Tag: Vol. 35 No. 1

Latecomers to the postpunk boy-band derby, THE BRAVERY have been called calculated and derivative–as if that weren’t the basic job description. Front man Sam Endicott gets singled out in particular, especially for copping moves from Julian Casablancas, but I’m not sure when the Strokes became poster boys for whole-cloth invention–or how JC’s heavily affected drawl, […]

Quiet and subdued but finally heartrending, this Japanese drama by Jun Ichikawa goes bone-deep into its title character, a solitary technical illustrator who fails to comprehend his own piercing loneliness until he falls in love with his young assistant. She turns out to be as emotionally starved as he is, and though caring for her […]

In the past few years a fascinating group of Japanese experimental musicians has been cultivating an improvisation style so austere that even “minimalism” seems too noisy a term to describe it. In Berlin last year I caught a performance by guitarist Taku Sugimoto, the de facto leader of this movement; a two- or three-note cluster […]

The feminine mystique doesn’t get much more mysterious than this. Bianca and Sierra Casady, estranged half-Cherokee sisters who began a new life together two years ago, are open secrets: they lay out all the information you could need on Noah’s Ark (Touch and Go), the tender milkmaid melodies adorned with tattered, lacy frills of toy […]

Most MCs are all about asserting their alpha-male status, but PIGEON JOHN is content to be an omega male. He’s a relentlessly self-deprecating dork, and really he barely even qualifies as a rapper: on Pigeon John Sings the Blues (Basement) he croons more than raps, about the sad state of his Toyota Tercel, his love […]

It takes brains, heart, and courage to confront and transform a cultural icon, but playwright Phillip C. Klapperich and director Tommy Rapley do it in this House Theatre of Chicago show. From the opening “Pyramus and Thisbe”-like play within a play (the Munchkins’ take on Oz history) to the somber closing moments, when Dorothy is […]

One of the most mercurial musicians in New York’s jazz scene, reedist Andrew D’Angelo has made a virtue of unpredictability. He knows how to play it (relatively) straight–he’s done stints with Boston groups like Either/Orchestra and Orange Then Blue–but since moving to New York in 1986 he’s expanded his range. He can still swing like […]

Bay Area saxist Francis Wong plays burly tenor lines with a burred tone, slippery rhythm, and frequent sly references to his Asian heritage. He’s showcased these qualities on several discs on Asian Improv Records, a label he cofounded, as well as during frequent visits to Chicago, whose free-music history has inspired him. (Indeed, his work […]

Bebe Miller’s new evening-length piece, Landing/Place, has its origins in a 1999 trip she took to Eritrea to teach. Nervous before her first class, she became so involved in warming up she failed to notice that a group of 25 dancers had gathered round and were all trying to copy her stretching movements. Startled by […]