Matt Priest of House Call Entertainment, Inc. assumed the talent buying duties at Beat Kitchen back in September with a simple goal in mind: to re-establish it as one of the Chicago live music scene’s ‘greatest assets.’ His first step toward achieving that goal was booking this week’s Chicago Pop Renaissance, a four-day festival featuring 16 of the city’s most noteworthy indie-pop bands.

Things kick off Wednesday night with Priest’s own band, Canasta, headlining a line-up that also includes Branches, Palaxy Tracks, and The Lesser Scene. Canasta’s blissful chamber pop has garnered the six-piece group a lot of attention from local media outlets including IE, which included the band on last year’s ‘Best Of Around Hear’ list and showcase. Canasta’s debut EP, Find The Time, is driven by keyboard pop, but the band cleverly uses nearly every instrument it can get its hands on. Recently, the group made a successful debut at the CMJ Music Marathon in New York City, and if all goes as planned it should be in the studio by year’s end working on its eagerly anticipated full-length.

— Trevor Fisher, Illinois Entertainer, December, 2004