Resavoir, the experimental jazz project of Chicago multi-instrumentalist and producer Will Miller, returned this month with a new self-titled album on local label International Anthem. As with Resavoir’s 2019 debut, Miller conceived and largely produced the material alone in his home, and the recordings feature contributions from friends and fellow Chicago musicians—among them guitarist and […]

The post Will Miller’s Resavoir makes a serene return with a new self-titled album appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 […]

The post Reflection, resilience, and now remembrance in Crossing Borders Music’s focus on Arab string quartets appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 […]

The post Bar Italia create a stir with low-key minimalist indie pop appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 […]

The post Hometown hero Mavis Staples provides inspiration at Cahn Auditorium appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 post Improvised music co-op Catalytic Sound holds its fourth annual festival in five cities, including Chicago appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 […]

The post Mandy, Indiana conjure the punk-rock city we’d be thrilled to live in appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 […]

The post Multidisciplinary artist Eartheater explores rebirth and transformation on <i>Powders</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 […]

The post OutPastMidnight and Doso show Chicago hip-hop’s newest dimensions at Gman appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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,” […]

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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 […]

The post Chicago indie rockers Cafe Racer say farewell with help from local punks Edging appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 […]

The post An all-star bill gathers at Metro to support saxophonist Mars Williams appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 post Sen Morimoto’s <i>Diagnosis</i> points to an antidote for our rotten times appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 […]

The post Noname brings the intimate conversations of <i>Sundial</i> to the Vic appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 […]

The post Lapgan borrows from South Asian music for idiosyncratic hip-hop instrumentals appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Whether playing straightedge powerviolence in their early days or making Godflesh-inspired death metal on 2018’s Rust, Harm’s Way have always been incredibly heavy, aggressive, and mean as hell. In September, the Chicago metalcore outfit released their fifth full-length, Common Suffering (their second for venerable extreme label Metal Blade), where they double down on groovy, industrial-flavored […]

The post Local metalcore masters Harm’s Way welcome <i>Common Suffering</i> alongside a reunited Weekend Nachos appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 […]

The post Femdot’s <i>Free Samples</i> has all the suave and speedy raps you need appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Pauli the PSM is saucy—and he knows it. He’s an influential figure in the British music industry and a professional hottie who’s consciously taken his sweet time building a solo career. He entered the field as Pauli Lovejoy after winning the UK’s Young Drummer of the Year award in 2005. He’s gone on to be […]

The post Pauli the PSM brings tenderness and pleasure to Lincoln Hall appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Anyone who’s ever told you to keep your eye on the ball has clearly never been hit by a bat. El Kempner, who makes music as Palehound, has learned the lesson instilled in me during a decade of midwestern softball: the importance of staying vigilant toward potential dangers and adversaries in your midst. “Suckers will […]

The post Palehound bring the heavy-hitting breakup album <i>Eye on the Bat</i> to the Empty Bottle appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The influence that composer and musician La Monte Young has exerted far exceeds the size of his slender and erratically available discography. Born in 1935, he presented some of his early compositions at a concert series he programmed at Yoko Ono’s loft in 1960, and they helped shape minimalist composition and conceptual art. He accidentally […]

The post Fulcrum Point presents the midwest premiere of La Monte Young’s <i>The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

New York dance DJs and producers DJ Swisha and Kush Jones befriended each other through Soundcloud, but they soon became part of the same footwork-loving collective, the Juke Bounce Werk crew. Their collaborative tracks thrum with giddy looseness and always feel like they could change shape at a moment’s notice. In February, they self-released (Respectfully), […]

The post DJ Swisha and Kush Jones find heaven in footwork appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Slow Pulp have been through a lot. First, lyricist and lead vocalist Emily Massey was diagnosed with Lyme disease and chronic mononucleosis. Next, the pandemic hit. Then, as the four-piece band, which formed in Madison before moving to Chicago in 2018, worked on their debut LP, 2020’s Moveys, Massey’s parents were injured in a serious […]

The post Chicago indie rockers Slow Pulp reveal their inner strength on the new <i>Yard</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Update Wed 11/8: New tickets have been released for all three shows. If you’re a Nine Inch Nails fan who has yet to heed the siren bark of Skinny Puppy, it’s not too late to fix your life. NIN came up in the scene opening for these Canadian industrial pioneers, and in a mid-90s interview with […]

The post Industrial pioneers Skinny Puppy bid farewell with a final tour appeared first on Chicago Reader.

