The season opener is as much fun as you can have at the opera.
Tag: Vol. 49 No. 1
Issue of Oct. 3 – 9, 2019
Posted inMusic
Latin-jazz percussionist Sammy Figueroa balances the sum of his influences on Imaginary World
Veteran conguero Sammy Figueroa is steeped in the heritage of Latin music (he’s the son of 1940s Puerto Rican bolero singer Charlie Figueroa), but 50 percent of his sound is jazz. In that world, he’s worked with artists such as Miles Davis, Chet Baker, and Sonny Rollins as a sideman, and he’s made his mark […]
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Lo-fi songwriter Tim Presley keeps exploring on White Fence’s new album
For about a decade, Tim Presley has worked to combine aspects of pop, punk, and lo-fi psychedelia under the name White Fence. On the recent I Have to Feed Larry’s Hawk (Drag City), the guitarist and songwriter delivers what might be his best amalgamation of those musical interests yet. After leading Los Angeles psych band […]
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Freak-folk superstar Joanna Newsom comes to Thalia Hall on her first tour in three years
Ever since her 2004 debut, The Milk-Eyed Mender, singer, composer, and harpist Joanna Newsom has been one of those artists where you either get it or you don’t. Her eccentric, literary lyrics are eminently quotable, and the fey changeability of her music makes it hard to pin down stylistically. Though she’s only produced four albums […]
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The ever-evolving Hecks become a prog-pop powerhouse on My Star
What a journey it’s been for the Hecks. When the Chicago group started out in 2012, they were a duo: guitarist Andy Mosiman and drummer Zach Hebert, who made a mind-bending racket out of minimalist, Sonic Youth-inspired art-rock noise and spooky drone-pop. By the time they released their self-titled debut full-length in 2016, they’d expanded […]
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Chicago’s Countess Williams summons the theatrical panache of classic blueswomen
Blues singer Jean Williams, known as the Countess, delivers her music with a theatrical panache that recalls the classic blueswomen of Bessie Smith’s era; skilled thespians as well as gifted vocalists, they often transformed their songs into melodramas that they carefully acted out onstage. Born in Chicago in 1966, Williams cultivated her musical tastes by […]
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Masked country crooner Orville Peck channels Wild West fantasy—and something deeper
The first thing to know about Orville Peck is that the Canadian country-pop crooner always wears a mask. Its top half is made of leather, and from the bottom hangs a row of long fringe, which he sometimes braids to each side to reveal his scruffy chin—his memorable look is something like a cross between […]
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Steve Hackett revisits Genesis’s Selling England by the Pound and decades of solo work
These days, record nerds seem keen to categorize the sounds of the past in newly minted genres such as “proto-metal,” “acid folk,” and “pastoral prog.” The terminally unhip Genesis—and especially their groundbreaking 1973 classic, Selling England by the Pound—might fit into any of these categories. No matter how anyone describes it, the album is one […]
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Sequoyah Murray was born to make uncategorizable pop
Twenty-two-year-old Atlanta singer and multi-instrumentalist Sequoyah Murray grew up in a musical family, and you can tell. He makes music the way a dolphin swims—effortlessly, playfully, and with supreme confidence. Murray’s remarkable debut full-length, Before You Begin (Thrill Jockey), recalls Prince not so much in its approach or themes as in its ambitiously openhearted eclecticism. […]
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Keyboardist Sarah Davachi brings her church space-inspired compositions to Rockefeller Chapel
Rockefeller Chapel has hosted some remarkable concerts in recent years. The organization Ambient Church, which presents atmospheric music in visually and sonically exalted spaces, chose the 91-year-old structure as the site for the concert it staged in Chicago last December. Rockefeller has also hosted minimalist composer-performer Charlemagne Palestine, drone-metal group Sunn O))), and local sound […]
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Antonio Sanchez composes jazz-rock anthems that celebrate immigrant journeys
The most immediately striking aspect of Antonio Sanchez’s music is its lush, cinematic feel, which the drummer also demonstrates in the percussion-only music he composed for the 2014 film Birdman. A native of Mexico City, Sanchez began playing drums at age five, and after performing professionally in rock, jazz, and Latin bands in his teens, […]