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America’s bad-vibe underground takes over Metro for a night with sets by Wolf...
This bum-out extravaganza organized by Nate Young of Wolf Eyes suggests that if you stay focused within the underground long enough there’s a good chance you’ll ascend—at least enough to headline...
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Free-jazz trio Survival Unit III offers a tonguein-cheek promise to revisit...
The description of tonight’s performance on Experimental Sound Studio’s website claims that the astringent free-jazz trio Survival Unit III will play a “re-imagining” of its 2015 album Barrow Street...
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Perfume Genius reaches out with bigger, bolder arrangements on the new No Shape
Since emerging at the start of the decade, Seattle singer-songwriter Mike Hadreas (who performs as Perfume Genius) has displayed steady growth and a dramatic expansion of sound, morphing from a...
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Chicago rapper Femdot drops enough vivid songs to satisfy the Web’s...
Chicago rapper Femi Adigun, aka Femdot, is fully prepared to indulge the endless desire for new music content. Last year he began rolling out a series of well-honed EPs that whetted appetites and...
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Chicago’s only Georgian restaurant sets up shop in Lakeview
Chicago Diplomat Cafe is the local ambassador for the food of the Caucasus. Oskana Douglas wants you to take your time at Chicago Diplomat Cafe, the city's—and perhaps the state's—only restaurant...
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On Love & Hate singer Michael Kiwanuka evokes a 60s noir closer to Portishead...
On his stirring second album, Love & Hate (Interscope), British singer Michael Kiwanuka writes in broad strokes, allowing listeners to adapt themes to their own lives in ways that sting. Given a...
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Though she’s trying to crash the big time by merging blues and pop R&B, ZZ...
ZZ Ward has dedicated her career to merging blues with contemporary pop R&B, achieving fair aesthetic results and mixed commercial success. Her single “The Deep,” off her sophomore album The Storm...
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Fitness sweat out sing-along hooks while spewing punk defiance on their new...
Part of the undercovered and frankly underappreciated Ian’s Party scene of snot-nosed melodic-punk bands that can sweat out sing-along hooks just as well as they can shotgun tallboys of Old Style...
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TALsounds’ latest, Love Sick, combines drone and pop to create cascades of...
Over the last few years Chicagoan Natalie Chami’s output has been prolific, both as a member of improvisational noise trio Goodwill Smith and as her solo project TALsounds. It was just in October that...
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On their strong new album Song of the Rose, Arbouretum explore rebirth in...
Dave Heumann, front man for Baltimore’s long-running Arbouretum, isn’t shy about reaching toward the profound while addressing transformation on the recent Song of the Rose (Thrill Jockey). The...
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Introducing the return of the real Dr. Octagon
When CMH Records released The Return of Dr. Octagon in 2006, hip-hop DJ and producer Dan the Automator said, “That wasn’t a Dr. Octagon record. Dr. Octagon is me, Kool Keith, and Q-Bert.…
View ArticleClik here to view.
America’s bad-vibe underground takes over Metro for a night with sets by Wolf...
This bum-out extravaganza organized by Nate Young of Wolf Eyes suggests that if you stay focused within the underground long enough there’s a good chance you’ll ascend—at least enough to headline...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Free-jazz trio Survival Unit III offers a tongue-in-cheek promise to revisit...
The description of tonight’s performance on Experimental Sound Studio’s website claims that the astringent free-jazz trio Survival Unit III will play a “re-imagining” of its 2015 album Barrow Street...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Perfume Genius reaches out with bigger, bolder arrangements on the new No Shape
Since emerging at the start of the decade, Seattle singer-songwriter Mike Hadreas (who performs as Perfume Genius) has displayed steady growth and a dramatic expansion of sound, morphing from a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Chicago rapper Femdot drops enough vivid songs to satisfy the Web’s...
Chicago rapper Femi Adigun, aka Femdot, is fully prepared to indulge the endless desire for new music content. Last year he began rolling out a series of well-honed EPs that whetted appetites and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Chicago’s only Georgian restaurant sets up shop in Lakeview
Chicago Diplomat Cafe is the local ambassador for the food of the Caucasus. Oksana Douglas wants you to take your time at Chicago Diplomat Cafe, the city's—and perhaps the state's—only restaurant...
View ArticleClik here to view.
At Triumph Gallery, more than 150 artists counteract a GOP watch list
“The Dangerous Professors” marries art and education in response to online attacks on higher-ed teachers. Late last fall, right-wing nonprofit Turning Point USA started a website called the Professor...
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The message of Court Theatre’s Harvey? Don’t worry—be happy
Mary Chase’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1945 comedy was and remains a sweet break from the general awfulness. It's telling that Mary Chase's Harvey won the Pulitzer Prize in 1945, the final year of World...
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A purveyor of cool, Dam-Funk is a sure thing in the DJ booth
Even hunched over a turntable in the cramped, overflowing record room of his LA abode, Dam-Funk is elegantly chill. During an hour-plus Boiler Room Collections DJ set he recorded in 2015, the Stones...
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Bassist and bandleader Ben Allison layers a lyric front line over roiling...
Bassist, composer, and bandleader Ben Allison is one of the most deliberate and focused figures in jazz, a musician who conveys a clear-cut conception in everything he does. Over the years he’s led a...
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