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The North Coast Music Festival’s intimate DJ tent contains its collision of...
A celebration of the heretofore hypothetical territory where rappers, jam bands, and electro producers meet, the North Coast Music Festival has built an identity distinctive enough to stand out amid...
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With Contempt, Brooklyn band Couch Slut have created a monster of sinister,...
In case the name “Couch Slut” is somehow too nuanced to convey to you just how grim and confrontational this Brooklyn noise-rock foursome can be, their sophomore full-length, Contempt (Gilead Media),...
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Apogee’s cocktails are made for Instagram
At the Dana Hotel’s luxe rooftop bar, Benjamin Schiller’s drinks are garnished with everything from edible butterflies to hard candy and served in vessels such as a snail shell and a bong. The first...
View ArticleWet Cash doesn’t water down its humor
Anything goes at this affable weekly stand-up showcase, where one “lucky” audience member walks away with a soaking-wet wad of cashola. True to its name, Wet Cash culminates with one lucky audience...
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On the new Expect the Best, dream-pop band Widowspeak return to a familiar sound
Widowspeak’s Molly Hamilton and Robert Earl Thomas decamped from Brooklyn to the Catskills to make their 2015 album All Yours, which marked a shift in the duo’s sound. While Hamilton’s beautifully...
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Portuguese electronic musician Rafael Toral moves beyond the final frontier
In Star Trek, space is the final frontier, but for Rafael Toral it’s just another step in an ongoing creative odyssey. The Portuguese electronic musician’s work has gone through several phases.…
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Righteous Mesoamerican-flavored black-metal band Volahn tour under the cloud...
The uneasy ties between black metal and white supremacy are long-standing, tangled, and rarely addressed publicly; even less often are musicians forced to reckon with their own racist histories. But...
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Alt-country heroes Freakwater and postpunk lifers the Mekons come together to...
Four years ago, alt-country legends Freakwater crossed streams with postpunk pomo-folk group the Mekons and gave rise to a hybrid beast: the Freakons, a project that’s brought out some of the best in...
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Detroit techno veteran Carl Craig goes symphonic on Versus
Like many subversive sounds before it, techno exerts an influence on music at large but feels a world apart. To newcomers, its immense history can appear subterranean and impenetrable, its legends...
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On his third album as Blanck Mass, World Eater, Benjamin Power of Fuck...
In March, electronic experimentalist Benjamin John Power responded to the ongoing crack-up of society with the feral, postindustrial World Eater (Sacred Bones), his third solo album as Blanck Mass....
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Multifaceted New York pianist Cooper-Moore gives a rare Chicago performance
New York pianist Cooper-Moore brings a characteristic mix of elegance and fury to his parts on Meditation/Resurrection (Aum Fidelity), a new double album by bassist William Parker. But as explosive as...
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Israeli trumpeter Avishai Cohen honors the innocent victims of a cruel world...
A stark tenderness marks the opening moments of Cross My Palm With Silver (ECM), the ravishing new album by Israeli trumpeter Avishai Cohen. Over gauzy piano chords played by longtime collaborator...
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On Confetti at the Bottom, Chicago postpunk duo Tinkerbelles make big, catchy...
Adam Mohundro and Christian Dawson launched Tinkerbelles in 2013 following the breakup of their previous group, Gypsyblood, which specialized in nervy indie rock that could fill up your chest like a...
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Experimental Lebanese guitarist Sharif Sehnaoui visits Chicago for the first...
Lebanese guitarist Sharif Sehnaoui is a soft-spoken man who’s spent most of his adult life making fiercely experimental music under difficult conditions. He emerged as part of the group of Beirut...
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Strawdog’s Barbecue scores an 11 on the Honey Boo Boo scale
Robert O’Hara skewers the showbiz of race in this sly satire with a twist. In comments to be found in the program for Strawdog Theatre's production of his 2015 satire, Barbecue, Robert O'Hara...
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The Big Boys’ Tim Kerr paints his heroes in Skokie
At Miishkooki, “Your Name Here” boasts colorful portraits of the artist’s influences. You won't find very much visible wall space at Miishkooki gallery in Skokie this month. Artist Tim Kerr has used...
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Shakeshafte imagines a meeting between a young Shakespeare and a future saint
Rowan Williams’s play gets its U.S. debut with a reading by Shakespeare Project of Chicago. Lancashire, England, c. 1580: Two men sip wine in a stone-walled room whose dark and dampness are relieved...
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At City Mouse, Giant conquers the Fulton Market District
The restaurant anchoring the Ace Hotel is like a satellite for Jason Vincent and Ben Lustbader’s Logan Square mothership. My first week in Chicago, in February 1995, I was driving around exploring the...
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Get ready for Nocturama, an intense French thriller about a terror attack on...
Bertrand Bonello directed this intense drama about radicals bringing darkness to the City of Light. Nocturama, Bertrand Bonello's arty French thriller about a coordinated terror attack in Paris,...
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On their debut full-length, glammy garage greats Sheer Mag allow themselves...
Philadelphia five-piece Sheer Mag’s glammy, lo-fi garage rock has been taking the world by storm since they released their first single in 2014. Fueled by a handful of blown-out 45s, a megahyped...
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