Last October, musician and curator Emily Beisel began booking the monthly Pleiades Series at Elastic Arts, which centers femme and nonbinary performers—and they follow their sets with improvised jam sessions that can include members of the audience, a practice intended to “build community and connection between womxn improvisors from diverse backgrounds.” Over the past year, […]
Tag: Mabel Kwan
Posted inMusic
Annie Fish simulates her dream of 90s alt-rock stardom
On Friday, September 16, Chicago singer, songwriter, and cartoonist Annie Fish will drop Weird Like Me, an album so steeped in classic alt-rock you’ll half believe Fish recorded it with Flood in 1993. Weird Like Me is a concept record about Fish’s childhood rock dreams, which she says she abandoned after seeing how the “powers […]
Posted inMusic
New-music combo Honestly Same debut their improvised meditations
Update Thu 1/20: The Honestly Same concert tonight has been canceled because one of the group’s members has been exposed to COVID. Gossip Wolf has yet to hear a note from Honestly Same, but the temptation is strong to refer to the five-piece improvising collective as a supergroup—kind of like Temple of the Dog for […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago soul aficionado Darrell Gordon on the most underrated Motown singer of the 1960s
Current musical obsessions of VJ Darrell Gordon, DJ Ken Wong, and Reader listings coordinator Salem Collo-Julin
Posted inMusic
Poster artist Keith Herzik on a self-described ‘Japanese Ultra Shit Band’
Current musical obsessions of poster artist and Wet Wallet guitarist Keith Herzik, Wet Wallet bassist and singer Gina Herzik, and Reader music editor Philip Montoro
Posted inMusic
Different avant-garde disciplines vibrate sympathetically at the Frequency Festival
When former Reader staff writer Peter Margasak began programming the Frequency Series in 2013, he envisioned concerts that would expose audiences of different avant-garde musical disciplines to artists from other genres that they had not heard before but might well appreciate. Margasak left the Reader and Chicago in order to move to Rome in 2018, […]
Posted inMusic
Ensemble dal Niente pianist Mabel Kwan on a playful post-smartphone look at David
Current musical obsessions of Ensemble dal Niente pianist Mabel Kwan, Kelley Sheehan of Cacophony magazine, and Reader critic Peter Margasak
Posted inBlogs
New-music pianist Mabel Kwan reinvents the ancient clavichord
Ensemble dal Niente pianist Mabel Kwan plays new work for the 500-year-old instrument.
Posted inBlogs
3.5.7. Ensemble is Chicago’s incredible shrinking (or growing) jazz band
The group’s new album Amongst the Smokestacks and Steeples deserves to net them greater visibility.
Posted inMusic
In Rotation: Cave’s Cooper Crain on a mind-blowing Chilean DIY label
Current musical obsessions of Cave’s Cooper Crain and Scott McGaughey of Chandeliers