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Galcher Lustwerk merges rap and deep house in his spellbinding songs
Cleveland native Galcher Lustwerk (who prefers to leave his birth name unknown) raps and produces deep-house instrumentals, but you can’t properly describe his music as some combination of house and...
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Teklife producer DJ Phil brings a nuanced touch to footwork
Footwork is often characterized by aggressive sounds and high speeds, but Chicago producer and Teklife member DJ Phil fills in the music’s framework with remarkable restraint. In the solo recordings...
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Cate Le Bon settles into her pleasant weirdness on Reward
Cate Le Bon makes pleasant weirdo pop music. It’s not so experimental that you couldn’t imagine it on mainstream radio, and in fact her songs have been used in TV shows, including the award-winning...
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Black Midi makes indie rock with lots of sharp edges
London quartet Black Midi have been getting lots of good press, including an ecstatic Pitchfork review of their 2019 debut, Schlagenheim (Rough Trade). It’s not hard to see why: the band deftly...
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Overlooked songwriting great Jay Bolotin plays his first Chicago show in four...
Few potential legends have been more grievously overlooked than singer-songwriter Jay Bolotin. You don’t have to take my word for it: the Kentucky-raised artist has written songs for Porter Wagoner...
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Subo Filipino Kitchen is Albany Park's answer to a Pinoy wave
The mother and son behind the late Three R's Filipino Cafe have regrouped at the Brown Line’s terminus. Chocolate meat is on the menu every day at Albany Park's Subo Filipino Kitchen. If you happen to...
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Underground supergroup Sick Gazelle take an unexpectedly pleasing dive into...
There was no way that Sick Gazelle weren’t going to be good. This trio of recording engineer and Veloce mastermind Eric Block on guitar, Yakuza and Bloodiest front man Bruce Lamont on saxophone, and...
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Harpist Billy Branch draws from blues history to invigorate his sound
Blues tributes are too often dire affairs—note-for-note reworkings of timeworn ideas and riffs that betray an almost puritanical obsession with “authenticity.” That approach, of course, dishonors the...
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Austin’s Temple of Angels match postrock aesthetics with metallic power
Austin quintet Temple of Angels have been flying low under the radar since they dropped their self-titled debut EP in 2017, but they’ve cut their way out of the undergrowth of a dark postpunk forest...
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Cam puts a psychological spin on country pop
Cam’s lyrics cut to the core of interpersonal relationships like a breakthrough in a therapy session, perhaps because the California singer-songwriter studied psychology and worked as a researcher...
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Les Misérables storms the barricades again.
Thirty-four years later, the blockbuster musical still packs a potent political message with the melodrama. Given its blockbuster history, it may be hard to remember that, despite packed houses, Les...
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There’s nothing bad about The Drag Seed
David Cerda’s latest classic makeover for Hell in a Handbag is a winner for summer camp. David Cerda's camp parody of Mervyn LeRoy's 1956 film The Bad Seed, about a murderous, extremely narcissistic...
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The second coming of True West
Jon Michael Hill and Namir Smallwood breathe fire into Steppenwolf’s revival. If you've been banging around the Chicago theatrosphere longer than 25 seconds, you know the myth of True West and how Sam...
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Wolf Play leads the pack
An adoptee seeks comfort and safety in lupine identity in Hansol Jung's latest. Never doubt the emotional layers possible from an expertly crafted, exquisitely manipulated puppet. In the right hands,...
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20/20 celebrates being young, gifted, and queer
About Face Youth Theatre turns 20 with this contemporary look at LGBTQ history. About Face Youth Theatre's company-created work explores the lives of LGBTQ young people past, present, and future....
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Sunset Baby shows the personal price for political strife
A daughter struggles to reconnect with her estranged activist father in Dominique Morisseau's drama. Nina (Jazzma Pryor) and her estranged father, Kenyatta (Marc A. Rogers), a former activist in the...
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The Recommendation balances hilarious excess and grim realism
Windy City Playhouse’s latest immersive ambulatory production offers a penetrating analysis of class privilege. Two college guys, unlike in privilege, in Providence, where we lay our scene. From minor...
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With All Blues, Peter Frampton honors classics amid his own loss
Peter Frampton’s got a right to sing the blues. The versatile guitarist recently revealed he has a degenerative muscle disorder called inclusion body myositis, which means his fingers might eventually...
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Puerto Rican punks Davila 666 come back from the dead
Until last month, Puerto Rican six-piece Davila 666 had been quiet since 2011. The riotous outfit had earned a reputation as one of the best live bands in the world, fusing stripped-down, hard-hitting...
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After 25 years, Smash Mouth’s gold still glimmers
I’m sure you’re expecting a takedown here, since at some point in the past two decades it apparently became unforgivable for a band to record a phoned-in cover of “I’m a Believer” for a family movie...
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