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An Unapologetic love letter to Chicago’s Black women activists
The documentary takes audiences to the front lines with millennial women leading the city’s Movement for Black Lives. There’s a reason why organizers walked into a trendy Lincoln Park restaurant on...
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Merzbow’s four-decade-plus reign of sonic terror continues with Screaming Dove
Japanese sound artist Masami Akita has been revolutionizing noise with his project Merzbow since 1979—he’s put out somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 albums, singles, and live recordings under that...
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Aya Nakamura delivers pure shots of intimate emotion on Aya
French-Malian singer Aya Nakamura expresses an effortless but firm candor in her lyrics (she sings in French) that’s cleanly mirrored in her music. Her breakout single, 2018’s “Djadja,” was a...
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Sam Smith sings through the pain on Love Goes
It seems crazy to me that the new Love Goes is only Sam Smith’s third album. The UK singer-songwriter made their debut in 2014 with the international breakout In the Lonely Hour, but it feels like...
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Composer William Basinski combs four decades of his personal archives to...
William Basinski has thrown himself headlong into the kind of “productive quarantine” that seems like a myth to most of us, and the spoils are abundant. Since March, when states across the U.S. began...
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Jesu seduces you with melodic bleakness
UK guitarist and composer Justin Broadrick is best known as a founding member of the industrial metal assault that is Godflesh. But capturing purely annihilatory noise in that pounding maelstrom is...
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Judson Claiborne confront humanity’s downfall with beautiful songs on When a...
When humanity’s ship goes down due to a global pandemic, vulture capitalism, and corrupt politics, the band picking and singing the final notes will be Chicago’s Judson Claiborne. So this month—when...
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Crusty metal six-piece Ilsa call out cruelty and corruption through the...
Even if you buy into the idea that musicians should stay out of politics, how do you overlook the politics baked into everything around you? Take the COVID-19 pandemic: What’s more destructive, the...
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Tank & the Bangas embrace connection and the wacky side of isolation on...
When New Orleans band Tank & the Bangas invited their friends and family to help them cover Hal David and Burt Bacharach’s pop classic “What the World Needs Now Is Love” in January, they embraced...
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Rob Mazurek’s latest with his Exploding Star Orchestra finds hope in the cosmos
Dimensional Stardust is a splendid sonic antidote for the spirit-damping insults of a year that can’t end soon enough—growth and transcendence are programmed into the album’s DNA. The Exploding Star...
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Electronic innovators Cabaret Voltaire make a mind-bending return on Shadow...
In this hellish age, true celebrations feel few and far between, but the first new Cabaret Voltaire album in 26 years is definitely cause for rejoicing. Its title, Shadow of Fear, sticks to this UK...
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Nothing channel 90s shoegaze with winning results on The Great Dismal
Domenic Palermo started writing and recording dark shoegaze songs under the name Nothing ten years ago. Since then, Nothing have spearheaded a shoegaze revival by releasing a constant deluge of...
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Jucifer explore resilience through transforming Arabic and Central Asian...
Gazelle Amber Valentine and Edgar Livengood of avant-metal powerhouse Jucifer are a married couple, which means that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the duo’s creative process hasn’t been disrupted like...
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Israeli pianist Shira Legmann revives the piano music of composer Giacinto...
The music that Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi wrote during the middle of the 20th century predicted minimalism and spectralism, but its forms and sounds remain distinct from those later...
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Papo Vázquez leads his Mighty Pirate Troubadours through an uplifting blend...
Trombonist Papo Vázquez had plenty of reasons to feel reflective this past spring. He was about to record Breaking Cover, his tenth album under his own name, and he’d spent more than 40 years...
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Puerto Rico’s Ìfé honor the dead with percussive electronic prayers
While sheltering at home in San Juan during Puerto Rico’s lockdown this spring, Ìfé bandleader Otura Mun wrote a new EP, The Living Dead | Ashé Bogbo Egun. The producer, composer, and percussionist,...
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Chilean garage band The Versions conjure carefree days on Calling Lucifer
Chile has long had a robust garage and psych scene, and one of the season’s most understatedly fun rock albums comes from Santiago. The four veteran musicians of the Versions joined forces in 2004,...
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Joan of Arc say goodbye with the touchingly esoteric Tim Melina Theo Bobby
For 25 years, Tim Kinsella has led his band Joan of Arc through a multitude of changes: members have come and gone, and the group’s sound has evolved and (occasionally) purposely devolved. Now, with...
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See it Through Your Eyes
A new community photo project highlights the beauty of Logan Square as seen through new and old locals and will be on display at the centerfold of the neighborhood. Growing up in Logan Square,...
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A travel guide to your block
The 99% Invisible City takes a second look at familiar cities. At a moment when some city dwellers are moving to less populated areas, The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of...
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