During the great rock ’n’ roll explosion of the early 60s, American and British acts hogged much of the limelight, but people got together in their garages (or other informal spaces) and started bands around the world. Los Johnny Jets formed in 1964 in Tamaulipas, Mexico, and made sure that the “garage” sound took off […]

The post Mexican garage-rock greats Los Johnny Jets keep the spirit of the 60s alive appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Singer and guitarist Valerie June takes a broad-church approach to roots music. She incorporates elements of old-time, country, electric blues, rock, R&B, and neosoul into her vision of a single seamless American tradition. A big part of June’s secret is her distinctive voice, simultaneously nasal, rough, and dreamy, which recalls iconic singers such as Sara […]

The post Valerie June makes everything sound like old-time folk appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Omaha five-piece Bib play hardcore like the last survivor in a horror film, army crawling through the mud to escape something so nasty they don’t dare look back. On the August release Live in Liverpool (Convulse), Bib make their case as skilled purveyors of filth: they can use their collective brawn to stir up a […]

The post Omaha hardcore band Bib will drag you through the muck in fifth gear appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Ana Everling channels a world of music through her singing. Born in Moldova, she studied voice, piano, composition, and music theory at a conservatory, then went on to study jazz performance. But when she moved to Chicago in 2010, she put her music career on the back burner for years as she settled into her […]

The post Ana Everling proves the language of music is universal appeared first on Chicago Reader.

No one can accuse Awakebutstillinbed guitarist, vocalist, and bandleader Shannon Taylor of not knowing emo. Her fidelity to the genre’s traditional use of all-lowercase letters (she styles the band’s name and all its song and album titles that way, even though the Reader doesn’t) and her equally traditional omission of spaces between words ought to […]

The post Awakebutstillinbed know emo’s past and command its future appeared first on Chicago Reader.

It’s not difficult to find good live hip-hop in Chicago, but this headlining show by east-coast veteran Skyzoo, aka Gregory Skyler Taylor, isn’t merely good—it reads more like quintessential. The pedigreed Brooklyn-born rapper (he grew up a block away from the Notorious B.I.G.) has had a fruitful career. He’s dropped more than 20 albums and […]

The post Skyzoo’s <i>The Mind of a Saint</i> tour offers concertgoers a hip-hop master class appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When UK noise pioneers Throbbing Gristle filed their terminal report in the early 1980s, a legion of followers stood willing to continue the industrial collective’s research into humanity’s less comfortable impulses. Among those who took up the investigation was Elgin resident Dan Burke, who dubbed his own project Illusion of Safety. Early on, his combinations […]

The post Illusion of Safety celebrates 40 years of sonic confrontation appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chicago percussionist Daniel Villarreal is such a workhorse that his CV wouldn’t fit in a concert preview like this. But I think I can get my point across just by mentioning his role as cofounder and coleader of local Latine five-piece Dos Santos: Villarreal has a gift for rhythms that command your body to move. […]

The post Chicago percussionist Daniel Villarreal celebrates a chill new album appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Superstars keep calling on Sampha. Perhaps you’ve heard his vocals and piano on one of the many features he’s done for Drake, or maybe you caught his 2022 duet with Kendrick Lamar on SNL. The UK musician has been a coveted musical collaborator since his 2011 tracks with Jessie Ware and SBTRKT. His gentle tenor […]

The post Sampha returns to Chicago in support of his sophomore solo album, <i>Lahai</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The folks at Last Rites know that if you’re going to launch a metal festival, you better have an irreplaceable Rolodex. For the debut of Heavy Chicago, these veteran local underground rock promoters have booked some huge out-of-town headliners whose histories go back to the early 1980s: sludgy riff masters Corrosion of Conformity (Saturday, November […]

The post The Heavy Chicago fest debuts with Trouble’s first local show in five years appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Geneva Jacuzzi is like if Nina Hagen grew up in a doomsday cult. (And Jacuzzi did, in fact, grow up in a doomsday cult.) In a 2020 interview with Genius List, the Los Angeles-based artist explained her love of jacuzzis, describing them as “these tiny, weird, warm whirlpools of bacteria, chemicals, pleasure, and relaxation.” She […]

