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 brand-new In My Car, the Chicago native sets diaristic confessions to sometimes tender, sometimes hard-edged indie-rock melodies that draw […]
Category: Music
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Chicago explorers Bitchin Bajas to pay homage to Sun Ra
Last fall Chicago drone explorers Bitchin Bajas released a cassette of synthesizer-only Sun Ra covers called Switched on Ra (Drag City). The trio of Cooper Crain, Rob Frye, and Dan Quinlivan combine feel-good vibes with versatility and flexibility—they’ve shape-shifted into a free-jazz-inspired combo on Frye’s 2021 solo LP, Exoplanet (Astral Spirits), and leaned into their […]
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Melbourne punk trio Clamm show how much they care on their new second album
Trying to make sense of the times can feel like an exercise in futility, but it can also be a powerful tool of self-expression. That’s the modus operandi of Clamm, a young Melbourne three-piece founded in 2019 by two childhood friends—guitarist and vocalist Jack Summers and drummer Miles Harding—and soon rounded out by bassist Maisie […]
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Young-Holt Unlimited were more than Ramsey Lewis’s rhythm section
Most musicians use their first professional endeavors to find a voice and develop their chops. So I love it when artists “spin off” into new sounds, even if they break up beloved bands to do it. Curtis Mayfield and Jerry Butler both left the Impressions to follow their own soulful muses, and jazz-funk ensemble the […]
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Claude creates dream pop for facing nightmares
On a warm and sunny afternoon in June, I meet up with Claudia Ferme in Palmer Square Park for an interview that turns into a picnic. We nibble on pastries I picked up from Lost Larson and sip Topo Chicos, soothed by the peacefulness that new summer warmth inspires in Chicago. As Claude, Ferme makes […]
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Chicago singer-songwriter Claude makes dream pop for the youth, young and old
“I’m a twentysomething / Don’t you think it’s about time?” Chicago singer-songwriter Claudia Ferme, aka Claude, sighs on “Twenty Something,” which opens her debut full-length, A Lot’s Gonna Change (American Dreams). The track breathes and pulses through dream-pop heaven with swirling, chiming guitars and distant, mellow horns. It’s meant to be redolent of a certain […]
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WLUW’s Abstract Science celebrates 25 years with a 25-hour marathon broadcast
In July 2017, the hosts of WLUW 88.7 FM’s weekly electronic-music program, Abstract Science, celebrated the show’s 20th anniversary with a blockbuster 20-hour broadcast. (Gossip Wolf managed to tune in for a few of those hours, anyway. Sleep is important!) Those hosts include longtime selectors Chris Widman, Henry Self, Luke Stokes, Joshua P. Ferguson, and […]
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Experimental metal trio Locrian break their seven-year silence with the exploratory New Catastrophism
Experimental metal trio Locrian have spent the past 17 years branching out into unknown realms, but lately they’ve been reexamining their roots. Formed in Chicago in 2005 by guitarist André Foisy and keyboardist Terence Hannum, Locrian started out mining darkness from their bleak soundscapes by layering grimy, pitch-black, doomy ambient noise with swaths of sounds […]
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Drummer Susie Ibarra and guitarist Tashi Dorji subdivide sound and silence on Master of Time
In 2019, the Tang Museum at Skidmore College presented The Second Buddha: Master of Time, an exhibition concerning Padmasambhava, the guru credited with bringing Buddhism to Tibet during the eighth century. Along with lectures and exhibits both visual and virtual, the museum commissioned a concert—conceived as a “musical bardo exploration”—by Susie Ibarra, a Philippine American […]
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From the husk of the old Morton Salt factory, a new music venue rises
For as long as Bruce Finkelman can remember, the Morton Salt factory has set his heart racing. It’s not that he gets salt cravings any worse than the next guy. Rather, he remembers that when he was 12 years old, in the car with his parents on the Kennedy, the sight of the umbrella-toting girl […]
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Chicago duo Conjunto Primitivo concoct an irresistible blend of reggaeton and industrial
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 their debut full-length through the label. Considering how that month ended, I’m not surprised to see that album coming out only now—and I can’t argue with […]
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Riot Fest meeting leaves residents worried about the fate of their park
A recent community meeting provided few answers.
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Chicago drill upstart PGF Nuk hits where it hurts on Switch Music
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 flow, lean percussion, a sparse synth melody as chilly as a dusty pipe organ—but Nuk puts it over the top with his style. The Englewood […]
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Sumac headline a night of dynamic, heavy music
The title track of Sumac’s latest album, 2020’s May You Be Held (Thrill Jockey), is a tough-love affirmation built for trying times, when soothing sounds just don’t cut it anymore and you need self-care that’s more like the cathartic group therapy you might find in a Klingon gladiatorial arena. The postmetal power trio use punky, […]
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Black Chicago dance culture shines at Art on the Mart
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 as the world’s largest permanent art projection, would debut two new pieces, including Billiken, an homage to the biggest Black parade […]