When I first saw the Linda Lindas perform “Racist, Sexist Boy”—in the May 2021 video from the Los Angeles Public Library that took the Internet by storm—I got huge “industry plant” energy from them. But I wasn’t really mad about it. The four-piece, which is made up of girls between the ages of 11 and […]
Tag: Vol. 51 No. 13
Looking for the Sound issue, the issue of May 12, 2022?
Issue of March 31, 2022
SPRING THEATER & ARTS PREVIEW
‘A lot of us took on breaking because we were missing something from our lives’
Breakers in the city talk about creating community through practice.
By Irene Hsiao
On the cover: Photo by DuWayne Padilla
Find a print copy of the Reader.
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Posted inMusic
When Orville Peck’s mask came off, his walls went up
When the masked country crooner who performs as Orville Peck dropped his 2019 debut record, Pony (Sub Pop), his decadent baritone and mysterious persona immediately earned him a cult following. Created in the safety of anonymity, his descriptions of heartbreak and loneliness washed over listeners, their intimacy heightened by sparse musical accompaniment. But as quickly […]
Posted inMusic
Wayfaring return after three years with a new set of spiritually informed folk jazz
James Falzone’s music has always spanned aesthetics. The Chicago native, who plays clarinets, shruti box, and percussion, has led and participated in ensembles that create various combinations of jazz, classical, and Arabic traditional music; he’s also served as an instructor at Columbia College and as music director of Grace Chicago Church. In 2016, he moved […]
Posted inArts & Culture
What’s fair about art fairs?
What’s fair about art fairs? That’s the question at the heart of Barely Fair, a show organized by Garfield Park gallery Julius Caesar that’s designed to run in tandem with the international art fair EXPO Chicago. Founded in 2019, this is the second iteration of the Barely Fair, which quietly marks EXPO’s return to in-person […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago’s Huntsmen delve deeper into their lush metal storytelling on The Dying Pines
Huntsmen’s distinctive, delicious sound mixes turbocharged gothic country with sophisticated, dynamic doom metal wrapped in horror-tinged Americana atmospheres. Following two EPs, 2014’s Post War and 2016’s The Colonel, the Chicago band received rave reviews for their 2018 debut full-length, American Scrap. Their epic 80-minute concept album Mandala of Fear, about a battle-scarred veteran trying to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Two stories of diasporic movement
Azadeh Gholizadeh & Elnaz Javani on their two-person exhibition “Phonetic Fragments” at Roots & Culture Gallery: March 11th – April 9th, 2022
Posted inArts & Culture
‘We can imagine our way into something else’
When Anthony Holmes goes to the doctor today, he’s asked: How many heart attacks have you had? That’s because, Holmes says, the torture he faced in 1973 at the hands of then-Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge included shocking him with an electric shock box and suffocating him with plastic bags. Burge and the mostly white […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago indie-rock trio Axons explore an infamous Chicago prison break on I Object to Everything
One of the most remarkable things about Chicago is its complex relationship with crime. The criminal-justice and court system is often so flawed, discriminatory, and unjust that it can seem as harmful as the crimes it seeks to control. For more than a century we’ve also had an entire industry dedicated to sensationalizing and mythologizing […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Subverting the dominant paradigm, one stitch at a time
The Bayeux Tapestry dates back to the 11th century, so you can’t really say that high art appreciation of fiber work is new. There’s a big difference, though, between validating a giant record of European military conquest and the recent explosion of curatorial interest in quilting, knitting, embroidery, and clothing. Mrinalini Mukherjee’s monumental draped fabric […]
Posted inMusic
The Cool Kids reunion bears an orchard’s worth of fruit on their new triple album
The zeitgeist’s thirst for nostalgia has driven otherwise sensible people to dig up some guys who haven’t moved the needle since the late 2000s, but meanwhile, one of the most exciting hip-hop acts of that period are making music like they never left their prime. Chicago duo the Cool Kids, aka rappers Sir Michael Rocks […]
Posted inMusic
Meshuggah grind deeper into the tunnel that only they can dig
Meshuggah have developed an approach to progressive death metal so distinctive and compelling that it’s spawned an entire subgenre of imitators. And right from its title, the Swedish band’s ninth album, Immutable, announces that it won’t try to fix what isn’t broken. The elements Meshuggah have made familiar over the past three decades are all […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Spring Theater & Arts Preview
From the March 31, 2022 special issue: Landscape art, exhibitions, online, comics, art expositions, book reviews, profiles, theater festivals, accessibility, dance, film screenings, film festivals
Posted inTheater Review
Sweat, tears, and blood
Lynn Nottage’s gripping drama Sweat launches a new direction for Aurora’s Paramount Theater, a 1,000-plus seat, 87-year-old Versailles-on-acid space known for award-winning musicals. Directed by Andrea J. Dymond, Sweat is the first production in the new Copley Theatre, a minimalist steel-and-glass black box across the street from the larger venue. Dymond’s airtight ensemble makes the […]
Posted inTheater Review
West Virginia woes
Williamson, West Virginia, is in the heart of Hatfield-McCoy history, but the conflict driving apart a family in Madison Fiedler’s Spay, now in a world premiere at Rivendell under Georgette Verdin’s direction, is rooted in opioids, not moonshine. Kindergarten teacher Harper (Krystel McNeil) has just brought home her half-sister Noah (Rae Gray) from the hospital, […]
Posted inTheater Review
Space mystery
In Otherworld Theatre Company’s Murder on Horizon: An Immersive Sci-Fi Noir, the cast and crew have devised an immaculate hyperspace straight out of a video game. The story begins when audiences step inside the theater, and the ensemble welcomes them into a new world. They’ve been transported onto the space station Horizon, situated in a […]