Editor’s note Mon 12/12/22: the St. Lucia events previously posted below are scheduled for Tuesday 12/13/22. The Reader regrets our error. Join Andersonville residents and celebrate the holidays the Swedish way, with St. Lucia and the Lucia Procession. Lucia girls, in white robes and candle crowns, will be crowned at noon at the temporary Nordic […]
Tag: Matt Muse
Posted inMusic
Recommendations for the year’s final Bandcamp Friday
The final Bandcamp Friday of the year arrives December 2. I’ve made a habit of rounding up music recommendations from recent Reader stories for each Bandcamp Friday, and since this is the 26th one, I hope it’s redundant to explain that for a 24-hour period, Bandcamp passes along its usual share of sales revenue to […]
Posted inMusic
Erica Mei Gamble releases a set of minimalist beats and electronics four years in the making
Erica Mei Gamble has been a key part of Chicago’s DIY experimental- and dance-music communities for more than a decade. She has several musical projects—including Sarica, A+E, and her S&M-themed goth horror duo with Sarah Leitten, Dungeon Mother—and she’s also the scene’s most diligent video preservationist. Gamble has posted sets by hundreds of artists dating […]
Posted inMusic
Metallic hardcore masters Harm’s Way celebrate a decade of Isolation
When metallic hardcore masters Harm’s Way dropped their second full-length, Isolation, in 2011, Gossip Wolf hailed the “chug-o-riffic” album for its “circle-pit-ready brutality”—and the band have gone on to build a worldwide fan base and sign to Metal Blade. In November, Closed Casket Activities (who originally put out Isolation) released a tenth-anniversary edition with four […]
Posted inMusic
Bandcamp Friday returns for 2021
You can jump-start your Bandcamp Friday browsing with nearly 100 newly Reader-recommended releases.
Posted inMusic
Chicago’s independent musicians stepped up their activism in 2020
With concerts and tours on hold for most of the year, Chicago’s music scene doubled down on mutual aid and fundraising for community groups.
Posted inMusic
Rapper Matt Muse runs a second Love & Nappyness Hair Care Drive
Rapper Matt Muse runs a second Love & Nappyness Hair Care Drive, a new compilation of 46 local artists benefits Chicago Community Jail Support, and more.
Posted inMusic
Decades of friendship enrich a new collaboration by rapper Rich Jones and producer Montana Macks
Rapper-singer Rich Jones and producer Montana Macks have been friends for nearly two decades, which surely helps explain how the Chicagoans’ new self-released album, How Do You Sleep at Night?, hits so smoothly. For the past few years, Jones has leaned into the downy plushness of his voice, more and more often rhyming in a […]
Posted inMusic
Femdot pauses his rap career to help feed Chicago
Femdot’s nonprofit, Delacreme Scholars, has run the Scholars Slide By to deliver groceries to hundreds of people in need this summer.
Posted inNews & Politics
‘This is a moment of empowerment’: An oral history of the People’s Grab-N-Go
A retrospective look at the weekly Black-led food distribution program outside Burke Elementary.
Posted inMusic
Why do indie musicians put up with penny payouts?
Streaming your favorite artists’ music is the least helpful way to support them. But they can’t abandon those platforms, because we won’t.
Posted inMusic
On Love & Nappyness, Chicago rapper Matt Muse explores the complexities of love
Chicago rapper Matt Muse first studied his craft through mentorship nonprofit Art of Culture (back when it was still called Donda’s House), but he didn’t begin performing in earnest until he started classes at Northern Illinois University in the early 2010s. “That played a huge role in helping me improve my performance skills,” Muse told […]
Posted inMusic
Johari Noelle packs years of soul into her first five songs
Chicago native Johari Noelle has shaped her polished debut EP with years of choir and theater, half a season on reality TV, and nearly 18 months in the studio.
Posted inMusic
Mother Nature rep hip-hop as a culture, a calling, and a career
Chicago rap duo Mother Nature have already carried their message of self-reliance and self-realization into schools and overseas—and they’re raising their own bar with the EP Pressure.
Posted inMusic
Food, football, fund-raising, and Freddie Gibbs at this weekend’s music fests
Beer & Bands for Comfort Station This fund-raiser for Logan Square arts hub Comfort Station features a diverse bill of live music (Dos Santos, Phoelix, Dim, and Campdogzz) plus beer from Goose Island, cider from Virtue, and hard seltzer from White Claw. See Gossip Wolf for more. Sat 9/8, 4 PM, Illinois Centennial Monument, 2595 […]