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Tokyo psych band Kikagaku Moyo bring their far-reaching sound to the floor of...
Tokyo-bred psych band Kikagaku Moyo have developed their music while focusing on a different aspect of the genre on each album. They started by exploring folksy strains on their 2013 self-titled first...
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Former Chicagoan James Falzone reconnects with two local projects
Chicago nearly lost a unique and multivariate musical force when James Falzone left town for Seattle in 2016. He cast a wide creative net as a clarinetist, composer, improviser and bandleader, mixing...
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Foxing embrace ambition on one of the best albums of the year, Nearer My God
On Halloween night 2016, a truck pushing 50 miles an hour rammed into the tour van of Saint Louis emo upstarts Foxing. The band members were fine, but their vehicle was totaled.…
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Zeal & Ardor balances black metal, negro spirituals, and greater songcraft on...
“What if American slaves had embraced Satan instead of Jesus?” That’s the question used to describe the style of Zeal & Ardor, an audacious mix of black metal, Negro spirituals, electronic accents,...
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A woman gets stripped to her psychic skin in Naked
Trap Door Theatre’s revival of the Pirandello play is farcical, soapy, and profound. Thanks to set designer Nick Schwartz, a good portion of the audience has to watch the Trap Door Theatre revival of...
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Alexis J. Roston fully inhabits Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill
Congo Square Theatre's revival paints a vibrant portrait of Billie Holiday. Portraying Billie Holiday, arguably the most iconic jazz vocalist of the last century, is well-traveled territory, posing a...
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Alice proves what we already guessed: Evanston is Wonderland
Things get curiouser and curiouser during this roaming production. First curated by Upended Productions artistic director Noelle Krim in 2004 during her time with the Neo-Futurists, this magical...
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Finland’s Cardinals Folly get weird on the groove-riddled Deranged Pagan Sons
This murky, heavy, hairy Finnish trio is a known quantity on every outing, and on their fourth full-length, Deranged Pagan Sons (released last year on Nine), they continue with their reliable formula...
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New Zealand’s the Beths trade jazz for the pleasures of indie pop
It may come as a surprise to find out that all of the members of Auckland four-piece the Beths are university-trained jazz musicians; their catchy, direct indie pop seems as far from jazz as Western...
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SOB X RBE drop their second album of the year as they appear to fall apart
By the end of the year SOB X RBE, the great rap hope of Vallejo, California, will have dropped their first two studio albums, February’s Gangin and its new sequel, Gangin II (both out on SOB X...
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Chicago nightlife veteran Hiroko Yamamura headlines Smart Bar amid a big year
The organizers behind Mamby on the Beach understand electronic music: its history, how it intersects with a panoply of other genres, and its future. The Sunday lineup for the dance-music tent at the...
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Former Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello releases his...
Revolutionary virtuosic guitarist and Libertyville native Tom Morello has tried on a lot of hats since the 2000 dissolution of his pioneering hyperpolitical funk-metal band Rage Against the Machine:...
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Swedish psych pioneers Träd, Gräs och Stenar show their trippy sounds are...
During the artistic ascent of rock music during the 1960s, strains of psychedelia developed at an astonishing rate, with each individual scene advancing some unique take on the music. Sweden’s Träd,...
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Wizard Apprentice makes digital folk music for people who live in their heads
What we think of as “folk music” is generally played on traditional acoustic instruments, but as technology weaves itself ever more inextricably into human lives, electronics have become as much “of...
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Sophie Allison of Soccer Mommy is wise and talented beyond her 20 years
Under the name Soccer Mommy, 20-year-old Sophie Allison creates the type of mellow rock songs that can break your heart and then make you feel like you’re getting a giant, warm hug in the shift...
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Death-doom forerunners Derketa cast their dark, metallic sound on Chicago
Almost 40 years since extreme metal emerged out of the pits of hell (or at least its garages and basements), the gender of its practitioners remains overwhelmingly male. But even in its earliest days,...
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Gypsy rockers DeVotchKa return with symphonic songs of heartbreak and devotion
Seven years after releasing their sixth studio album, 2011’s 100 Lovers (Anti-), folksy Gypsy rockers Devotchka have returned with their most orchestrated and gorgeous full-length yet, This Night...
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Reunited Australian postpunk legends the Scientists play East Room as part of...
In the mid-70s, guitarist and vocalist Kim Salmon dreamed of playing punk music in his hometown of Perth, the isolated capital city of western Australia. Though he initially had nothing to work from...
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Acid-folk duo Charalambides return in support of their first album in seven...
Charalambides: Tom and Christina Carter (Drawing Room) is the first album of new music in seven years by the Texas-based duo, and, like its title suggests, one of their most elemental. The Carters...
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West Town’s Funkenhausen ain’t your opa’s German beer hall
Chef Mark Steuer (the Bedford, Carriage House, et al) gets personal but not too serious at his new West Town brasserie. Mark Steuer's new German restaurant isn't named for his teenage all-accordion...
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