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Punk lifer Chris Farren makes sunny songs full of complicated emotions
Florida punk-scene staple Chris Farren has spent much of the past decade refining one of the most endearing tongue-in-cheek personas since Stephen Colbert’s 11-season-long Colbert Report neocon...
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Chicago rapper-producer Kilt Karter can sow chaos in his songs—and undo it...
Chicago rapper-producer Kilt Karter often unloads his terse verses in a salacious whisper, and many of his songs don’t even last two minutes—both of which should remind you of Valee, the idiosyncratic...
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And then there were four: Kneebody settle into life as a quartet
As far as album titles go, Kneebody’s Chapters, is pretty damn on the nose. The record, which came out in October, is the instrumental avant-pop-jazz omnivores’ first full-length since they announced...
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Tate McRae is happy to sing sad pop
You’d think Tate McRae would have a lot to be happy about: at age 16 she’s already a successful ballet dancer who’s appeared on the TV show So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation. She’s also...
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Local new-music group Aperiodic joins a festival celebrating the work of...
Local new-music group Aperiodic recently released its second album, For Aperiodic (Focus). The record’s four pieces, composed respectively by Billie Howard, Michael Pisaro, and ensemble members Kenn...
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Free-jazz piano great Dave Burrell plays a rare Chicago show
The only time I’ve seen wild jazz pianist Dave Burrell play live was in an odd setting for him—he joined free-jazz bass titan William Parker for a program called “The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield”...
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Experienced punks reintroduce themselves as Canal Irreal
Last May, Chicago band Canal Irreal announced their existence by releasing their first single, “Si Somos,” an explosive mix of postpunk and hardcore that combines jagged riffs and propulsive guitar...
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John Cale honors his late producer and mentor by helping close the Art...
Avant-rock elder statesman John Cale hasn’t played in Chicago in years, so this show is a hell of an occasion. One of two surviving members of the original Velvet Underground, the Welsh-born musician...
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As Liquid Swords turns 25, GZA’s masterwork sounds as fresh and powerful as...
When the Wu-Tang Clan released their landmark 1993 full-length debut, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), they changed the game in popular music. Its raw, stripped-down production and its masterful...
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Calexico and Iron & Wine reconvene without retreading the same ground
As a Mexican-Swedish American who grew up with cowboy songs, Lawrence Welk, and mariachi music floating through the house, when I first heard Calexico in the early 2000s I was struck by their...
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Top Girls remains heartbreakingly relevant
Remy Bumppo revisits Caryl Churchill's 1982 play with a stellar ensemble. The decision by the New York Times editorial board to endorse both Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren for the Democratic...
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A couple faces a becalmed relationship in The Gulf
About Face's two-hander boasts stellar performances. Anyone who has weathered a long-term relationship will relate to the passion and struggles in About Face Theatre's Chicago premiere of Audrey...
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A police killing takes us through mental jujitsu in Sheepdog
Kevin Artigue's fraught story is one helluva play for Shattered Globe. You know you've just seen one helluva play when you spend the next 24 hours doing mental jujitsu with yourself, finding no...
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Pure Lies gives us magic with a touch of malarkey
Trent James lights up Wednesdays at the Chicago Magic Lounge. The intersection of comedy and magic has ballooned since the art form's vaudevillian heyday. Case in point: Trent James, a 22-year-old...
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The Tasters pictures dystopia—with a gourmet twist
Political prisoners swallow their pride (and maybe some poison) in Rivendell's world premiere. The gulags in Meghan Brown's world-premiere dystopian fable, The Tasters, resemble plenty of real-world...
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Barbara Jordan's story takes center stage in Voice of Good Hope
City Lit's docudrama captures some of the “moral muck” facing the south's first Black Congresswoman. Clocking in at 95 minutes, City Lit's production of Voice of Good Hope (directed by Terry McCabe)...
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Once on This Island proves it takes a village
The central romance feels overly familiar, but this touring production's ensemble creates a magical environment. Your affection for Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty's 1990 musical Once on This Island...
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Cult emo darlings the Anniversary celebrate 20 years since their sudden rise...
In January 2000, as the likes of Sunny Day Real Estate and the Get Up Kids led emo’s second wave, a group of five young adults from Lawrence, Kansas, calling themselves the Anniversary released a...
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Lea Bertucci packs the sounds of vast structures into small spaces
Sometimes Lea Bertucci treats architecture as an extension of her instruments. For the 2019 album Resonant Field (NNA Tapes), the composer, sound designer, and instrumentalist brought her alto...
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Gerrit Hatcher updates Chicago’s tenor sax tradition
Chicago has a rich tenor sax tradition—Gene Ammons, Johnny Griffin, Von Freeman, Fred Anderson, and so on. With tradition comes prescription; Chicago tenors, to fit the mold, need to be able to summon...
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