Category: ESSENTIAL NEW MUSIC

Essential New Music: Jason Adasiewicz’s “Roscoe Village: The Music Of Roscoe Mitchell”
Roscoe Village is a comfortable neighborhood on Chicago’s north side where you can drop a few bucks on brunch. It’s

Essential New Music: Madhuvanti Pal’s “The Holy Mother (Plays The Rudra Veena)”
The Holy Mother (Plays The Rudra Veena) is the vinyl debut from Madhuvanti Pal. The relationship between femininity and the rudra

Essential New Music: Anna Webber’s “Shimmer Wince”
When musicians who have come up through Western musical systems embrace “just intonation” (the more mathematically consistent system that was

Essential New Music: The Feelies’ “Some Kinda Love: Performing The Music Of The Velvet Underground”
Feelies concerts are the stuff of legend. Setlists might not change much from decade to decade (hell, the band might

Essential New Music: Irreversible Entanglements’ “Protect Your Light”
In another review written three-and-a-half years ago, I opined that Irreversible Entanglements are in it for the long haul. That’s

Essential New Music: Carlton Melton’s “Turn To Earth”
During his latter-period experimentations with non-traditional sounds and arrangements, Jimi Hendrix referred to his collaborations as an “Electric Church.” More

Essential New Music: Setting’s “Shone A Rainbow Light On”
When someone drops the word “rainbow” into their album title, they set up some expectations. If your imagine conjures hopes

Essential New Music: Radian’s “Distorted Rooms”
Distorted Rooms is the first Radian record in seven years. That may seem like a long time, even allowing for

Essential New Music: Hello Whirled’s “No Use Crying Over Spilled Blood”
Whenever anyone writes about Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices, it’s a fair bet they mention that he’s prolific. (You

Essential New Music: James Brandon Lewis/Red Lily Quintet’s “For Mahalia, With Love”
For Mahalia, With Love is a record that gets down to fundamentals, but not just in the way that its

Essential New Music: P.G. Six’s “Murmurs & Whispers”
Pat Gubler is the kind of guy who can intuit fellow musicians’ ideals and help them sound like better versions

Essential New Music: Talking Heads’ “Stop Making Sense”
The movie Stop Making Sense constitutes an undeniable high for Talking Heads. The Jonathan Demme-directed documentary of the band’s 1983

Essential New Music: Naujawanan Baidar’s “Khedmat Be Khalq”
Naujawanan Baidar grew from heavy psych combo Myrrors, but don’t call it a side project. Rather, consider it to be

Essential New Music: L. Eugene Methe’s “Maybe, Tomorrow”
L. Eugene Methe’s work to date has been all over the map. The Nebraska-based musician has recorded one LP of

Essential New Music: The Rempis Percussion Quartet’s “Harvesters”
Dave Rempis has been an essential figure on Chicago’s improvised music scene for more than a quarter century. But while

Essential New Music: Guided By Voices’ “Welshpool Frillies”
After penning a review of 2018’s Space Gun—and compiling a well-received (sarcasm) ranking of Guided By Voices’ 25 LPs up

Essential New Music: Attempt Survivors’ “Negative Nite”
“Extinction is the rule,” Carl Sagan once wrote. “Survival is the exception.” Most of the time, that seems like a