After a COVID gap year, the Frequency Festival returns on February 22. The six-day event is an outgrowth of the Frequency Series, which is programmed by former Chicago Reader staff music critic Peter Margasak and hosted by Constellation. Founded in 2013, shortly after drummer and promoter Mike Reed opened the north-side venue, the series presents […]
Tag: Ryan Packard
Daniel Wyche makes guitar ambience you can feel at home in
“A home is a place that’s full of people,” says Chicago guitarist, composer, and improviser Daniel Wyche. “I’ve been inspired by my grandparents’ hospitality. They had this need to welcome tons of people into their home. That’s cultivating what family means.” The first track on Earthwork, Wyche’s new album on local label American Dreams Records, […]
The transnational Rempis/Lopez/Packard trio converges in Chicago
The seven tracks on the Rempis/Lopez/Packard trio’s superb debut CD, The Early Bird Gets (Aerophonic), are named after prehistoric avian animals. Anytime a jazz band invokes birds, the ur-Bird—Charlie Parker—inevitably comes to mind. And while no one’s going to mistake the trio’s music for bebop, it does swing more than you’d expect given the backgrounds […]
Homeroom’s Physics for Listeners series connects local trio ZRL with four disparate composers
Homeroom’s Physics for Listeners series connects local trio ZRL with four disparate composers, the Plastic (Crimewave) Ono Band releases its fourth tape-only split, and more.
Drummer and composer Bill Harris on a Chicago iconoclast who can make an album feel like an epic film
Current musical obsessions of drummer and composer Bill Harris, clarinetist and composer Angel Bat Dawid, and Reader music critic Peter Margasak
Isabelle Duthoit & Franz Hautzinger and local trio ZRL present new strains of free improvisation
French-Austrian duo Isabelle Duthoit & Franz Hautzinger and Chicago trio ZRL highlight this weekend’s options for adventurous live music.
Queer-friendly occult-themed monthly party Switches of Eastwick launches at the Whistler
Queer-friendly monthly party Switches of Eastwick launches at the Whistler, first-generation Chicago punks Silver Abuse celebrate a new album, and more.