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 […]
Tag: V.V. Lightbody
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Emma Hospelhorn of Ensemble dal Niente releases a scintillating solo debut as Em Spel
Gossip Wolf always likes to hear about a new solo album from a member of Ensemble dal Niente—the long-running local contemporary-classical corps has built a spotless reputation for adventurous programming and technical excellence, and its members often pop up in far-flung musical contexts around town. Among the most prolific is multi-instrumentalist Emma Hospelhorn, who has […]
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Chicago indie-rock wonder Tasha nudges you to chase your dreams on Tell Me What You Miss the Most
If waking up from a deep, rejuvenating sleep had a sound, it’d probably be a lot like the music of Tasha Viets-VanLear. Tenderness lights the path for this Chicago singer, songwriter, poet, and activist, who records under her first name. The intimate indie rock on her 2018 debut, Alone at Last, gets its alluring emotional […]
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Chicago music venues lean on grassroots fundraisers as they wait for federal aid
COVID relief grants are taking their time arriving, but the compilation Situation Chicago 2 benefits CIVL’s SAVE Emergency Relief Fund right now.
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Mia Joy is singing the dream
Mia Joy has turned her debut album, Spirit Tamer, into a place of solace that welcomes anyone who listens.
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Spread Joy share their playful postpunk how the pandemic allows
Spread Joy share their playful postpunk how the pandemic allows, pop outsider Kevin and Hell drops an ambitious new album, and more.
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Cadien Lake James’s greatest moment in Chicago music history
Twin Peaks guitarist Cadien Lake James honors the lessons that the city’s early house scene taught today’s DIY garage rockers.
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A room of Ohmme’s own
On Fantasize Your Ghost, Macie Stewart and Sima Cunningham make their music a place of trust, discovery, and compassion.
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Let the Reader help with your Bandcamp shopping list
In the past few weeks, the Reader has recommended three dozen Bandcamp releases—and this Friday, the service will again pass its share of revenue along to artists.
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V.V. Lightbody perfects her hypnotizing ‘nap rock’ on Make a Shrine or Burn It
Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Vivian McConnell comes from a musical family, and she began enmeshing herself in Chicago’s music scene in the early 2010s, around the time she moved here from Urbana. By then she and her oldest brother, Stan, were playing together in the indie-rock band Santah, and McConnell had also joined indie four-piece Grandkids; […]
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Vivian McConnell moves beyond her indie-rock roots with shimmering solo debut as V.V. Lightbody
Vivian McConnell—a veteran of Chicago indie-rock bands including Santah and Grandkids—turns inward in her solo project V.V. Lightbody (named for her piano-playing grandmother) to create shimmering folk-pop that arrives like a cool breeze of introspection. She’s referred to her music as “nap-rock,” but that tag suggests something sleepy while the sounds she produces are effervescent […]