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Interpol stick to what they know on Marauder
It’s hard to think of another band that defined turn-of-the-century indie-rock hipness quite like Interpol. Taking the stage dressed in crisp three-piece suits and hammering out emotionless,...
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Poppy mixes high fashion, digital technology, and camp into viral-ready pop
Poppy is the patron saint of the extremely online; a pop star who never pretends to be anything other than an Internet-inspired construct. With her high-fashion-meets-Silicon-Valley aesthetic and a...
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On Anticlines Lucrecia Dalt's experimental electronics contain boundless layers
Colombian producer Lucrecia Dalt worked as a geotechnical engineer before she made crafting experimental electronics tracks a full-time endeavor. In May, Dalt, who now calls Berlin home, released her...
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Rapper Philmore Greene shares his Chicago stories through the sound of...
Local rapper Philmore Greene just dropped his debut album, Chicago: A Third World City (One of One Music Group), in December, but it sounds like it could have come out in the 90s; the kind of...
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Winter Block Party X showcases Chicago hip-hop for kids of all ages
By early February, many Chicagoans don’t wanna do anything more adventurous than curl up under a blanket with a book and a mug of something hot. But Metro, WBEZ, Vocalo, and Young Chicago Authors...
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In nearly four decades, southern stoner-sludge icons Corrosion of Conformity...
In the early 1980s, North Carolina’s Corrosion of Conformity built a cult following with their thrashy, no-frills hardcore punk, but they catapulted to mainstream success in the mid-90s when they...
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Wadada Leo Smith returns to Chicago to conduct the AACM Great Black Music...
Four years after its golden anniversary, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians asserts a contemporary presence that extends its legacy. The organization first convened on Chicago’s...
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Irving Park’s Finom is a good place for a latte, a lecsó sandwich, and a nap
It’s Hungarian food and hibiscus tea. After the woman had finished her lecsó sandwich, cherry turnover, and choco-spice latte, she asked if she could take a nap on the couch. At first Rafael Esparza...
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German producer DJ Koze suggests what the future of pop could sound like on...
A 2018 XLR8R profile of German producer Stefan Kozalla, aka DJ Koze, mentioned his predilection for telling the press that when he was a child his parents had left him in a Marrakesh forest with just...
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Different avant-garde disciplines vibrate sympathetically at the Frequency...
When former Reader staff writer Peter Margasak began programming the Frequency Series in 2013, he envisioned concerts that would expose audiences of different avant-garde musical disciplines to...
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Atlanta producer Kai Alcé celebrates a decade of releasing house music in the...
“House music has always been New York, Chicago, and Detroit, maybe as far as D.C. and Philadelphia,” Atlanta producer Kai Alcé told Red Bull Music Academy in 2016. “Under what we could call the...
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Portrayal of Guilt and Stay Asleep find new directions in screamo
On last year’s Let Pain Be Your Guide, Austin screamo band Portrayal of Guilt pull off a rare feat, wearing their influences on their sleeves, while forging a distinct identity of their own. Over the...
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New chapter, same narrator: Sharon Van Etten is better than ever on Remind Me...
It’s been nearly five years since Sharon Van Etten released Are We There―which means it’s also been nearly five years without that voice. The Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter has long possessed the...
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Procol Harum's proggy classics stand the test of time
Formed in England in 1967, Procol Harum are probably best known for their massive debut single “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” a chilling, Bach-inspired, organ-led beauty of a tune deemed by some the first...
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Expatriates Fred Lonberg-Holm and Jaimie Branch return to Chicago, and...
Cello and electronics player Fred Lonberg-Holm, who lived in Chicago until 2017, and Norwegian drummer Stoli L. Suzzleberg are the Party Knüllers. The name of the duo is a bit deceptive; their...
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Postrock instrumentalists Tortoise reemerge from their shells for Pitchfork’s...
There may be no better musical representation of the adage that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts than postrock instrumentalists Tortoise. Nearly 30 years after their inception, the...
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Donna Missal shows soulful promise on This Time
New Jersey singer-songwriter Donna Missal has a smoky, powerhouse voice, and a flair for making retro soul sound up-to-the-minute that recalls Amy Winehouse. She began releasing songs in 2015, and on...
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Chicago psych mainstays Dark Fog celebrate their new record, plus two more
Chicago’s trippy trio Dark Fog have definitely hit a deep vein of psych productivity. When I e-mailed guitarist and bandleader Ray Donato to ask about their new album, Living the Past . . .Killing the...
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Chicago rapper Sasha Go Hard searches for new ways to Make America Ratchet Again
Seven years ago, the rap world’s spotlight affixed itself on the first wave of drill with such intensity I wouldn’t have blamed anyone for thinking it was permanent. But the attention began to move on...
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William Basinski showcases ambient compositions based in earthly reality and...
Ambient music is often unfairly regarded as “background noise,” but in the hands of its most passionate practitioners, it can be as striking as the loudest and most confrontational music ever...
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