The post Geneva Jacuzzi is a vibrant goth weirdo appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Five years ago, the Hideout’s talent booker at the time, Sullivan Davis, teamed up with producer and musician Dorian Gehrig to start the Cosmic Country Showcase. Their dream was to bring to life Gram Parsons’s philosophy of a welcoming, expansive, and absolutely trippy form of country music, freed of its hidebound and less imaginative old […]

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Mike Reed thinks big. He’s an accomplished organizer who helped conceive the Pitchfork Music Festival. His two venues, the Hungry Brain and Constellation, serve not only to support the local creative-music community but also to foster a dialogue between it and similar scenes in other states and abroad. And when he turns to leading a […]

The post Mike Reed’s new ensemble the Separatist Party celebrate their debut LP appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Indie rocker Joseph Farago sings in a falsetto that can get nearly as high a teenager singing chipmunk style with a lungful of helium. He leads the band Joey Nebulous, which he formed as an Oberlin student in 2015, and he now lives in Chicago, where he’s also played in the bands Jodi and Tenci. […]

The post Chicago trio Joey Nebulous celebrate their wacky, heartfelt new indie-rock album at Schubas appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chicago band Deeper can translate chilly UK postpunk into a midwestern dialect—their music has lots of space and lakeshore bluster, and these guys have clearly spent uncounted hours packed into an unheated van driving to out-of-town gigs. Since issuing their 2020 breakthrough, Auto-Pain, Deeper have expanded their lineup from three to four with the addition […]

The post Deeper make cold postpunk shine bright on their Sub Pop debut appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chicago hasn’t always been welcoming of hip-hop. In the late 80s and early 90s, its artistic viability was often overlooked or ignored by local clubs and radio stations. That disregard lasted long enough that when Chicago hip-hop finally blew up internationally years later, many people were blindsided. But those in the know have always been […]

The post Chicago hip-hop godfather Duro Wicks celebrates his birthday with a bash to remember appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Messa’s music embodies all the classic elements of occult rock and doom: thick, heavy guitars; warm, sparse production; slow, spacious arrangements; and a powerhouse vocalist (in this case Sara Bianchin) who conjures a world of emotions with the turn of a phrase. But rather than stick with tradition, the Italian four-piece use it as a […]

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As Heartgaze, Clemente Calandra makes skewed underground pop songs that stitch together stiff-legged drum ’n’ bass breaks, nimble acoustic guitars with the raw vulnerability of mainstream emo, and shocks of feedback that smell like dimly lit basement noise shows. Born and raised in Argentina, Calandra created Heartgaze in Chile and then moved to Chicago in […]

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In 2021, Twitter user Benjamin Deshawn Hoard posted a photo of himself looking glum and out of sorts while sitting on a replica of SpongeBob SquarePants’s bed. His caption read, “I Shoulda Never Smoke That Shit Now Im At Spongebob House.” That joke launched a meme, where other posters would superimpose Hoard onto increasingly absurd […]

The post Draag Me’s warped pop feels like a roller-coaster you’re not tall enough to ride appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Popular music has plenty of upbeat anthems that celebrate the performer’s beauty and success—think Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable” or Olivia Rodrigo’s “All-American Bitch.” It also has lots of downbeat paeans to the performer’s pitifulness, a la Beck’s “Loser” or Radiohead’s “Creep.” Much less common are enthusiastic, danceable tracks that boast of the singer’s ugliness and smallness, which […]

The post Genesis Owusu makes ugly, beautiful funk for freedom appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When mathy metalcore bands such as the Dillinger Escape Plan, Converge, and Coalesce reigned supreme in the late 90s and early aughts, no one struck a balance between proggy virtuosity and hardcore aggression quite like scrappy Tacoma upstarts Botch. Formed in 1993 and disbanded in 2002, the four-piece never reached the crossover popularity of those […]

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Steve Krakow can’t be pinned down to one pursuit or even one name, and when he plans a festival, it creates its own niche. He performs music under the name Plastic Crimewave; he writes and draws about music for the Reader and his own publication, the Galactic Zoo Dossier; and he’s been organizing eclectic events […]

The post Cosmic folk meets playful grooves at weekend festival Astral Autumn Daze appeared first on Chicago Reader.

