Live at The Empty Bottle in Chicago: Improvement Movement / Jalen Reyes

Doors: 8PM / Show: 9PM / 21+Improvement Movement, the social betterment campaign/prog-rock quartet/non-denominational cult from Atlanta, GA, have made a new record just for you and your modern day malaise. Its called Your Perfect Real Life, because, well, theres a lot going right these days, right? Arriving August 21, 2026 via ATO Records, Your Perfect Real Life is prismatic, angular, jumpy, and eccentric. Its sure to inundate your ears, corporeal form, and spiritual body with equal parts unadulterated bliss and realist catharsis, or, in other words, as much good as you can reasonably feel these days. Set in a world of chaos where the news seems to be perpetually recounting stories of planes falling out of the sky, urban wildfires, the uncanny nature of a southern snowfall, and schlepping ads that feel plucked from a sci-fi movie, Your Perfect Real Life makes an earnest case for embracing lifes relentless unpredictability. Animated by the bands baroque take on the angular harmonies of grunge, the records eleven tracks sprawl and simmer, enlivened by the Improvement Movements novel employment of dynamics, sticky melodies, four-part harmony, and a treasure trove of experimental instruments. If youve ever found yourself enraptured by the lush harmonies of Fleet Foxes, the theatrics of early Genesis tracks, or the candid intimacy of Art Garfunkel, Improvement Movement may be for you. Improvement Movement is a democracy, and so they say, things move slow. That may be true for the internal machinations of the band, but their output has been quite regular. Each member of the band, who have largely been eschewing definition, are songwriters and instrumentalists who have spent the better part of a decade in the fertile DIY scene in Atlanta, GA. In that time theyve been swirling, relatively undisrupted, in their own primordial ooze and rubbing elbows with folks from the no wave, punk, improv, and free jazz scenes. Atlanta is about as DIY as it gets, they say. Weve got some of the most killing musicians in the world all spread out on these kinds of islands of urbanization. Theres always something new. That said, the band hasnt been in Atlanta much lately; they were on the road relentlessly over the last two years, supporting Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Iron It was a gauntlet, trying to live day by day. There was no room for anything with too much premeditation.