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Chicago rapper Ill Legit has a ball with local producer Awdazcate on Bad Fight
Rapper-producer Ill Legit belongs to a class of locals who are more seasoned than most rappers grabbing headlines and who are underground by choice. They’ve got an affection for samples that impart a...
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Katie Von Schleicher sweetens the disappointment in her lyrics with honeyed...
There’s an elliptical quality to the lyrics on Katie Von Schleicher’s terrific full-length debut, Shitty Songs (Ba Da Bing). She assays various strains of romantic and personal disconnect, using words...
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Drummer Charles Rumback’s distinctively lyric, ruminative aesthetic comes...
Versatility has long been drummer Charles Rumback’s calling card, but his empathic, elastic range—which has included feverish free jazz, elegant pop-rock, and exploratory groove music—and commitment...
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Chicago free-jazz heavy Mars Williams celebrates his annual marriage of...
After seven years of interpolating holiday favorites and classic material by free-jazz icon Albert Ayler—including the saxophonist’s screaming gospel fervor—in his annual December concert in Chicago,...
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Multifaceted MC Milo fills songs with entire worlds on Who Told You to...
Rory Ferreira, the rapper-producer better known Milo, who also records and performs as Scallops Hotel, is an artist who pushes himself endlessly. As a lyricist he packs scathing wit, emotive...
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Wilco guitarist Nels Cline, Rova saxophonist Larry Ochs, and jazz drummer...
This rugged improvising trio is composed of musicians with extraordinarily disparate personalities who seek common ground while expressing their individual voices. Guitarist Nels Cline and saxophonist...
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Chicago’s Pale Horseman find new doomy revelations on The Fourth Seal
On December 8, Chicago’s outstanding sludge doom-metal quartet Pale Horseman started another apocalypse with the release of their fourth full-length, The Fourth Seal (Black Bow). The album finds new...
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Country clubs aren’t cool, but the food at Somerset is
Chef Lee Wolen opens the season in the Gold Coast at Boka Restaurant Group's latest. What's the most deeply uncool place you could be forced to hang out in in these wild times? Is it a private...
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Isabelle Frances McGuire’s bread and butter is their art
“I’m a Cliche” at Prairie Gallery uses yeast and fermentation to explore issues of identity. When you hear the word "bread," what do you imagine? A bakery?…
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Country singer Marty Stuart salutes the cosmic vibe of America’s southwest on...
Few active country artists possess the deep knowledge and love of the tradition’s history and lore of singer-songwriter Marty Stuart, who’s evolved into a gray eminence with a mixture of elegance and...
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Chicago electronic duo Belmont & Clark builds TMB Limited’s eclectic catalog...
The Minimal Beat began life as a music blog in 2011, and like many music blogs that came before it, it has branched out into other ventures, including a weekly radio show on Loyola’s WLUW. In 2014 it...
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Drummer Matt Wilson’s Christmas Tree-O deftly walks the line between...
Few jazz musicians combine love of tradition with mordant wit like drummer and bandleader Matt Wilson. That combination is perfectly suited to his Christmas Tree-O project, which sanguinely essays...
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Chicago hip-hop honors linchpin DJ Timbuck2 with the third-annual Timbuck2...
In December 2015 world-class DJ and WGCI on-air personality Timothy Jones, better known as DJ Timbuck2, died from stage-four renal cancer at the age of 34, leaving the Chicago hip-hop community...
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Dreamy post-punk trio Dehd celebrate the release of two records in one
One of the best local releases of 2016 was the debut self-titled tape from Dehd on the prolific Maximum Pelt Records. The trio of guitarist-vocalist Jason Balla (of Ne-Hi and Earring),...
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Brazilian singer Bebel Gilberto tries the unplugged approach in her search...
In 2000 the Brazilian pop singer Bebel Gilberto—daughter of the brilliant bossa nova pioneer João Gilberto—achieved a breakthrough with her album Tanta Tempo (Six Degrees), a masterful blend of...
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Baltimore band Us & Us Only find harmony in the brackish waters of indie rock...
On July’s Full Flower (Topshelf), Baltimore’s Us & Us Only play indie rock reminiscent of the brackish waters that split the eastern part of the state of Maryland, the Chesapeake Bay. The genre is...
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Daymaker makes sloppy punk For Chicago
“Condos are killing my country / my city gets nothing / burning like a rash from my undies / my city gets nothing,” Erin Delaney warbles before unleashing her full-throttle yowl on “Condos,” the...
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Sound artist and composer Olivia Block turns to the piano
On most of Olivia Block’s records, what she does to sounds matters much more than how they were originally made; using field recordings, instrumental passages, or electronics, she cuts, distorts, and...
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Veteran Chicago reedist Dave Rempis settles into a gripping solo practice...
Chicago reedist Dave Rempis is well established as one of the city’s finest improvisers, a player who can adjust and adapt to fluid, unexpected musical situations with stunning alacrity, sensitivity,...
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John McCowen shares his research on the contrabass clarinet with a riveting...
Although clarinetist John McCowen is a founding member of the Chicago art-rock band Wei Zhongle, I only encountered his playing long after he moved to California for graduate studies at Mills College....
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