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Chicago band Not Lovely have a ball twisting together jazz, rap, and prog on...
Genre-bending jazz-rap troupe Not Lovely started almost on a dare. In summer 2015, vocalist and producer Jack Clements remixed Wilco’s “EKG,” rapped over it, and uploaded his version to the Soundcloud...
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Italian composer Caterina Barbieri casts a retrofuturistic aura on Ecstatic...
The cover of Caterina Barbieri’s 2019 album Ecstatic Computation (Editions Mego) is composed of two eyes digitally layered over a photo of grayish fog. Its retrofuturistic aura is an apt...
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Health & Beauty and J.R. Bohannon push their music forward while staying...
I first met Brooklynite J.R. Bohannon when he was working as a booking agent for underground bands and cult artists, so I was surprised when he left that business to focus on his own music. Born in...
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Chicago pop artist Jack Larsen enlisted even the mold in his apartment for...
About six months before rapper-producer Kevin Abstract launched wildly popular hip-hop boy band Brockhampton in early 2015, he dropped his debut mixtape, MTV1987. Abstract had tapped a few guests to...
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Monolord prove themselves one of the decade’s best stoner-metal bands with No...
Whenever an outsider style of rock music finds crossover success, it’s inevitably plagued with a surge of mediocre newcomers, but one band to rise above that fray in recent years is Swedish trio...
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Moon Duo take psych rock to the disco on Stars Are the Light
Guitarist Ripley Johnson (also of Wooden Shjips) and keyboardist Sanae Yamada have been churning out fuzzy psychedelic reverb and shimmer on Sacred Bones Records for close to a decade as Moon Duo. The...
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Lynda Barry gives a master class in creation in Making Comics
The comics artist’s latest book is the culmination of lessons learned in her decades-long career. Lynda Barry is now officially a genius. She was bestowed with the title MacArthur fellow this...
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Ladylike lets women be as gross as they please
The live show and podcast aim to shake the shame from our most disgusting moments. Bodies are gross. It's true of all bodies, but while men are often encouraged to embrace the disgusting, women are...
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Rink Life takes us on a circular journey through collaboration
Lucky Plush's new ensemble piece uses the roller rink as a metaphor for community. Ah, the roller rink—a community center where everyone keeps moving in circles, forever, to retro pop songs, in...
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P.Y.G. or the Mis-Edumacation of Dorian Belle cuts with double-edged satire
A white Canadian pop star and two Black hip-hop artists share a reality-TV crib. There are two specific places in Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm's P.Y.G. or the Mis-Edumacaton of Dorian Belle that are...
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A heart transplant reveals old heartaches in Exquisita Agonía
Aguijón Theater's production of Nilo Cruz's drama is searing and sharp. Nilo Cruz's plays often center on people suffering displacement and trying to find distractions for that pain, as in his 2003...
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Packing follows one gay man's journey to confront his midwestern ghosts
Scott Bradley's solo show for About Face creates an important document of queer life. Living out and proud in a coastal queer mecca full of historic gayborhoods, vocally supportive senators, and...
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The Steadfast Tin Soldier remains delightful in its second year
Mary Zimmerman's adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale is moving and magical. Marionette-like figures in colorful, exaggerated costumes dance on and off the stage, opening little doors...
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CineKink is back with another lineup of raunchy films
The sex-positive film festival is making a stop at the Leather Archives & Museum. Now celebrating its 16th year, the sex-positive film festival CineKink brings to town comedy, drama, documentary,...
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Rolling Meadows’ Umacamon Japanese Kitchen upholds the suburban izakaya...
And capably covers all the bases, with sushi, ample comfort foods, and uncommon specialties from the island of Kyushu. Most people in Chicago don't consider Japanese food in regional terms, but when...
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Drugged-up and bummed-out, Toronto rapper Nav hits his stride
The world was introduced to Nav by his featured verse on “Biebs in the Trap,” off Travis Scott’s landmark 2016 Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight. In its alarmingly candid tale of drug abuse and the...
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Las Cafeteras don’t believe in borders, musical or otherwise
Chicano indie-folk band Las Cafeteras formed in 2005, after their members forged friendships while taking classes in traditional music, dance, and art at Los Angeles Mexican American cultural center...
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Kai Wachi brings the bass
“Wow, this is very 2012 dubstep,” my 16-year-old quipped when he heard Demigod (Kannibalen), the latest album from DJ and producer Kai Wachi. Sure enough, Wachi did get his start that year, and he’s...
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On her debut album, New York rapper Young M.A sets her sights on hip-hop’s crown
When New York rapper Katorah Marrero, aka Young M.A, released “OOOUUU” in 2016, its low-key braggadocio, minimal instrumental track, and easy, in-the-pocket flow quickly made it inescapable—and turned...
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The joke’s on you if you miss out on misfit hardcore duo Urochromes
After Urochromes posted the video for their frazzled ripper “Hair So Big” to YouTube this spring, a commenter promised, “Before I die I will give Gilbert Gottfried a Urochromes record.” I like to...
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