Around this time of the year you’ll begin to hear the phrase “the giving season.” It’s the moment when donation-dependent organizations ramp up their campaigns in the hopes of being included in the gifting air that comes in on a wind of mailers, calls, and fundraisers. For the Nonprofit Issue, we thought it would be […]
Author Archives: Leor Galil
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Partywatcher honors his Dominican roots with his first all-Spanish release
For seven years, Chicago musician Jochy Saldivar has been releasing suave R&B-inflected pop as Partywatcher, and this Friday he drops the EP El Tipo, his first release sung entirely in Spanish. The new EP also breaks stylistically from Partywatcher’s 2022 EP, Moreno, which leans heavily on 80s synth pop dosed with reggaeton; by contrast, El […]
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The Reader’s 2023 Holiday Gift Guide
1 Chicago stepping lessons from award-winning south sider Shaun Ballentine of Effortless Stepping. —Salem Collo-Julin Open group lessons Wednesdays at 7 PM, Effortless Stepping Studio, 1850 E. 79th. $20 per person, 21+ only. For private lesson rates or information about having Ballentine do a stepping class at your event, message through Instagram or Facebook. 2 […]
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The inimitable but intermittent Roctober roars back with a hefty double issue
When Gossip Wolf checked in a few years back with Reader contributor, Chic-a-Go-Go cofounder, and Promontory talent buyer Jake Austen, he’d just rebooted his wide-ranging, infectiously enthusiastic, and absurdly thorough music and culture zine, Roctober, originally launched more than 30 years ago. Issue 52 arrived in fall 2020 after a seven-year hiatus, but the wait […]
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OutPastMidnight and Doso show Chicago hip-hop’s newest dimensions at Gman
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 […]
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Chicago rapper Jay Wood foregrounds his magnetic production skills on a new EP
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 indie rockers Cafe Racer say farewell with help from local punks Edging
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 […]
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Cellist and sound artist Dorothy Carlos brings My Ideal Is Windy to the Lincoln Park Conservatory
Gossip Wolf’s first exposure to newly local cellist and sound artist Dorothy Carlos was via her 2022 cassette Circuit Sphere (American Dreams), which features five stunning tracks of her cello alternating with synthesizer lines performed on instruments designed and built by Brian Oakes, aka United Sound Systems. The Reader’s Leor Galil hailed her work on […]
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Elastic Arts stretches out
Chicago arts organization Theatre Y launched in 2006 in Lincoln Square, then moved in February 2023 to 3611 W. Cermak in North Lawndale. “It became really clear,” says artistic director Melissa Lorraine, “as we were starting to open our doors and really trying to communicate that we were here for the community, that music was […]
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Indie rockers Soft and Dumb pause work on their next album to drop an acoustic EP
Chicago indie rockers Elena “Lanie” Buenrostro and Travis Newgren, better known as Soft and Dumb, have spent much of the past year writing and recording their forthcoming sophomore album. A few weeks ago, frustrated by the length of that process, the duo paused work on the LP to record a handful of fast-and-loose songs on […]
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Sen Morimoto’s Diagnosis points to an antidote for our rotten times
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 […]
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Noname brings the intimate conversations of Sundial to the Vic
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 […]
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Lapgan borrows from South Asian music for idiosyncratic hip-hop instrumentals
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 […]
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Femdot’s Free Samples has all the suave and speedy raps you need
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 […]
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The Trenchies celebrate a new record with an old lineup
On October 26, frisky Chicago indie rockers the Trenchies dropped their debut album, Addie’s Got a Famous Dad, but the lineup of the emerging band is in flux. Drummer Thom Weiss has moved to Virginia for grad school, and bassist Claire King (Weiss’s girlfriend) has stepped back from the group too. But when the Trenchies […]