It’s rare for Chicago to have even one noteworthy Australian punk show, much less two in one night—the necessity to choose between them is an excellent problem to have. While protopunk five-piece Civic play the Empty Bottle with local postpunks Ganser, Queensland upstarts the Chats headline this package tour at the Vic. Formed in 2016, […]

The post Pub-rock greats Cosmic Psychos join forces with Aussie countrymen the Chats for a U.S. tour appeared first on Chicago Reader.

All sorts of classic American and British punk and garage rock have been revived and revived again to the point of cliché, but foundational Australian groups such as Radio Birdman, the Lime Spiders, the Scientists, and the Celibate Rifles still often go unsung outside their home country. Thankfully, rising artists from down under are connecting […]

The post Melbourne punk juggernauts Civic make their Chicago debut appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Marina Herlop’s primary interest is aesthetics. She’ll say her songs aren’t autobiographical, and the pianist’s penchant for dropping made-up language into digitally manipulated audio environments can make it difficult for listeners to ground her work in something familiar. But with enough scrutiny, you can follow clues that situate her evolving output within a number of […]

The post Experimental musician Marina Herlop beckons listeners into her world of language and sound appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Eris Drew’s debut album, 2021’s Quivering in Time, embeds lots of attention-grabbing details in its collagelike, psychedelic-tinged dance tracks—among them sounds of turntable scratching. There’s one near the end of “Time to Move Close,” after a slyly funky and somnolent synth melody guides listeners through six minutes of Hi-NRG percussive loops and several divergent synth […]

The post Chicago’s Viva Acid fest brings Eris Drew back to town appeared first on Chicago Reader.

If it hadn’t been for the COVID pandemic, power-poppy Kansas punk trio Get Smart! would’ve played a 40th-anniversary show—their first gig in three decades—in November 2020. That date ended up pushed back to November 2021, and luckily for us, it didn’t turn out to be a one-off affair. The band formed in Lawrence in 1980 […]

The post Get Smart! can teach you more about punk’s past in person appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Rami Atassi gets around: he’s a prolific music educator, a guitarist in local alt-rock projects the Curls and Ester, the bandleader of Blow Wind Blow, and a trusted collaborator of Chicago bassist Tatsu Aoki, with whom he recorded 2020’s criminally underrated duo album Atashi Wa Rami. But so far he’s never had the spotlight to […]

The post In the vast universe of cosmic jazz, Rami Atassi’s <i>Dancing Together</i> spins in its own orbit appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Update Tue 9/27: Young Fathers have postponed this show till April 11, 2024. The new date is also at the Vic, and all tickets already bought will be honored or refunded. For about a decade, Scottish trio Young Fathers have been releasing subterranean-sounding experimental hip-hop songs whose strange arrangements combine brawny percussion, squeaky synths, polyphonic […]

The post Scottish hip-hop group Young Fathers embrace their light on <i>Heavy Heavy</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Toronto-based black-metal trio Thantifaxath (whose members are deliberately anonymous) released a startling, unusual debut album, Sacred White Noise, in 2014. Since then, though, their recorded output has been tantalizingly sparse: just one EP in 2017. So their second full-length, Hive Mind Narcosis, which they released in June on Dark Descent, had plenty of time to […]

The post Thantifaxath and Sunless explore two different realms of metal appeared first on Chicago Reader.

I realize I’m in the minority when I say I love the days when autumn bleeds into winter. I love the crisp air that descends with the first seasonal chill; I love the smell of trees shedding the last of their leaves; I love that it all reminds me to embrace the warmth of cozy […]

The post Shoegaze pioneers Slowdive drop a new album just in time for the colder days ahead appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Update Fri 9/22: This concert has been canceled. According to the man himself, Reese LaFlare doesn’t get the credit he deserves—but the way things are going, that could change any minute. The rapper and record producer also known as Maurice Williams has been a more influential force in the modern Atlanta trap scene than many […]

