Tag: Vol. 50 No. 7
Issue of Dec. 24, 2020 – Jan. 6, 2021
Retail, resistance, and rebirth in Wally World and Kickback
Christmas Eve goes to 11 in Isaac Gómez’s workplace comedy; About Face celebrates Black queer lives, past and present.
’Tis always the season for tongues, toys, and lots of lube
Livestream questions about monsters in bed and mothers-in-law
Electric Hydra blasts the pop metal stoner rock
When it comes to music, Sweden is perhaps most famous for sweetly catchy pop and brutal death metal. Five-piece Electric Hydra finds the spiritual midpoint between those genres on its self-titled debut album by leaning into another Swedish tradition—retro hard-rock revivalism. The record’s cover art brackets the band’s name with two gaping snake maws that […]
Chicago MC Freddie Old Soul captures the complications of pandemic life on The First People
Chicago rapper Fredrianna Harris, aka Freddie Old Soul, uses hip-hop to open a vivid window into everyday life. On “Hot Tamale,” one of the best tracks off her new self-released EP, The First People, she turns groceries into a narrative device that bundles up seemingly stray musings about young motherhood, COVID-19, and the unrelenting presence […]
Changemakers of 2020—and beyond
Whether through organizing, the arts, or social media, these individuals took the year by the horns and made their mark on Chicago—and the world.
The year of TikTok
How local creatives made the most of the social media platform in 2020
Relive the year in film with these double features
Some of the best films of the year meet their matches.
The Best of the Miyumi Project celebrates 20 years of Tatsu Aoki’s culture-combining ensemble
Tatsu Aoki left his native Tokyo in 1977 to study experimental film and settled in Chicago two years later. In addition to making films, he improvises, composes, and conducts music, playing bass, shamisen, and taiko drums, and by the early 1990s he’d connected with the local jazz scene, developing a particular affinity with past and […]
Showcasing gig posters in a year short on gigs
The Reader got creative to find ways to keep uplifting Chicago gig-poster artists in 2020.
Doug Malone, owner and lead engineer, Jamdek Recording Studio
“Something about a recording studio, I think it’s always overlooked as a place for community.”
A new Chicago punk and metal compilation benefits local music venues
A new two-disc compilation from Angry Peasants hopes to help “save CIVL-zation.”
Katatonia make the most of a year without tours with the ‘live’ album Dead Air
Katatonia were fresh off a hiatus when they dropped their 11th studio album, City Burials, in April, but the pandemic meant they couldn’t stage the triumphant return tour it merited. In May, the nearly 30-year-old Swedish metal outfit appeased their fans and assuaged their own frustration with a livestreamed concert. More than six months later—with […]