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Cellist Helen Money explores grief on her meditative new album, Atomic
California-born Chicagoan cellist Alison Chesley, aka Helen Money, studied at Northwestern, played in 90s indie-rock band Verbow, and often collaborates with the likes of Sanford Parker, Bruce Lamont,...
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Sampa the Great makes uplifting spiritual soul on The Return
If you’re looking for an album to give you courage as you peer out at the apocalypse from behind your living-room blinds, you could do worse than Sampa the Great’s The Return (Ninja Tune). The...
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Chicago postpunk four-piece Stuck deliver an uppercut with Change Is Bad
Workaholic Chicago rocker and audio engineer Greg Obis has suffered through a challenging five years. Both of his parents died (his mother in 2015, his father in 2018), and his ferocious but...
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The new Facs album, Void Moments, shows the Chicago trio at their apex
The Facs formula has always been stark minimalism. On their first two albums, the Chicago trio—currently drummer Noah Leger, guitarist-singer Brian Case, and bassist Alianna Kalaba—built every track...
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Melkbelly’s juxtaposition of weird and pretty keeps getting more perplexing
Chicago four-piece Melkbelly are best known for playing what you might call noise pop. Though they employ guitarists with a knack for wiry, minor-key interplay, a drummer who pays homage to Brian...
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Radiohead front man Thom Yorke proves his electronic mastery on Anima
Thom Yorke may be best known as front man of legendary British art-rock group Radiohead, but he’s also amassed an impressive discography on his own, putting out several solo releases, a 2013 album...
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Anna Calvi strips down seven of her own songs on the new Hunted
When British guitarist and vocalist Anna Calvi released her self-titled debut album in 2011, it felt like she’d emerged as a fully formed icon. Drawing from rock, punk, opera, and flamenco guitar,...
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Dutch dark rock band Dool explore the evolution of the soul on Summerland
Helmed by charismatic vocalist and guitarist Ryanne van Dorst, Dool combine pop hooks with heady lyrics and complex songwriting that draws from the underbelly of metal, psych, doom, occult rock, and...
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Chicago rapper G Herbo gives his reflective raps new shapes on PTSD
I wish the right-wing miscreants in the federal government were as dependable as Chicago rapper G Herbo. For close to a decade, he’s released albums and mixtapes of rapid-fire drill with reassuring...
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Noise-rock luminaries converge to explore despair and hope in Human Impact
If you haven’t already heard Human Impact, you could be forgiven for wondering whether the New York four-piece were soothsayers who’d prophesied humankind’s current struggle with an invisible threat....
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France’s Igorrr adds Middle Eastern motifs to its genre-splicing mashup of...
In the tradition of heavy-music genre splicers such as Mr. Bungle, Secret Chiefs 3, and Estradasphere, French act Igorrr hybridizes industrial death metal, breakcore, chiptune, and other genres using...
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Roscoe Mitchell reconciles improvisational sources and orchestral means
When the Art Ensemble of Chicago reinvented itself as an orchestra for its 50th-anniversary recording, last year’s We Are on the Edge, the idea didn’t come out of thin air. It reflected a use of the...
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Chicago producer RXM Reality drops an inspiringly restless and endlessly...
Enforced mass social isolation can really make you crave constant stimuli. As each day feels longer than the one before, the slow crawl of hours makes the frenetic dance music on Blood Blood Blood...
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Machine Wash Music’s new compilation shows the many dimensions of underground...
Chicago has many independent hip-hop labels, but few maintain rosters as multigenerational as that of Machine Wash Music. Rapper Daryl “Decay” Stewart cofounded Machine Wash after he had an...
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The Numero Group surfaces strangely magnetic sounds from the outer edges of...
A couple years ago, Chicago archival label Numero Group launched Cabinet of Curiosities, a compilation series focused on fringe private-press releases of yore. A lot of the strange music they’ve...
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U.S. Girls shares some welcome sunshine in dark times on Heavy Light
Well, look at that. The world is ending.…
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Legendary Chicago experimentalists Ono confront centuries of race-based...
I could write a novel about Ono. This Chicago avant-garde group are one of the great bands, and their story is endlessly fascinating.…
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Tim Kinsella’s Friend/Enemy re-emerges after 18 years with koans about...
Immediately after the 2016 presidential election, Tim Kinsella and a coterie of collaborators gathered at Chicago’s Minbal studios to work through their feelings about America’s new nightmare. It took...
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Chicago footwork producer DJ Hank takes inspiration from his bike-messenger...
On the title track of DJ Hank’s debut 12-inch, Traffic Control (Sophomore Lounge), car alarms bleat atop thickets of overactive drums, occasional blown-out hi-hats, hiccuping bass, and a tasteful...
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Rising drill star King Von refines his storytelling and stunting on Levon James
Sharp songwriting and bombastic delivery have made King Von one of fastest-rising stars in drill, the pummeling hip-hop subgenre born in Chicago. Born Dayvon Bennett, the 25-year-old rapper grew up in...
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