Clik here to view.
On Unfold Australian improvising trio the Necks force temporal parameters on...
This spellbinding Australian trio have adhered to a singular method for three decades now, consistently pushing one another to build meditatively powerful performances from the simplest of kernels: a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
An all-star cast celebrates the legacy of radical choreographer Merce Cunningham
A couple of weeks ago “Merce Cunningham: Common Time,” a major exhibition devoted to the work and associates of the relentlessly experimental choreographer, opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Atlanta’s Withered fashion a black/doom hybrid on last year’s gnarly Grief Relic
Since this Atlanta blackened-death quartet released its 2010 LP Dualitas half of its lineup has changed. Departing guitarist Dylan Kilgore was replaced by Ethan McCarthy of Primitive Man, and bassist...
View ArticleClik here to view.
On his gripping new solo album, progressive jazz drummer Jamire Williams...
Drummer Jamire Williams spent time in New York in the aughts, working with high-level bandleaders like Robert Glasper and Herbie Hancock and pursuing an R&B-informed vision of jazz. These days he...
View ArticleClik here to view.
On Laugh Tracks Knocked Loose believe in the power and glory of the hardcore...
Late-90s beatdown-styled hardcore—of the ilk that chugs in step with the sweet rhythm of a double-kick pedal—has been quite on the up and up in recent years, and Kentucky’s Knocked Loose have been...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Montreal producer Tiga honors techno’s history while ignoring its status quo
Electronic producer and songwriter Tiga helped build Montreal’s techno scene, though he’s not one to confine his own music to that genre’s rigid pulse. On his third full-length, last year’s No Fantasy...
View ArticleClik here to view.
On Special Night soul vet Lee Fields brings contemporary themes to his...
I don’t think veteran soul singer Lee Fields foresaw an increasingly divided and polarized United States when he recorded “Make the World,” a song from last fall’s terrific Special Night (Big Crown)....
View ArticleClik here to view.
On the new Offers Ne-Hi edge away from their garage genesis toward pop majesty
On their second full-length, Offers (Grand Jury), Chicago sweethearts Ne-Hi take poppy indie rock and elevate it to new levels of grandeur. Formed in 2013 by four college friends at the now-defunct...
View ArticleClik here to view.
2 Queens 1 Mic crosses racial, gender, geographic, and comedic boundaries
Stand-ups Brandi Denise and Kellye Howard show off their sketch, musical, and improv chops in a new show at the Revival. If the names Brandi Denise and Kellye Howard sound familiar, it's because...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Barn is Amy Morton’s worthy follow-up to Found
At the Evanston steak house located down an alley in a former stable, chef Nicole Pederson does amazing things with meat and vegetables. In general, people go to steak houses for two reasons: for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The MCA’s Merce Cunningham retrospective spotlights the art of collaboration
“Merce Cunninghman: Common Time” considers one of the 20th century’s most significant choreographers. You'd never mistake Merce Cunningham for a traditionalist. A tap dancer growing up, the striking,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Boy wonder Justin Peck makes the Joffrey’s ‘Game Changers’ soar
Set to Sufjan Stevens, the dancer-choreographer's Year of the Rabbit lives up to the program's title. The Joffrey Ballet continues to add big-ticket draws to its repertoire, most notably from young...
View ArticleClik here to view.
England’s Stile Antico are peerless purveyors of Renaissance polyphonic music
I won’t pretend to know much about Renaissance vocal music, but I will say that encountering Divine Theatre: Sacred Motets by Giaches de Wert (Harmonia Mundi), the new album by veteran British vocal...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Longtime collaborators and young Chicago rap heroes G Herbo and Lil Bibby...
Chicago rappers G Herbo and Lil Bibby have collaborated for as long as local rap fans have been sifting through the dregs of the Internet looking for their material, for as long as Drake has been...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Durand Jones & the Indications are so much more than your typical...
It wasn’t too long ago that the core members of midwestern revivalist act Durand Jones & the Indications met at Indiana University through gigs with the IU Soul Revue, the college’s tip-top...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A pioneer of minimalist lo-fi synth music, John Bender has emerged from...
Leading the minimal-electronics vanguard of the early 80s would have required quite the undertaking for Cincinnati’s John Bender had he not instead opted to totally retreat into the recesses of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
On Illinois River Valley Blues instrumental guitar band Brokeback summon the...
Since Douglas McCombs’s long-running project Brokeback evolved from a solo endeavor into a quartet lineup seven years ago, he and his cohorts have engaged in an exquisitely patient act of retrenchment...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Devendra Banhart smooths out his eccentricities on his recent Ape in Pink Marble
For quite a few years I’ve been going against the grain when it comes to Devendra Banhart. As he’s curbed the quirky excesses that helped enamor press and fans alike—the overwrought falsetto, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Esa-Pekka Salonen leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra through John Adams’s...
During this visit to lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen presents two proven ticket sellers in Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and Stravinsky’s The Rite of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Chicago rapper-producer Ibn Inglor has a sound built to fill a downtown theater
It takes a certain brazenness to attempt maximalist rap as an underdog, and Chicago rapper-producer Ibn Inglor has it in spades. Last year’s self-released Honegloria is painted from the same palette...
View Article