Damon Locks and Wayne Montana spent the ’90s in the underrated Trenchmouth, helping push the post-rock juggernaut built by pals like Tortoise and others forward into the new millennium. So far, they’ve spent the 21st century tearing down cozy genre classifications altogether as the brains behind The Eternals.

“By the time Trenchmouth finished,” confesses Locks, “we had already become disinterested in playing rock-based music. When The Eternals started, it was our chance to create something different, something we had not heard before.”

Montana agrees. “Concepts of sound manipulation and arrangement needed to change. So we changed them for ourselves.”

That’s for sure. So far, The Eternals have released two mind-fucking full-lengths–including their palindrome-rich 2004 effort Rawar Style–as well as a flurry of singles on outer-sound giant Thrill Jockey. Up next is an international tour (including a coveted slot on the All Tomorrow’s Parties’ UK installment), a remix EP featuring badasses like Prefuse 73 and A Grape Dope and a new full-length, not to mention a new 7″ courtesy of Gold Standard Labs, the Cali-based indie label co-owned by Mars Volta’s Omar Rodriguez-Lopez.

The incest of the whole thing is enough to make you sweat, but that’s the way Locks and Montana like it. They’ve got friends left and right in Chicago’s insanely fertile experimental scene, and they’ve got nothing but love for them all.

“Chicago is definitely the brain-drain of the Midwest,” explains Locks. “The best from all around end up here, and I try to interact with every last one of them. The musicians I’ve met from Chicago have a hard-working aesthetic like no other.”