When Chicago multimedia artist Gregory Bae died suddenly in 2021, he left behind a shattered artistic community. Among the grieving was his friend Kikù Hibino, a sound artist whose work has been heard in venues such as the Chicago Cultural Center, Lincoln Park Conservatory, Elastic Arts, Hairpin Arts Center, Hyde Park Art Center, and Experimental […]
Tag: Steven Hess
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Experimental metal trio Locrian break their seven-year silence with the exploratory New Catastrophism
Experimental metal trio Locrian have spent the past 17 years branching out into unknown realms, but lately they’ve been reexamining their roots. Formed in Chicago in 2005 by guitarist André Foisy and keyboardist Terence Hannum, Locrian started out mining darkness from their bleak soundscapes by layering grimy, pitch-black, doomy ambient noise with swaths of sounds […]
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London label Touch brings its 40th-anniversary celebration to the International Museum of Surgical Science
London-based Touch isn’t a record label in the traditional sense; it’s far more multifaceted. It might be more accurate to describe Touch as a collective that also extends into publishing, performance curation, and site-specific multimedia events driven by a loosely defined stable of international avant-garde electronic and sound artists, who include guitarist and producer Fennesz, […]
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Chicago duo Cleared atomize their stark rock sound on The Key
Recording studios have reputations, and Chicago’s Electrical Audio is well-known as the place to go if you want to capture how your band really sounds. But when Michael Vallera and Steven Hess of local duo Cleared entered that establishment in spring 2019, they were in the early phase of a transformation. Their first four albums […]
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The Slow Bell Trio features some of Chicago’s most adventurous experimentalists
A few years ago, percussionist Mike Weis recorded the sounds of the Rockefeller Chapel’s carillon and then slowed down the tape he’d used to capture them. Entranced with the result, he named a new project after the endeavor. The Slow Bell Trio includes Weis and two fellow Chicago experimentalists, woodwind player Keefe Jackson and drummer […]
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Three local improvisers converge for the first time
Chicago hosts one of the world’s most vibrant improvisational scenes, so it’s not automatically remarkable when three of the city’s musicians get together to create in a live setting. But this combination stands out because of the unusual affiliations each member brings to this first-time encounter. In addition to playing low-key rock music with Zelienople […]
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Local power trio RLYR premiere the first song from their upcoming debut
Three masters of boundary-pushing metal go shiny, pretty, and epic in RLYR.
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Mike Weis of Zelienople on the perfect musical pain relievers
Plus: Steven Hess of Locrian on mind-bending death metal, the Reader‘s Luca Cimarusti on Jandek and John Mayer, and more
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Stargazing in the mud at Pitchfork
Stargazing in the mud at Pitchfork, plus new records on the way from RLYR and the duo of Ryley Walker and Bill MacKay
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Interview: Noise artist Jason Soliday on the closing of Enemy
“I got to have Peter Brötzmann play at my house. I have Z’ev play at my house.”
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Three Beats: Jazz great Eddie Johnson gets a posthumous CD release; experimental duo Cleared celebrates the cassette; Rockford emo band Joie de Vivre says au revoir
A posthumous CD release for the great Eddie Johnson Tenor saxophonist Eddie Johnson, who died last year on April 7 at age 89, was one of Chicago’s greatest jazz musicians, a pure embodiment of the classic swing he’d grown up playing. He only made two albums under his own name, and the better of the […]
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The List: April 15-21, 2010
Critics’ Choices and other notable shows: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Best Coast, Finntroll, Hot Chip, the Amir ElSaffar & Hafez Modirzadeh Quartet, and more