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 they’ve since become something of a tradition, helping countless musicians make ends meet without their usual road money. For the 24 hours of each Bandcamp Friday, the […]
Tag: Angel Olsen
Posted inMusic
Anna-Michal Paul, chalk artist extraordinaire
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 stairs to the second-floor venue. Her detailed, textured portraits and stylized lettering, which she catalogs on Instagram at latenightchalkshow, are as much a part of […]
Posted inMusic
Angel Olsen taps into love and loss on her triumphant sixth album, Big Time
An incredible thing about humans is our ability to shoulder and navigate trauma while opening ourselves up to new possibilities. The journey may be rocky, but with luck we can come out the other side with new strength or knowledge. That’s a fitting starting point for Angel Olsen’s new sixth record, Big Time. She wrote […]
Posted inMusic
A guide to Pitchfork for the resonant body
Since 2015, my first year living full-time in Chicago, the Pitchfork Music Festival has been a watershed moment in my summer. In its regular July slot, the fest has created a fulcrum point in the season—it’s a place to unexpectedly bump into forgotten friends and rest in the leafy tranquility of the Blue Stage, where […]
Posted inMusic
The pandemic is still with us, so Bandcamp day is too
The Reader recommends 34 recent releases for this month’s Bandcamp day.
Posted inMusic
Angel Olsen’s Whole New Mess showcases the skeletal recordings that led to 2019’s All Mirrors
On her new fifth album, Whole New Mess, Angel Olsen presents skeletal renditions of songs from her 2019 LP All Mirrors, filtering their themes of love, broken promises, and recovery through a stark, isolationist lens of a woman armed with only her guitars. While the record’s release date comes nearly a year after All Mirrors, […]
Posted inMusic
Where indie music meets indie gaming
Chicago video-game composers talk about how they found their way into this strange and difficult business.
Posted inMusic
The Pitchfork Music Festival announces its 2020 lineup
For its 15th year, the famously eclectic fest has booked headliners the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Run the Jewels, and the National.
Posted inMusic
Indie mastermind Angel Olsen continues her ascent to stardom with All Mirrors
Angel Olsen has a voice that can command an entire theater and the songwriting chops to match—even playing solo with just an acoustic guitar, she can transfix a sold-out house. On her recent fourth album, All Mirrors (Jagjaguwar), Olsen involved a small orchestra and added synthesizers to her instrumentation, choices that enrich and amplify the […]
Posted inFilm
Zia Anger relies on herself with My First Film
In what is actually the director’s second film, she delivers an interactive, self-reflective performance.
Posted inMusic
Reality TV star and tattoo artist Phor showcases his rap skills at 1st Ward
Reality TV star and tattoo artist Phor showcases his rap skills at 1st Ward, tape label Love Lion pays tribute to the Chicago underground, and more.
Posted inMusic
Angel Olsen’s new rarities collection proves her creative depth has been there from the start
Onetime Chicagoan Angel Olsen showed signs of vast talent years ago, but the artistic growth, charisma, and self-possession she projected during her powerful set at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival proved she’s the real deal. It’s illuminating to consider her development in the context of November’s Phases (Jagjaguwar), a collection of rarities and previously unreleased […]
Posted inMusic
In praise of Pitchfork’s Blue Stage
Pitchfork’s Blue Stage lets you see the likes of Arca, Dawn Richard, Mitski, Survive, and Pinegrove before they’re too big to get close to.
Posted inMusic
The Reader’s takes on the 2017 Pitchfork Music Festival
Our preview package covers Solange and the breadth of black cultural expression, Jeff Rosenstock and Pitchfork’s relationship to DIY, Survive and music media’s infatuation with prestige TV, and much more.
Posted inBlogs
The Pitchfork Music Festival announces its complete 2017 lineup
PJ Harvey, the Avalanches, George Clinton, and Priests (among dozens of others) join previously announced Pitchfork headliners LCD Soundsystem, A Tribe Called Quest, and Solange.