On September 7, Chicago rapper Femi Adigun (aka Femdot, often styled femdot.) tweeted a loosie called “happyseptember.” that he’d recorded on a recent late night. “A lot of times I record to get words I can’t get out any other way,” he wrote in his post. “Wrote this cause it helped me. But maybe it […]
Author Archives: Leor Galil
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Dormant Illinois indie-rock project Easter returns for its flowers
The south suburbs loom large in the recent history of Chicagoland indie rock, and not just because they gave the city two of its best recent exports, Nnamdï and Ratboys. Oak Forest native Kyle Lang, for example, got into the local scene by playing house shows in the south suburbs with his band Easter, where […]
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Chicago’s record stores make for minimally miserable Black Friday destinations
Record Store Day usually takes place in the spring (well, before the pandemic it did), but in 2011 its organizers launched a Black Friday spin-off. Since then I’ve become increasingly weary of this invented retail holiday. Even though RSD promotes independent brick-and-mortar music shops—unquestionably a good idea—its list of special releases has become saturated with […]
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Round Trip Records opens its brick-and-mortar shop after almost two years of pandemic delays
Chicago has a brand-new record store: Round Trip Records in North Park! Co-owner Paul Nixon says the shop has been in the works since November 2019, when he left his longtime gig at Laurie’s Planet of Sound. Shortly he and Round Trip co-owner David Baker started selling records online and at the Chicagoland Record & CD […]
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Chicago rockers Kirby Grip explore low earth orbit on Portrait of Bliss
Chicago rockers Kirby Grip debuted in 2019 with American Cheese, an upbeat EP that animated its clean power-pop hooks with excitable emo propulsion. American Cheese standout “Chopped Party,” though, adopted a space-rock sound paired with stargazing lyrics, hinting at a direction Kirby Grip are now exploring in earnest on the new self-released full-length Portrait of […]
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Elenna Sindler teams up with Hasco Duo for an EP of haunting art songs
Late last month, local contemporary classical composer and pop musician Elenna Sindler dropped a new collaborative digital EP, Lullaby Baby, with Hasco Duo (aka soprano Amanda DeBoer Bartlett and guitarist Jesse Langen, both of Ensemble dal Niente). Sindler, who sings the lead vocal parts on the EP, describes it as reflecting “different fears and anxieties […]
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Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins points out the Elephant in the Room
On “Stiff Arm,” three songs into Mick Jenkins’s new Elephant in the Room (Free Nation/Cinematic Music Group), Chicago performer and activist Ayinde Cartman delivers a scorching rumination that doubles as thesis statement for the album, identifying a key paradox of Black life in America. “Our existence is the elephant in every boardroom,” Cartman declares. “How […]
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Damián Antón Ojeda lets it all out in Sadness
In the last week of October, one of the most popular releases on Bandcamp was made by a 24-year-old who works at a theme park outside Saint Louis and records as Sadness. Damián Antón Ojeda’s dramatic, grandly atmospheric music mixes black metal and postrock, and on Sunday, October 24, he put out a two-track EP […]
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The Roadburners bid farewell to their charitable Bring It Up High Festival
Hi Fi & the Roadburners were among Chicago’s most ferocious live acts for more than 25 years, melding rockabilly, gutbucket R&B, and punk rock into blue–collar anthems that landed them on the Victory Records roster during the label’s 1990s heyday. Lead guitarist Jeff Schuch passed away in 2009, and singer Erik “Hi Fi” Kish died […]
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Chicago indie-rock wonder Tasha nudges you to chase your dreams on Tell Me What You Miss the Most
If waking up from a deep, rejuvenating sleep had a sound, it’d probably be a lot like the music of Tasha Viets-VanLear. Tenderness lights the path for this Chicago singer, songwriter, poet, and activist, who records under her first name. The intimate indie rock on her 2018 debut, Alone at Last, gets its alluring emotional […]
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Arcadia Grey and Guitar Fight From Fooly Cooly give fifth-wave emo a jolt
Update: On November 5, Guitar Fight From Fooly Cooly canceled their remaining shows on this tour. No replacement had been announced at publication time, and Arcadia Grey will still perform. The lineup listed below will likely change further. It’s a fool’s errand to pinpoint the moment when fifth-wave emo became a thing in underground DIY […]
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Chicago rapper SoloSam finds new reflections in grief on Principles to Die By
We’ve all felt it at some point during the 19 months and counting of the pandemic: an anguish amplified by loss, even if we’ve been lucky enough that no one close to us has died from the virus or developed long COVID. (If your life since March 2020 has been absolutely untroubled, I have to […]
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Chicago bruisers Nequient drop a new EP to soften you up for their next album
In 2018, Gossip Wolf weighed in on Chicago metallic hardcore neck breakers Nequient, calling their debut full-length, Wolves at the Door, a “major D-beat shit storm.” In the years since, the four-piece band—drummer Chris Avgerin, bassist Keenan Clifford, guitarist Patrick Conahan, and vocalist Jason Kolkey—have earned a sterling rep as an onstage juggernaut, but only […]
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Bandcamp Friday returns just in time to save you from holiday shipping delays
I’ve already begun to miss Halloween, because I’m not looking forward to being bombarded by Christmas every time I walk outside for two straight months. But I suppose it can’t hurt to remind any of y’all who celebrate some form of gift-giving holiday to get presents for your loved ones early, and not just because […]
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Chicago’s Heet Deth make enough noise to wake the dead on Heet Deth Hooray!
The members of Heet Deth, drummer-singer Julia Bard and guitarist-singer Laila Eskin, seem to have taken the right lessons from the early-2000s heyday of the White Stripes and Death From Above 1979—namely, that two people can whip up enough noise to make a bigger band overkill. On their debut full-length, September’s Heet Deth Hooray! (Don’t […]