There were two crowds in front of Saints Volodymyr and Olha Ukrainian Catholic Church in Ukrainian Village on a frigid afternoon last week. One was the medieval crowd that’s always there, on the church’s iconic mural—a depiction of the baptism of the Ukrainian people. The other consisted of several hundred live and livid Chicagoans reacting […]
Tag: Vol. 51 No. 11
Issue of March 3, 2022
Best of Chicago 2021
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Prolific Chicago producer Casper McFadden finds nirvana in the chaos of breakcore
Casper McFadden’s breakcore tracks hum with hyperactive energy—the Chicago producer sounds like he can’t sit still, and he releases music often enough to prop up that impression. Two months after Vancouver label Kitty on Fire released his Stasis (Log) in January 2021, Casper dropped the full-length Original Soundtrack and an EP called PPP Parasites Eve, […]
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Farewell to Mark ‘Marko’ Rahman of 90s Chicago hip-hop group East of the Rock
Mark “Marko” Rahman, aka Chicago rapper the Mad Thinker, died February 18 at age 54. Rahman came to prominence in the early 90s as part of East of the Rock; his childhood friend and EOTR bandmate the Flux says Rahman came up with the name—the group’s members lived east of Stony Island. Kool Keith was […]
Posted inMusic Review
Jazz saxophonist Melissa Aldana looks inward on 12 Stars
For her 2019 record Visions, jazz saxophonist Melissa Aldana looked outside herself, crafting songs around meditations on the work of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. But on her new Blue Note debut, 12 Stars, the 33-year-old bandleader taps into the realities of the pandemic era to explore inward, plumbing familial links and self-care as well as […]
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Everson Poe’s powerful vision focuses the expansive metal of The Night Country
Chicago multi-instrumentalist Mae Shults began self-releasing heavy rock laced with doom metal under the name Everson Poe in 2009. In the ensuing years, she’s moved deeper into metal, amplifying her ambitious, cinematic vision with its grim cacophony and outsize theatricality. Last year’s Grief, for example, closes with “Acceptance,” whose oceanically distorted guitars and minimal, thundering […]
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Kaina proves herself worthy of pop stardom with It Was a Home
Kaina’s concise debut album, 2019’s Next to the Sun, confirmed her as one of Chicago’s best and most accomplished emerging musicians. Her new It Was a Home (City Slang) makes an argument that she belongs among marquee pop stars. She maintains a confident cool while juggling the distinct elements of her hybrid style, which always […]
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Radkey explore the personal and political with their new single and video
When teenage brothers Isaiah, Dee, and Solomon Radke emerged as Radkey in the early 2010s, their hook-driven garage punk made an immediate impression. The Missouri band probably weren’t trying to split the difference between the over-the-top spookiness of the Misfits (guitarist Dee sang a little like Danzig did in his devilock days) and the unabashed […]