The pop-culture industry loves to resurface detritus from my youth, add a little polish, and launch it on whatever streaming service I'm most likely to drop due to rising subscription […] …
Over the past two and a half years, I've assembled a lot of lists for Bandcamp Friday. I like sharing music that's unfamiliar to people, and the occasion of a […] The post Bandcamp Friday …
I've heard plenty of great songs that capture the dissociative lonesomeness and strange thrills of navigating interpersonal relationships now that so much human communication is sucked up by…
Dread can be suffocating, but Ganser make it work like a spark. On their new EP, Nothing You Do Matters (Felte), the Chicago postpunk four-piece take cues from dance punk […] The post Gans…
Chicago posthardcore four-piece Tar broke up in 1995, and the number of times they've reunited for a show since then you can count on one hand"this gig will be the […] The post Tar play th…
Singer, rapper, and songwriter Tink broke out of Chicago's hip-hop scene about a decade ago, becoming one of the constellation of new stars lighting up the city. Like many local […] The po…
Chicago rappers Tony Santana and Aubry know that all the talent in the world can't make a hip-hop duo work if the MCs don't click. As Stranded Civilians, Aubry and […] The post Stranded Ci…
Chicagoans don't need an excuse to talk about house music, but when the biggest pop star in the world drops a record indebted to house, you can expect more than […] The post Reading house'…
Ten City's fifth album, 2021's Judgement (Ultra), was a long time in the making"and not just because the crucial Chicago house group's previous album, That Was Then, This Is Now, […] The p…
Cellist and sound artist Dorothy Carlos moved to Chicago last year to begin an MFA in sound at the School of the Art Institute, but she's got a foot planted […] The post Chicago-based soun…
Brett Ray had proved his commitment to extreme music long before he launched the extreme-music blowout Dreary North Fest last year. He's been booking shows for more than two decades, […] T…
It's been four months since we've had a Bandcamp Friday. In case you've somehow forgotten, Bandcamp introduced them shortly after COVID-19 eliminated stateside touring in March 2020, and the…
If you've ever been to a show at Thalia Hall, you've walked right past Anna-Michal Paul's work. She creates the hand-drawn chalk art that greets concertgoers as they ascend the […] The pos…
A teenage Jamie Hodge enchanted the international underground-dance community in 1993 with his debut 12-inch as Born Under a Rhyming Planet, Analog: Heaven. Techno figurehead Richie Hawtin r…
I've long admired Chicago indie label Star Creature Universal Vibrations for its efforts to push the synth-heavy sounds of boogie and modern funk and bolster the international underground co…
Last year Chicagoland multi-instrumentalist Eric Reyes broke out in emo and pop-punk circles with his debut as Snow Ellet, the EP Suburban Indie Rock Star. It injects the sugar rush […] Th…
Addy Harris sings with a dewy softness in her group Rat Tally, but you can hear and feel the iron will behind her performances even over a roaring rock band. On Rat Tally's debut album, the …
In March 2020, when I wrote about underground industrial label Chicago Research and the tight-knit community that surrounded it, I heard that local duo Conjunto Primitivo planned to release …
Most rappers can only dream of making a song as powerful as PGF Nuk's breakout single, "Waddup." Superficially it sounds like a pretty standard drill track"terse verses in a wrought-iron flo…
On the evening of Thursday, June 30, dozens of young Black dancers gathered on the Chicago Riverwalk across from the Merchandise Mart. At 9 PM that night, Art on the Mart, which bills itself…
A couple weeks before Lifeguard played Horsegirl's record-release show at Thalia Hall in June, I ran into drummer Isaac Lowenstein and bassist Asher Case while walking through the Logan Squa…
Emerging Chicago rapper Christopher Horace charmed me a couple years ago with the first EP he released as F.A.B.L.E., (IX) The Hermit. His downy voice makes his playful raps sound more intim…
In 2017, foundational Chicago footwork collective and record label Teklife dropped On Life, a compilation highlighting all the producers in its wider family. That record became a series, and…
What would you do with 22.4 pounds of treats? The post Sugar and snacks and everything nice appeared first on Chicago Reader.
Northwest Indiana's punk scene would be a lot less thrilling without Mat Williams"he's been the engine behind many of the local bands whose names have filled homemade gig flyers around the R…