghosts of the Civil Dead,” premieres today and marks the debut of the William Covert Trio—Covert on drums, Nathan Schenck (Coma Regalia, Charmed Form) on bass, and Jack McKevitt (ex-Split Tongue with Seb Alvarez of meth.) on guitar.
Recorded live in the studio with no overdubs, the track carries the kind of jagged tension and rhythmic abrasion familiar to fans of Swans, Hella, and Shellac.
The trio’s approach is rooted in an aggressive improvisational ethos, where the energy is raw and the structure is loose but deliberate. “Ghosts of the Civil Dead” leans into the lineage of avant-garde noise rock, while pulling equally from the vocabulary of experimental jazz and the downtown sensibilities of John Zorn.
“The song was recorded live in the studio with no overdubs and is influenced by the avant-garde noise rock of bands like Swans, Shellac, and Hella as much as experimental free-jazz and the music of John Zorn,” Covert said.
For Covert, this EP reflects a new phase in a career shaped by Chicago’s underground scene.
Over the past fifteen years, he’s played drums in bands such as Space Blood, Droughts, The Eradicator, Rust Ring, Charmed Form, Wet Tropics, and Tum. His solo work has built on that background—often centered around live-looped guitar and synth layers, with jazz-inspired drum improvisations layered on top.
This isn’t his first foray into solo experimentation, but Dream Void marks a clear expansion of format and palette. Half of the EP’s tracks are full-band improvisations with the new trio, while the other half feature Covert performing alone—looping synths and guitars in real time, pairing them with math rock drumming and ambient textures.
“Inspired by the raw energy and dazzling technicality of bands like Don Caballero, Zombi, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra as well as the cinematic compositional prowess of John Carpenter and John Zorn,” Covert’s solo sets aim to blur the lines between live performance, structured composition, and textural sound design.
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His past two solo releases pushed into post-rock and synth-heavy territories, but Dream Void and the upcoming full-length Dream Vessel (planned for fall 2025) move even deeper into avant-garde territory. The trio’s tracks lean on minimalist noise-jazz and slowcore motifs, while the solo tracks lean ambient, shaped by modular synths and dreamy looped guitar lines—a nod to Frippertronics, processed through a post-industrial lens.
“The group is a vessel to allow Covert to experiment with combining abrasive noise rock with ambient, drone, and free-jazz textures in a band format,” he explains. It’s a straightforward description of a complex, often chaotic sonic environment where improvisation replaces narrative structure, and mood supersedes melody.
The William Covert Trio will feature on multiple tracks on the Dream Void EP. The group is not a side project but an integrated element of Covert’s evolving solo vision—one rooted as much in spontaneity as it is in intention. The live nature of the recordings underscores that ethos.
With “Ghosts of the Civil Dead,” Covert sets a tone that is both aggressive and exploratory—showing the path ahead without outlining every step. It’s an invitation into the process rather than the product.
