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Nature’s Neighbor takes its indie-pop experimenting to new lengths on Otherside
Chicagoan Mike Walker has led Nature’s Neighbor for more than a decade, working with a revolving-door cast of musicians who’ve helped him realize his liquid indie-pop sound. But as much as the project...
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Fly or Die Live catches Jaimie Branch’s quartet reaching new heights
If the world can agree on one thing, it’s that 2020 was not our best year on record. For former Chicagoan Jaimie Branch, it should’ve been a time of triumph for her current quartet, Fly or Die.…
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Mdou Moctar plays the world’s greatest anti-imperialist desert psychedelic...
“If we stay silent, it will be the end of us,” Mdou Moctar sings in French on the title track of his new album, Afrique Victime (Matador). If there’s one thing you can say for sure about Moctar, it’s...
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Vivan Maier makes the everyday extraordinary
An exhibit at the Chicago History Museum offers a new perspective on the enigmatic photographer’s work. Something very interesting happens when a person encounters a Vivian Maier photograph.…
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Heavy experimentalists Nadja turn from shoegazing to stargazing on Luminious...
Experimental drone and postmetal outfit Nadja got their start in 2003 as the solo studio project of ambient musician Aidan Baker, but by 2005 he’d enlisted the help of bassist and vocalist Leah...
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Melina Duterte of Jay Som and Ellen Kempner of Palehound join forces as...
Bands hyped as “supergroups” usually sound cool in theory but often wind up less memorable than the better-known projects of their members. By contrast, the pop rock on Bachelor’s debut, Doomin’ Sun,...
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Chicago producer DJ C brings life-giving daring to his hybridized dance...
As DJ C, Chicago producer Jake Trussell has developed a gift for extracting the DNA from an eclectic variety of pop subgenres, then scrambling their nucleotides and recombining them—and his...
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Dark synth artist Perturbator explores destruction on Lustful Sacraments
French multi-instrumentalist James Kent, who makes music as Perturbator, has a lifelong history with synthesizers—his parents were in a band that used them—and he negotiates the possibilities of his...
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On Interior Terror, Chicago industrial duo Hide find everyday horrors in the...
The term “minimalism” often conjures up white walls and bright lights—a defiant barrenness in a world steeped in chaos—but Chicago-based industrial duo Hide take their stark sounds to a far darker and...
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The monumental new Anthony Braxton collection 12 Comp (ZIM) 2017 does figure...
My mother always told me, “When you get older, you’ll begin to see the world in shades of gray.” Generally speaking, she was right (as usual), but I often find that idiom falling short of my personal...
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Colleen’s The Tunnel and the Clearing is a perfect summer breeze of an album
Under the name Colleen, French composer and multi-instrumentalist Cécile Schott has spent the past two decades traversing musical styles: She explored hypnagogic looped samples on her 2003 debut,...
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Chicago producer Spectacular Diagnostics makes alchemical hip-hop tracks on...
As Spectacular Diagnostics, Chicago producer Robert Krums specializes in hip-hop tracks that seem to circle the planet in low orbit, collecting cosmic dust that mixes with flecks of grit from our...
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Georgia Anne Muldrow makes timeless synth-driven experiments on Vweto III
Stevie Wonder’s personal archives are reputedly filled with decades of homemade demos and jam sessions that have never been released. If I had to guess what they sound like, I’d say some of them...
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Lyric's al fresco Hansel and Gretel is a family-friendly treat
North Park Village Nature Center provides an ideal setting for Lyric's Hansel and Gretel. There’s no more perfect setting for Lyric Opera’s Hansel and Gretel in the Park than the North Park Village...
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Chicago power-ambient unit Chord spin heavy textures from a single...
Chicago power-ambient unit Chord find their art in small details; for more than a decade they’ve been exploring a single chord in each of their compositions, wringing every bit of depth, power, and...
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Chicago’s Thomas Comerford assembles a cast of local musicians for an album...
Chicago has its share of bands playing country or alternative country, but Thomas Comerford’s lonesome sound is in a category of its own. Comerford straddles the singer-songwriter era of the 1970s and...
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It’s officially summer with In the Heights
After a delayed release, the vibrant film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical couldn’t be more welcome. If you're vaxxed and eager to return to movie theaters, I can't imagine a better film to...
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August Fanon and Defcee go back to hip-hop’s graffiti roots on their new EP
The new EP by Defcee and producer August Fanon, We Dressed the City With Our Names, ties Defcee’s history in Chicago’s rap and poetry scenes to the primordial hip-hop culture of New York graffiti...
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Japanese Breakfast’s effervescent Jubilee will give you something to smile...
If you’ve ever watched someone you love struggle through a cruel illness and eventually succumb, you know that some days it can be hard to find any lightness under the crushing weight of grief. So...
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Pivot Gang’s SqueakPivot and MFn Melo map out a rewarding creative...
Producer SqueakPivot has long been a crucial member of the Chicago hip-hop collective he’s incorporated into his stage name, applying his talents largely to mixes and DJ sets—I’m hard-pressed to think...
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