Category: ESSENTIAL NEW MUSIC

Roscoe Village is a comfortable neighborhood on Chicago’s north side where you can drop a few bucks on brunch. It’s

The Holy Mother (Plays The Rudra Veena) is the vinyl debut from Madhuvanti Pal. The relationship between femininity and the rudra

When musicians who have come up through Western musical systems embrace “just intonation” (the more mathematically consistent system that was

Feelies concerts are the stuff of legend. Setlists might not change much from decade to decade (hell, the band might

In another review written three-and-a-half years ago, I opined that Irreversible Entanglements are in it for the long haul. That’s

During his latter-period experimentations with non-traditional sounds and arrangements, Jimi Hendrix referred to his collaborations as an “Electric Church.” More

When someone drops the word “rainbow” into their album title, they set up some expectations. If your imagine conjures hopes

Distorted Rooms is the first Radian record in seven years. That may seem like a long time, even allowing for

Whenever anyone writes about Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices, it’s a fair bet they mention that he’s prolific. (You

For Mahalia, With Love is a record that gets down to fundamentals, but not just in the way that its

Pat Gubler is the kind of guy who can intuit fellow musicians’ ideals and help them sound like better versions

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

Naujawanan Baidar grew from heavy psych combo Myrrors, but don’t call it a side project. Rather, consider it to be

L. Eugene Methe’s work to date has been all over the map. The Nebraska-based musician has recorded one LP of

Dave Rempis has been an essential figure on Chicago’s improvised music scene for more than a quarter century. But while

After penning a review of 2018’s Space Gun—and compiling a well-received (sarcasm) ranking of Guided By Voices’ 25 LPs up

“Extinction is the rule,” Carl Sagan once wrote. “Survival is the exception.” Most of the time, that seems like a