The post Rapper and fashion mogul ​​Reese LaFlare is on his way to becoming a household name appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The earliest Spotify track uploaded by Indiana-raised singer-songwriter Delaney Bailey is the gentle 2020 song “Loving & Losing,” whose delicate, cycling acoustic guitar melody sounds like wind chimes in the breeze. Before the official release of the song, Bailey uploaded a TikTok video where she performs part of it in a dim, cluttered room. Lyrics […]

The post How do Delaney Bailey’s intimate songs speak to you? appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The Hyde Park Jazz Festival may bear the name of a single neighborhood, but it’s a world-class event. The programming draws heavily from local talent, but Chicagoans such as saxophonist Ari Brown and vocalist Dee Alexander have earned international profiles. And the performers from elsewhere include the likes of Detroit drummer Louis Hayes and Philadelphia […]

The post The Hyde Park Jazz Festival’s richly varied program opens doors to musical growth with new alliances appeared first on Chicago Reader.

This concert is something of a homecoming for Chicago blues guitarist and singer Melody Angel, who’s wrapping up the first major tour of her career in support of her latest self-released album, Indie Blues Girl, which came out in June. By Angel’s own account, the album represents an affirmation of identity and a celebration of […]

The post Melody Angel brings tough-minded, celebratory blues to Chicago Live! on Navy Pier appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The Cold Waves festival was founded in Chicago in 2012 as a memorial for local sound engineer and musician Jamie Duffy, who’d played in industrial groups Acumen Nation and DJ? Acucrack. It began as a one-day concert packed with the darkwave and industrial music that Duffy loved, and it raised money for his family and […]

The post Cold Waves XI presents four days of dark music to support mental health appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The Instigation Festival is a semiannual transcontinental series that unites improvising musicians and other artists from Chicago and New Orleans. As it makes its eighth return to the city, it’s become such a tradition that it could just as easily be called the Continuation Festival. Instigation’s programming is split between New Orleans and Chicago, and […]

The post Nurtured in two great jazz cities, the Instigation Festival celebrates the tradition’s adventurous offshoots appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Update Mon 9/11: Renée Baker’s Modern Black Music Ensemble have canceled their appearance at High Concept Labs on Fri 9/15. Audiovisual artist and turntablist Allen Moore will instead present selections from his project The Black Arcade. Chicago has its fair share of festivals that orbit within the solar system of contemporary classical music, including the […]

The post The Impromptu Fest celebrates classical music’s fringe with its most ambitious year yet appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In his own projects and his collaborations with others, tenor saxophonist and clarinetist Chris Speed often makes music with a compounded quality, as though he and his associates are trying to concentrate as much information as possible into the available space. Human Feel packed the divergent aesthetics of four strong players into each tune; Pachora […]

The post After ten years in action, the Chris Speed Trio gets to the gist appeared first on Chicago Reader.

For more than a decade, Chicago musician Haley Fohr, who also makes music as Circuit des Yeux, has been honing and expanding her craft. She’s taken her transcendent vocal explorations, art-rock ensembles, and live film scores to far-off places around the globe. Just when I thought I’d witnessed her lend her powerful four-octave voice to […]

The post Experimental musicians Bill Nace and Haley Fohr team up for two nights at the Hungry Brain appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chicago rock trio Dead Lucid self-released their debut, titled simply EP, in 2016, and since then they’ve tightened up their bedraggled, bluesy psych-rock style by borrowing from classic postpunk. On their self-released third EP, May’s Vision, they summon an austere composure to compress their former fuzz and fury into newly sparse arrangements. The EP’s best […]

The post Dead Lucid suture together postpunk and psych rock into tantalizing freak-outs appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Blk Odyssy is the brainchild of singer and producer Juwan Elcock, a New Jersey native who moved to Austin, Texas, in 2015. At first he explored Austin’s Americana scene, but then he carved out a niche in crooning, experimental neosoul rap, using the name Blk Odyssy. Working with guitarist Alejandro Rios, he’s transformed the project […]

The post Austin’s Blk Odyssy merges eclectic influences into a fresh take on Black music appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Khaliyah X has had a big year. The local R&B singer-songwriter has performed at Navy Pier and a Chicago Sky game, earned a spot in the spring-summer “Chicago Artists to Watch” list compiled by local digital publication These Days, and made a cameo in a Wilson Basketball commercial. This weekend she’ll join scenemates such as […]

