The two of us were destined to meet. Eric “Shoutin’” Sheridan, who died of heart failure on April 29 at age 72, called himself the King of Blackabilly. And as far as I knew, I was the only other Black musician hanging out on Chicago’s white and Latine-dominated rockabilly scene. Sheridan had moved here in […]
Category: Music
Posted inMusic
Tinariwen enhance the Tuareg blues of Amatssou with touches of country-and-western and ambient
In 2017, Reader critic Peter Margasak noted Tinariwen’s recurring practice of featuring rock musicians as guests on their records. Their new album, Amatssou, doesn’t change that approach, but it perfects it. Originally, the long-running ensemble of Tuareg musicians (also known as Kel Tamasheq, meaning speakers of Tamasheq) intended to make the album at Jack White’s […]
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Chicago trio French Police play darker and tour bigger
Packed into a garage in Garfield Ridge, Manny Herrera and brothers Jesse and Brian Flores practice for an imminent tour of Mexico by their postpunk band French Police. It’s late March, and their first Mexican date is just days away. It’ll be the Mexican American trio’s fourth tour, and their first outside the States. They’re […]
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The Bollweevils are the rare pop-punk band aging gracefully
It feels like a lifetime since Chicago pop-punk veterans the Bollweevils have put out an album. They formed in 1989, and unless you count a posthumous compilation, they haven’t released a full-length since 1996—that one was Weevilive, a live recording of a Metro set from the previous year. The group went dormant after a final […]
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Producer Thelonious Martin keeps hip-hop’s old wisdom alive
Sitting under the warm blue lights of his home studio, Chicago producer Thelonious Martin reflects on his musical influences as he studies a set of shelves completely stacked with obscure vinyl. On the shelves’ top right corner rest thick biographies about two of the greatest innovators in their respective genres: jazz pianist Thelonious Monk and […]
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French coldwave legends Martin Dupont embark on their first U.S. tour
Martin Dupont was one of the most enigmatic and exhilarating coldwave bands of the 1980s. The group was founded in 1980 in Marseille, France, by songwriter and bassist Alain Seghir, who wanted to explore new wave after spending time in rock and jazz bands. Over the next few years he linked up with several musically […]
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Bristol duo Giant Swan bring relentless techno chaos to the Empty Bottle
Since the 2010s, a crop of artists have shifted and contorted electronic dance music into new levels of aggression and experimentation, challenging as well as rewarding their listeners. Bristol duo Giant Swan, who create raw and pummeling industrial techno with meticulous attention to detail, are at the vanguard of this sound. They collide clattering synths […]
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Chicago metal explorers Yakuza return with Sutra, their first album in more than a decade
Has it really been more than a decade since Yakuza released an album? Yes it has, and I’m probably not the only Chicago metal fan who feels old about it. When the avant-garde metal outfit first sidled onto the local scene in 1999, they threw down a gauntlet: clarinet and saxophone weren’t often thought of […]
Posted inChicagoans of Note
Czarina Mirani, founder and editor of 5 Magazine
In 2005, Czarina Mirani launched 5 Magazine to spread the word about the house-music scene she loves so much. Along with managing editor Terry Matthew and a pool of contributors, Mirani has published indispensable documentation of Chicago’s house history, including interviews with key players such as Frankie Knuckles, Paul Johnson, and Phuture’s DJ Pierre. Whenever […]
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Shawnee Dez lives the dream she’s been waiting for
Thom Yorke’s soundtrack for Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 remake of Suspiria is as stark, haunting, and unpredictable as the film itself. On the track “Has Ended,” reverberant drums and bass meld with a meditative tanpura drone and Yorke’s compressed voice, which drifts into the music layered two or three times over. His words are barely distinguishable, […]
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Los Angeles electronic artist Mareux soaks in gloomy romanticism on the new Lovers From the Past
Mareux is the project of Los Angeles producer and vocalist Aryan Ashtiani, whose music incorporates postpunk, goth, and the European electronic styles he heard via Polish MTV during his summers in Iran as a youth. Mareux’s 2013 debut, the four-song EP Decade, is full of sun-flecked synth-pop that mixes bouncy moods with its wistfulness, but […]
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Soul artist and freshly minted Chicagoan K.Raydio drops a gorgeous, generous new EP
Ever since singer, producer, and songwriter Krysta Rayford, aka K.Raydio, moved to Chicago from Minneapolis in summer 2022, Gossip Wolf has been on the alert for every bit of her soulful music. She has an endlessly alluring voice, a keen melodic sense, and a knack for beats that combine classic R&B and soul from the […]
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Enterprising Chicago rapper Kayo drops an optimistic, ambitious debut
If you like hip-hop that foregrounds reflective lyrics, sumptuous production, and a heady mix of youthful optimism and ambition, Kayo may be your new favorite emerging rapper. On his debut full-length, January’s It Was Fun While It Lasted (released via Kayo’s label and streetwear company, Southside Blue Hearts), he raps over relaxed beats built from […]
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Pinksqueeze poke fun at indie rock’s status quo
Chicago four-piece Pinksqueeze should be in the rotation of any local indie-rock connoisseur, and not just because of their skill with their instruments. Sure, these twentysomethings play with the confidence of seasoned veterans who’ve been gigging since before they were born. And sure, their musical chemistry gives an affable warmth to everything they play, whether […]
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Y La Bamba return home with fresh self-knowledge on the new Lucha
The first song I heard from Y La Bamba was the title track from 2016’s tender and expansive Ojos del Sol. The music had a transformative quality that made it feel at once like the nostalgia of returning home and an imagined comfort yet to come. Singer-songwriter and guitarist Luz Elena Mendoza Ramos, the leader […]