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Eiko Ishibashi’s Hyakki Yagyō is a dazzling and dizzying musical ghost story
Japanese multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Eiko Ishibashi has spent the past couple decades working in a multitude of idioms, including art-pop, jazz, postpunk, and free improvisation. It’s...
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Chicago rapper Lil Romo makes melodic drill as plush as velour
In a recent Illanoize Radio interview, south-side rapper Lil Romo said he started to approach his music more professionally in October 2018, after he dropped “Realla (Scrilla Remix),” where he raps...
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Metal trio Primitive Man connect the dark side of humanity with individual...
In one of Chicago’s most tumultuous 24-hour periods in recent memory, the city withstood a night of momentous civil unrest followed by a day of unsettlingly violent storms. By coincidence, I spent...
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Willie Nelson offers end-of-the-road life lessons on First Rose of Spring
Melancholy shoots right out of the gate on Willie Nelson’s new full-length, First Rose of Spring. The album opens with its title track, a sweet but ultimately tragic love song by a trio of stalwart...
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Spun Out make their case for Chicago indie-pop canonization
Ne-Hi formed in 2013 and subsequently became one of the most revered Chicago indie-rock bands of the decade. The four-piece called it quits in May 2019, but I imagine their reputation will only keep...
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Ganser lift the spirits of the extremely online with Just Look at That Sky
Pandemic life leaves a lot to be desired, but I’m especially unenthused about the extra time I spend on social media for work and . . . well, not pleasure, but to connect with people I care about but...
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Matmos have 99 collaborators but a bore ain’t one
Baltimore experimental electronic duo Matmos have released a steady stream of albums over their 25 years, many of which feature guest artists, but on the new The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in...
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Punk lifer Neil Berthier considers his all-time lows on a hopeful new album...
When punk musician Neil Berthier sat down for a Better Yet Podcast interview at the beginning of 2019, he was halfway through a yearlong stint in Chicago; he’d moved here after a short stay in...
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University of Chicago grad Eli Winter completes his second album of guitar...
Lou Reed was 38 years old when he released the 1980 LP Growing Up in Public. Though Eli Winter is just 23, he can already claim to have done just that.…
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J. Zunz conquers times of crisis through dark, experimental electronics on...
J. Zunz is the solo project of Lorena Quintanilla, best known from Mexican electronic-infused psych duo Lorelle Meets the Obsolete.…
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The Awakening’s reissue of 1972’s Hear, Sense and Feel still uplifts through...
When the Awakening formed in the early 1970s, they combined veterans of Chicago’s R&B sessions and jazz players affiliated with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. The...
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Fantastic Negrito merges rootsy sounds on his new Have You Lost Your Mind?
Songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Xavier Dphrepaulezz, better known as Fantastic Negrito, takes us on a trip through his consciousness on his latest album, Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?...
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Angel Olsen’s Whole New Mess showcases the skeletal recordings that led to...
On her new fifth album, Whole New Mess, Angel Olsen presents skeletal renditions of songs from her 2019 LP All Mirrors, filtering their themes of love, broken promises, and recovery through a stark,...
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Youth theater ensembles? They're Essential
Free Street, Collaboraction, and TimeLine put young theater artists in the frame. The long hot summer is winding down, according to the calendar, but youth theater ensembles are examining a season of...
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Grindcore legends Pig Destroyer expand their horizons on a new EP
Pig Destroyer have been at the forefront of grindcore for more than 20 years, and over that time they’ve found a way to push the notoriously rigid style into far-reaching spaces. Helmed by guitarist...
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The Fire Still Burns as veteran jazz saxophonist Alan Braufman builds on his...
One of the headiest of all avant-garde jazz heads is Alan Braufman. The veteran saxophonist, flutist, and composer has been wielding his polymathic wizardry since the early 1970s, when he helped put...
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The personal and spiritual growth doesn’t stop in Burna Boy’s Twice as Tall
As much as mainstream Western music-media outlets compare contemporary African artists to one another, often flattening the expansiveness of their sounds under a single Afrobeats umbrella, some...
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LaSalle Grandeur’s sanguine songs can lift your pandemic-rattled spirits
The video for LaSalle Grandeur’s optimistic pop-rap single “Euphoria” shows the Chicago rapper gleefully traipsing through a huge empty field as a light breeze billows his unbuttoned shirt. “Euphoria”...
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Half Gringa’s empathetic alt-country harnesses the power of understatement
In 2016, Chicago alt-country singer-songwriter Isabel Olive began performing and recording as Half Gringa, a name that refers to her Venezuelan ancestry. As she told music writer Britt Julious in the...
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Chicago band the Knees balance postpunk precision and shoegaze warmth on...
Chicago postpunk four-piece the Knees dropped their first single, “Round and Round,” three years ago; on the A side the band balance a terse, tightly wound melody with a smidgen of garage feedback,...
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