The post Rising Chicago songwriter Khaliyah X makes herself known on ‘What’s My Name’ appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The Twins of Evil tour brings together two of the heaviest trios on the planet: Japanese shape-shifters Boris, whose nearly four dozen studio releases cover practically every heavy subgenre imaginable, and American sludge pioneers the Melvins, who are celebrating their 40th anniversary. Each group will play an iconic album from front to back. Boris will […]

The post Two of the planet’s heaviest trios team up for the Twins of Evil tour appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Update: Precocious Neophyte have canceled this September appearance. The band’s next scheduled show is Mon 10/2 at Cafe Mustache in support of Jyonson Tsu, current vocalist for Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso UFO. By 2021, I knew every dusty corner of my two-bedroom apartment so well—and my world during that stage of the […]

The post Precocious Neophyte’s home-recorded dream pop sounds bigger than the sky appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chicago four-piece the Trenchies combine self-aware bookishness with carefully controlled energy, which work together to give their whimsical indie rock its irresistible momentum—their songs can make you feel like your day is filled with unforeseen possibilities. On their self-released debut EP, March’s You Are Listening To, the Trenchies juggle goofy funk (“Talk Show”), slacker pop […]

The post The Trenchies will make you believe in indie rock’s future appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In Norse mythology, Gróa is a seer and a goddess of knowledge, but when you listen to the Icelandic trio who share her name, you’ll wonder if she isn’t a little punk rock too. Two teenage sisters, guitarist and vocalist Karólina Einarsdóttir and drummer Hrafnhildur Einarsdóttir, formed Gróa six years ago with a childhood friend, […]

The post Gróa share their high-octane punk spirit at a free Icelandic music showcase appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Time has only deepened the music community’s affection for Mort Garson’s 1976 flora-themed synth spectacular, Mother Earth’s Plantasia. In celebration of Garson’s enduring legacy, Empty Bottle Presents and Brooklyn label Sacred Bones have created a festival of lush sights and sounds at Garfield Park Conservatory. For the event’s fourth iteration, they’ve expanded Plantasia into a […]

The post Plantasia grows into a two-night affair at Garfield Park Conservatory appeared first on Chicago Reader.

By halfway through the summer, I’m reliably burned out on music festivals, and lots of them I wouldn’t attend even if I were still in tip-top shape. So you know that a festival is special if I’m willing to tell you to spend one of your dwindling number of precious summer weekends paying to hang […]

The post ARC Music Festival’s dance extravaganza is a hell of a way to send off summer appeared first on Chicago Reader.

This summer marks lucky 13 for Scorched Tundra, the smartly curated metal festival that Alexi Front launched in 2011 in Gothenburg, Sweden, and in 2016 began running in parallel in Chicago, which he considers Gothenburg’s metal-and-beer sister city. Though the pandemic clipped Scorched Tundra’s wings, it returned last year with a spectacular three-day lineup, and […]

The post The Scorched Tundra festival hits its lucky 13th year with a diverse battery of heavy sounds appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Local four-piece Ovef Ow have become darlings of Chicago’s indie-rock scene for their Farfisa- and guitar-driven hybrid of art-rock and punk. Their brand-new full-length debut, Vs. the Worm (released by local label What’s for Breakfast? and the band’s own Oort Clouds imprint), is a smart, topical, danceable concept album that’s more or less about the […]

The post Chicago indie rockers Ovef Ow merge reality and science fiction on the new <i>Vs. the Worm</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The Body’s music is a remorseless, seemingly eternal trudge of numbing night that frequently contorts itself into a bizarre festering eclecticism, then returns to its fetid, featureless form. Formed in Providence, Rhode Island, the duo of drummer and programmer Lee Buford and guitarist and screamer Chip King (who also supplies electronic weirdness) have proved ominously […]

The post The Body unleashes unpredictably predictable doom appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When Chicago teen four-piece Neptune’s Core formed in 2018, they wrestled with punk, indie rock, and power pop—sometimes it felt like they weren’t quite in control of their music, but the results were always at least interesting. They self-released their debut album, Can’t Have It All, in 2020, playing snaggletoothed melodies with enough feverish energy […]

