Experimental musician Jordan Reyes has dipped his fingers into many genres. His early works display his devotion to the modular synth, but he’s increasingly branched out in unpredictable directions, like flood waters overflowing a creek. The Chicago-based musician (and occasional Reader contributor) delved into dark ambient on 2020’s Fairchild Soundtrack + Border Land (a score […]
Tag: Sam Wagster
Posted inMusic
Fire-damaged venue Golden Dagger raises funds to help it reopen
Independent Lincoln Park music venue, bar, and coffeehouse Golden Dagger (previously known as Tonic Room) suffered damage from a fire on Friday, November 26. Owner Donnie Biggins says an employee on-site called him just after noon that day to report she smelled smoke. “Luckily no one was really buying coffee. The tenants upstairs weren’t home,” […]
Posted inMusic
Alison Chesley, cellist and composer, aka Helen Money
“A year without music venues, without audiences, without seeing other people play has really made me realize how important that is for me.”
Posted inMusic
Art-pop wizard Sen Morimoto takes over booking at the Hideout
Art-pop wizard Sen Morimoto takes over booking at the Hideout, and self-described “bootgaze” crew the Keener Family return with a second EP.
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Tim Kinsella’s Friend/Enemy re-emerges after 18 years with koans about America’s nightmare
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 […]
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Mute Duo release a taut, painterly album for pedal steel and drums
Mute Duo release a taut, painterly album for pedal steel and drums, young neo-classic rockers Rookie celebrate their debut, and more.
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Amalea Tshilds’s new Love on the Ground turns French poetry into harmony-rich Americana
Amalea Tshilds is a familiar face to anyone who’s ever enjoyed a meal at Logan Square’s beloved Lula Cafe, but in the past few years she’s also raised her profile as a singer-songwriter. It’s a decided shift from running the neighborhood restaurant she’s co-owned for more than two decades, but her musical pursuits are hardly […]
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Psych-pop group Roommate play their first Chicago show in more than two years
Psych-pop group Roommate play their first Chicago show in more than two years, DJ Clent spins at another giant juke, footwork, and ghetto-house blowout, and more.
Posted inFilm
Studies in repressed sexuality: Lon Chaney’s The Unknown and Boris Karloff’s The Old Dark House
Two psychologically loaded horror classics return for Halloween.
Posted inMusic
Steve Mizek’s Argot label celebrates five years of top-shelf electronic music
Steve Mizek’s Argot label celebrates five years of top-shelf electronic music, Cole’s hosts a Halloween cover-band benefit for Mexico and Puerto Rico, and more.
Posted inMusic
RIP Trey Gruber of promising young Chicago band Parent
Trey Gruber of up-and-coming Laurel Canyon-style rockers Parent has died at age 26.
Posted inMusic
Jim Dorling of the Pillowhammer on a kinder, gentler sort of earworm
Current musical obsessions of the Reader’s Peter Margasak, the Pillowhammer’s Jim Dorling, and the Father Costume’s Sam Wagster
Posted inMusic
Six of the month’s best Chicago releases in rock, rap, and dance
Reviews of new music by Flesh Panthers, J Fernandez, Lil Durk, the Singleman Affair, T.B. Arthur, and the Valenteens
Posted inBest of Chicago
Best Rock Band
Onstage they crank up the energy and intensity of the gentle, soulful folk-rock from their album while preserving its gorgeous group harmony singing.