I’ve already begun to miss Halloween, because I’m not looking forward to being bombarded by Christmas every time I walk outside for two straight months. But I suppose it can’t hurt to remind any of y’all who celebrate some form of gift-giving holiday to get presents for your loved ones early, and not just because […]
Tag: Lala Lala
Posted inMusic
Lala Lala questions identity and isolation with I Want the Door to Open
Lala Lala’s ebullient new fourth album, I Want the Door to Open, feels like a musical antithesis of the isolation and insularity of the past 18 months. The project of Chicago songwriter Lillie West, Lala Lala rose to prominence with 2018’s The Lamb (Hardly Art), which was recorded live with a three-piece band. IWTDTO, by […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago art-pop wonder Sen Morimoto captures the magic of his community
Chicago art-pop wizard Sen Morimoto made national news in July, when the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events removed him from its Millennium Park at Home virtual summertime music series. Morimoto had prerecorded a series of mystical, gentle musical movements, but he began his set by delivering a brief statement lightly criticizing Mayor Lori […]
Posted inMusic
Dehd focus their sound and their hearts on the new Flower of Devotion
Chicago trio Dehd add studio polish and hard life lessons to their fusion of postpunk and garage folk.
Posted inMusic
Cadien Lake James’s greatest moment in Chicago music history
Twin Peaks guitarist Cadien Lake James honors the lessons that the city’s early house scene taught today’s DIY garage rockers.
Posted inMusic
Nnamdï grows up on Brat
Prolific musical polymath Nnamdï uses his new solo album to teach himself something about work-life balance.
Posted inMusic
The best Chicago albums of the 2010s: the critics’ ballots
Here’s where to see who voted for what and how the points got divvied up.
Posted inMusic
The best Chicago albums of the 2010s
The Reader polled dozens of critics to arrive at an absolutely indisputable ranked list of several hundred records that will definitely not start any arguments.
Posted inMusic
A streamable mixtape of Pitchfork’s Chicago sounds
This year Pitchfork booked enough acts from in and around Chicago to fill one side of a 90-minute cassette.
Posted inMusic
The 2019 Pitchfork Music Festival announces its lineup
Headliners Robyn, Haim, and the Isley Brothers are joined on the bill by the likes of Pusha T, Stereolab, and Mavis Staples.
Posted inBlogs
Lala Lala’s very sold-out record-release show, in photos
Photographer Brittany Sowacke captured Lala Lala’s packed party at the Empty Bottle.
Posted inBlogs
Lala Lala and more of the best things to do in Chicago this weekend
Chicago Votes’s Give a Shit and more goings on 9/28-9/30
Posted inArts & Culture
Chicagoans tell us what they’re most looking forward to
More of the best things happening this fall
Posted inMusic
Lala Lala’s new The Lamb mixes darkness with the light
From her first dreary-but-dreamy garage-rock single as Lala Lala, 2014’s “Fuck With Your Friends,” it was clear Chicago musician Lillie West was planting the seeds of something great. Since then she’s developed her artistry over a handful of independent releases, and tonight she celebrates the release of her brand-new album, The Lamb (Hardly Art). On […]
Posted inBlogs
Lillie West tells secrets but keeps them on Lala Lala’s lucid, cryptic new The Lamb
On their excellent second album, Chicago underground rockers Lala Lala process a painful year—but only partway. They celebrate its release with a show on Friday, September 28.