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When Sara Curruchich makes her Chicago debut at the sixth edition of Chicago’s LatiNxt festival, the melodic syllables of the Kaqchikel Mayan language will ring out across Navy Pier for what might be the very first time. Curruchich is part a Kaqchikel Mayan community in Guatemala’s highlands, and she’s one of the first artists to […]

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Chicago Cultivate celebrates cannabis culture, specifically the longtime friendship between music and marijuana. The lineup at this three-day bud bash assembles elites from the worlds of reggae, hip-hop, punk, and rock and adds sponsorships and vendors from some of Chicago’s best local brands. For obvious reasons, it’s a 21+ event, and though cannabis won’t be […]

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Chicago rapper Demauris “D2x” Dixon performs like he insists on giving his absolute best to every facet of his life. Sometimes that pressure gets to him—when he races to squeeze a knotty, weighty lyric into an otherwise easygoing verse, for instance, he can disrupt his crisp flow and casual charisma. But there’s beauty even in […]

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Merce Lemon makes gentle indie rock that’s generous in its honesty and forthright in its storytelling. Since she was a child, she’s been a staple of the Pittsburgh DIY music scene, playing in bands such as the punky Two Dragons Black and Red, which she left when she was 12. She stepped away from music […]

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When a record comes out posthumously, it’s fair to wonder, “Is this really what the artist would have wanted?” But between the fanciful, sky-gazing birds on the sleeve of Jaimie Branch’s Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((World War)) and the rousing sounds in its grooves, the album feels like an authentic […]

The post <i>Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((World War))</i> offers a final glimpse of Jaimie Branch’s meteoric talent appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Damn near every rapper has aspirations of “changing the game,” selling out arenas, and dominating hip-hop, but Chance the Rapper has already done that and then some. What could I possibly write about the three-time Grammy winner that hasn’t already been written? What has Chance done that hasn’t gone viral? Even his supposed failures—the canceled […]

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Smushie main man Austin Koenigstein (also half of Chicago duo Berta Bigtoe) plays psych-leaning indie rock whose relaxed, sun-dappled melodies will convince you he’s figured out the secret to an unbothered life. Radiant keys, limber bass, loose and understated guitars, and cool, in-the-pocket drums float through Smushie’s latest album, June’s self-released Doofus Casanova, and Koenigstein […]

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London psychedelic chamber-pop outfit the Clientele have been making their hushed, literate songs for 32 years, evoking peers such as the Go-Betweens, the Left Banke, and Felt while maintaining their own baroque and brainy mystique. Earlier this year, they released an ambitious double LP, I Am Not There Anymore (Merge), which lead singer and guitarist […]

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When Something Is Waiting formed in 2016, the band consisted of five dudes whose stacked resumés included stints in several Chicago heavy favorites, and on their first few releases they focused on big, mean, chaos-bringing noise rock a la Unsane. Over the past few years, though, they’ve charted a new direction, trading in nihilistic bludgeoning […]

The post Local noise rockers Something Is Waiting take a left turn into 90s metal swagger on the brand-new <i>Absolutely</I> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In Nina Corcoran’s recent Pitchfork Rising profile of Chicago postpunk trio Lifeguard, guitarist-vocalist Kai Slater described what draws together the teenagers in their Hallogallo scene. “It feels like everyone involved is really desperate to make music,” Slater said, “like it’s not a choice, but their natural role.” This sense of necessity invigorates the high-wire tension […]

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In the Bandcamp credits of their 2022 full-length debut, Psychokinetic Love Songs (Lonely Ghost), Montana indie-emo band Hey, ILY snuck in what looks like a mission statement. Lead guitarist Trevin Baker and front man Caleb Haynes mention their instruments, of course, but also their “average” or “above average” skill at Nintendo’s Smash Bros.—add in the […]

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Drummer Andrew Cyrille (born 1939) and double bassist Reggie Workman (born 1937) have worked with many of the most profoundly influential figures in post-1950 jazz; a short list of artists with whom one or both musicians have recorded includes Art Blakey, Alice and John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Cecil Taylor, Marion Brown, Peter Brötzmann, Mal Waldron, […]

