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Cold Beaches amp up their gloomy but beachy indie pop on Drifter

Cold Beaches are one of the most aptly named bands I’ve discovered this year: their new album, Drifter, evokes a decidedly beachy but sometimes gloomy world that makes me think of walking along an...

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Chicago producer and multi-instrumentalist Cutta finds tranquility in a blur...

Paul Gulyas is one of those tireless contributors to Chicago music whose work largely goes unnoticed by the public. If you’ve gone to a show at Beat Kitchen or Subterranean in the past few years, you...

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Chicago rapper Jovan Landry gives her production skills a well-deserved...

Jovan Landry calls herself “One-Third Emcee” to emphasize her creative pursuits away from the mike—according to an interview she gave to Chicago Crowd Surfer in March 2019, she splits the other...

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Juice WRLD’s Legends Never Die is a haunting capstone to a life and career...

By the time Chicago rapper Juice WRLD died in December at age 21, he’d already made a gigantic impact on hip-hop. His meteoric rise started when he was just a teenager with the 2017 single “Lucid...

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ALAS and Of Dice and Men examine the vulnerability of social bonds

Trap Door reimagines its aesthetic for film; Otherworld films a onetime live performance (sans audience). As sacrifices go, staying home when possible and wearing masks in public seem like fairly...

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Asheville trio Nest Egg smashes psychedelic sounds into postpunk oblivion on...

I was once at a Nest Egg gig where a friend said to me, “The thing I love about these guys is that they're punks who just happen to play psychedelic music.” This joyously astute statement gets at...

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Chicago indie rocker Jeff Kelley digs into experimental pop with Ocean Cult

Over the past decade, it’s often felt like everyone in Chicago’s underground-rock subscenes was legally required to have multiple projects, and Jeff Kelley certainly cleared that bar. He fronted...

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Steve Von Till finds beauty and humanity within a chaotic universe on No...

Steve Von Till is best known as co-front man of the mighty Neurosis, but for two decades the singer, multi-instrumentalist, and poet has also led an ambitious and expansive solo career. Under his own...

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Chicago rapper HateSonny adds depth to his battering-ram flow on Golden Child

Greater Grand Crossing native HateSonny delivers sawed-off raps with a terse punch that makes him sound spring-loaded—at any moment he could burst with fury and beat the track into submission. When he...

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Chicago rapper-singer Osa North brings Nigerian pop back home on 5 Boys 3 Cars

Osa Obaseki, aka rapper-singer Osa North, grew up in Uptown, but in 2006 his parents sent him to live with his aunt and uncle in the capital of Nigeria’s Edo State, Benin City. He was 11 when he...

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Chicago tattoo artist and rapper Phor talks mental health on Self Love

In October 2015, VH1 launched Black Ink Crew: Chicago, a reality show chronicling the intertwining lives of tattoo artists working at 9 Mag, a Black-owned and -operated tattoo parlor in Pilsen. Black...

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Bobby Rush fires up the acoustic Delta blues on Rawer Than Raw

This is a huge oversimplification, but there are generally two kinds of blues crowds: the Black audience that gravitates toward soul singers, and the white audience that loves instrumental virtuosity....

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Taylor Swift reckons with her own mythology on Folklore

The weekend of July 25, 2020, was supposed to be a coronation for Taylor Swift. That’s when her intercontinental touring music festival, Lover Fest, scheduled to begin in April, would’ve arrived at...

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Thumbscrew helps Anthony Braxton celebrate 75 years by recording some of his...

Composer, multi-instrumentalist, educator, and conceptualist Anthony Braxton was born in Chicago on June 4, 1945, and the celebration of his 75th birthday has taken a major hit from the COVID-19...

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Wye Oak team up with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus for the EP No Horizon

Experimental indie duo Wye Oak make their commitment to reinventing their music feel like an integral part of their art: whether they’re incorporating shades of folk rock or R&B or even scraps of...

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Chicago Mass Choir invigorates traditional gospel on My Soul Says Yes

On My Soul Says Yes, the first release by the Chicago Mass Choir in more than four years and its 17th album overall, the ensemble traverses the usual traditional gospel territory. While selections...

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The generation-spanning Fountain of Time is an intriguing peek into Chicago...

The Grossman Ensemble could be thought of as a new-music incubator. The resident ensemble of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition (CCCC) at the University of Chicago, the 13-piece...

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Exotic Sin take spiritual jazz and minimalism into the 21st century

The instruments of some musical icons end up displayed in museum exhibits or auctioned off for charity at vast sums. Others get handed down to the younger generations to do with as they wish.…

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Gulch leave no heavy-metal stone unturned on Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress

Santa Cruz hardcore outfit Gulch cover a lot of ground in the brief 16 minutes of their new Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress. The four-piece leave no punk or metal stone unturned; they cram every...

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Imperial Triumphant’s Alphaville soundtracks our civilizational suicide by...

The overlap between extreme metal and avant-garde improvised music is admittedly slight, but that tiny patch of ground produces some extravagantly bizarre fruits—among them New York City trio Imperial...

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