Category: Concert Preview

In 2020, Toronto-based Palestinian-Jordanian composer Shireen Abu Khader founded Dozan World—an offshoot of Dozan wa Awtar Music Establishment, the celebrated choir she established in 2002—as a hub for Levantine composers to share their music. Local chamber-music nonprofit Crossing Borders Music, which specializes in Western classical works by non-Western composers, most recently visited the Dozan catalog […]

London trio Bar Italia formed in 2019, and though the world of live music screeched to a halt the following year, they powered through by writing and recording at full steam. They released their studio debut, Quarrel, in September 2020, showcasing an understated sound that joined lo-fi postpunk with indie-pop experimentation redolent of the 80s […]

Mavis Staples is more rock ’n’ roll than any of us. Who else declined a marriage proposal from Bob Dylan in the early 60s because she felt she was too young to be tied down? Who else got divorced less than a year after getting hitched in 1964 because she refused to quit singing at […]

For nearly as long as free improvisation has been a musical practice, improvising artists have engaged in collective action to build outlets for their creative expression. Catalytic Sound was formed in 2012 by 30 musicians from Europe and the United States who recognized the necessity to have a shared platform for disseminating information and selling […]

The art-rock of Mandy, Indiana conjures the spirit of May 1968, when French students and workers spent seven weeks in an orgiastic, decentralized uprising against capitalism and state violence. That’s partly because vocalist Valentine Caulfield uses French lyrics to deliver brutal indictments of patriarchy, imperialism, and white supremacy. But it also comes from the unmistakable […]

When Eartheater sings, her voice carries like pollen and decaying floral tendrils adrift in a rush of hot wind. The New York-based multidisciplinary artist debuted in 2015 with two releases (Metalepsis and RIP Chrysalis) on local avant-garde electronic label Hausu Mountain. She’s gone on to become one of the biggest names in art-pop, and in […]

Chicago rapper Doso caught my attention four years ago by tinkering confidently and smoothly with a variety of instrumental styles, and he plays up that skill on October’s Safe Travels (A Rugged Interest, Inc.). He raps over minimal nu-funk (“Holding on Loosely”), sleek and frictionless pop punk (“Upside Down”), and a sentimental ballad built atop […]

Chicago rapper Jay Wood has gained a foothold in the local scene with his work on the mike, but his production prowess is what distinguishes his new self-released EP, Nowhere, Fast. His svelte, sturdy instrumentals contain his voice as snugly as an opulent picture frame, ornamented to amplify the character of his performances. On “Homesick,” […]

Chicago has no shortage of great bands who could’ve found more commercial success and built entirely different legacies were it not for poor timing, a particularly unlucky tour, or any of the other variables that make pursuing art under capitalism so exhausting and difficult. I don’t begrudge the members of Cafe Racer for calling it […]

Update: November 20, 2023. 6:55 PM. The family of Mars Williams announced that he had succumbed to cancer. The concert will continue as a celebration of life. Rest in peace. For more than four decades, saxophonist Mars Williams has been a cornerstone of the Chicago jazz scene. In his youth, he studied with the Association […]

Last month at the ChiTown Movies drive-in, Chicago art-pop musician Sen Morimoto hosted a listening party for his new third album, Diagnosis (City Slang/Sooper), that included a screening of Brian De Palma’s 1974 florid horror-comedy rock opera, Phantom of the Paradise. De Palma’s sui generis skewering of the music industry—of how its financial imperatives corrode […]

The songs of Chicago rapper Noname feel like opening a door into a roomful of friends who are already hours into an all-consuming conversation. Throughout her self-released new third full-length, Sundial, she cracks jokes, asks questions about race and Blackness that you’ll need to sit with, thinks out loud about how her skills create demand […]

Chicago hip-hop producer Lapgan, real name Gaurav Nagpal, samples and blends music from the South Asian diaspora—which has helped him learn more about the breadth and depth of music from the Indian subcontinent. On his most recent trip to India to visit family, Lapgan met a vital collaborator, voracious music collector Nishant Mittal, who runs […]

Femi Adigun, aka Chicago rapper Femdot (styled as femdot.) delivers his quicksilver raps with a smooth confidence that draws me in like a giant horseshoe magnet in an old cartoon. Lately I’ve mostly thought about one particular track from his September release Free Samples Vol. 2 (Delacreme Music Group): “Missy Elliott,” which reminds me less […]