Last May I visited Wicker Park coffee shop Filter to meet local antifolk musician Willis Earl Beal for the first time—I’d gotten in touch after coming across a flyer of his at Myopic Books. Beal was in a bit of a bind at the time; a couple months earlier, he’d brought two cassettes of his music to Roscoe Village studio Handwritten Recording to get the material digitized and transfered onto CD, but he didn’t have the $100 he needed to actually walk out with the disc. Beal handed me a business card from Handwritten co-owner Rick Riggs and told me, “There’s some good music at this place.” On the back of the card Beal had written the name of his recording project in all caps: ACOUSMATIC SORCERY BY WILLIS EARL BEAL.