Joyful Noise Archives - Chicago Reader

Guitarist Yonatan Gat and the Eastern Medicine Singers combine avant-garde jazz and rock with Native American music

by Monica Kendrick September 27, 2022October 2, 2022

UPDATE: As of Sunday 10/2/2022, the Medicine Singers and Yonatan Gat concert scheduled for the Empty Bottle has been canceled. Contact ticket point of purchase for refund information. The Eastern Medicine Singers are a traditional Algonquin drum and vocal group based in Rhode Island. They sing mostly in several Algonquian languages, some of which are […]

Music

Oneida incorporate straight-ahead rock vibes into their expansive sound on Success

by Steve Krakow August 18, 2022August 18, 2022

Brooklyn is so closely associated with the American cultural zeitgeist of the early 2000s that it’s easy to forget how newly “cool” the borough was at the time. During Oneida’s late-90s infancy, the freak rockers would be met with bemusement when they told music journalists they were from Brooklyn. “People would laugh—Brooklyn was not hip,” […]

Music

Twenty-four points of view on the band Joan of Arc

by Leor Galil January 27, 2021August 18, 2021

Tim Kinsella lets everyone else tell the story of Joan of Arc—entirely in keeping with his long-running group’s embrace of illogic and reinvention.

Music

A room of Ohmme’s own

by Jessi Roti June 10, 2020August 18, 2021

On Fantasize Your Ghost, Macie Stewart and Sima Cunningham make their music a place of trust, discovery, and compassion.

Music

Sima Cunningham’s greatest moment in Chicago music history

by Sima Cunningham and Ayana Contreras May 26, 2020August 18, 2021

Ohmme cofounder Sima Cunningham spent years in a children’s choir that sang for the Dalai Lama—and she hopes to help such groups continue nurturing young musicians.

Music

Tim Kinsella’s Friend/Enemy re-emerges after 18 years with koans about America’s nightmare

by Leor Galil April 10, 2020August 18, 2021

Immediately after the 2016 presidential election, Tim Kinsella and a coterie of collaborators gathered at Chicago’s Minbal studios to work through their feelings about America’s new nightmare. It took them two days to record an album of solemn, fretful indie rock, and then it took them more than three years to release it. HIH NO/ON […]

Music

Tim Kinsella and Jenny Polus couple up in the oddball electronic duo Good Fuck

by J.R. Nelson and Leor Galil December 18, 2018August 18, 2021

Tim Kinsella and Jenny Polus couple up in the oddball electronic duo Good Fuck, punky cock-rock crew I Love Rich show the holidays the (dis)respect they deserve, and more.