The post Rising star David Virelles joins jazz eminences Andrew Cyrille and Reggie Workman in Trio Imagination appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Replicant are a Chicago three-piece who make dark, sleek synth-pop that could score a blockbuster dystopian epic as easily as it could provide a scuzzy, sensual soundtrack for an all-night subterranean club. The group’s members—brothers Jordan and Justin DeLay and longtime friend Garrett Vernon—moved here separately from Michigan and formed Replicant in 2012, and they’ve […]

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The core of Australian four-piece Psycroptic is two prolific Australian brothers, drummer Dave Haley and guitarist Joe Haley, and they’ve been bashing out clotted tendrils of technical death metal with their main project for nearly a quarter century. The band’s early self-released albums are defined by charismatic vocalist Matthew “Chalky” Chalk, who alternated between bloody […]

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When the Gories emerged in Detroit in 1986, on the tail end of the decade’s garage-rock revival, they seemed to have learned from every mistake made by other bands. They produced a sort of platonic ideal of the form: wild, messy, uninhibited, and fortified with the survival instincts of an alley cat. The trio’s swagger […]

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On most of her records, Cindy Lee provides every note of her songs. Her self-released fifth album, 2020’s What’s Tonight to Eternity? (my favorite so far), includes her brother Andrew Flegel on drums, but her presence remains front and center: She’s the frazzled, anguished guitar wails that fade to a whimper at the end of […]

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Tropa Magica’s psychedelic cumbia contains some of the happiest, most upbeat grooves I’ve heard in years. The four-piece emerged from East Los Angeles’s magical musical cauldron in 2017, evolving out of a band called Thee Commons, who combined cumbia with elements of metal and surf rock. The brothers behind Tropa Magica, guitarist and vocalist David […]

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A few years back, an emerging metal trio named Voice of Baceprot became an Internet sensation with videos of themselves covering the likes of Slipknot and Rage Against the Machine. They went viral less for their choice of tunes and more for who and where they were—vocalist and guitarist Firda Marsya Kurnia, bassist Widi Rahmawati, […]

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Until this summer, I’d have struggled to think of a trio of rising high school sophomores who’d landed a slot at West Fest just a few months after forming their band—but then Chicago postpunks Uniflora went ahead and did it. Drummer Ruby O’Brien and bassist Theo Williams have been friends since kindergarten, and guitarist-vocalist Quinn […]

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Xylouris White’s fifth and latest LP, April’s The Forest in Me (Drag City), stands apart from everything else in the duo’s discography. Cretan folk musician George Xylouris—who contributes laouto (lute), lyra (upright fiddle), and vocals—and Australian MVP (most valuable percussionist) Jim White have typically recorded music that feels a lot like their live performances. Their […]

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Telekinetic Yeti’s 2017 debut album, Abominable, hit like a fat slab of bloody blubber dropped hard enough on a snow-covered mountainside to cause an avalanche. The Iowa duo’s music stood out for its superheavy stoner-doom riffs as well as for the whimsy and tongue-in-cheek humor in its lyrics (on tracks such as “Stoned and Feathered” […]

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So far this summer, few new indie-rock songs have affected me as much as “You Can’t Do It All,” the not-quite-title track from Cusp’s self-released debut album, You Can Do It All. Jen Bender’s sweet, straightforward vocals snuggle up against a fogbank of guitar fuzz, a quietly humming bass line, a waltz-time beat, and an […]

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I understand why people are sad that this year’s Silver Room Sound System Block Party will be the last. When Silver Room owner Eric Williams started the block party in 2002, he did so in part to address the fact that neighborhood street festivals routinely overlooked the Black musicians and artists in his community—if no […]

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When Bill MacKay told me it’d been five years since he played with Ryley Walker—something they used to do all the time—it reminded me once again how badly the pandemic era has shaken our collective grip on time. Getting back to real life, relationships, and projects has been slow going, and on top of that […]

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Pivot Gang will go down as one of the most important and prolific artist collectives in Chicago hip-hop history, even though most casual fans haven’t caught on to their music yet. These seasoned west-side rappers come together to create a distinctly soulful sound, and the tapestries of drill-inspired flash and winsome alt-rap on individual members’ […]

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