• Remembering Steve Albini

    Remembering Steve Albini
    When Pitchfork broke the news last Wednesday morning that Steve Albini had died, it hit the Chicago scene like a thunderclap. Both as a recording engineer and as a musician, Albini had seemed like a permanent fixture, too thoroughly woven into the fabric of underground rock to leave it. At least when death came for […]
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  • Chicago rock duo Feller celebrate their strangely enticing debut EP

    Chicago rock duo Feller celebrate their strangely enticing debut EP
    Last fall, when Jon-Carlo Manzo launched Fire Talk’s Chicago-centric sublabel, Angel Tapes, I knew to keep an eye on it. Fire Talk had already done exceptional work releasing music by local indie rockers, and Manzo has great taste. Angel Tapes’ third release is the new Universal Miracle Worker, the debut EP by local duo Feller, […]
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  • Chicago metal four-piece Selenoplexia show you the darkest side of the moon

    Chicago metal four-piece Selenoplexia show you the darkest side of the moon
    Chicago metal quartet Selenoplexia attracted some attention with their strong 2022 debut EP, Agony, and last fall they released their first full-length, Exalt and Despair. The band’s name refers to what were believed, prior to the 20th century, to be the sometimes fatal physical and mental health conditions caused by the rays of the moon. […]
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  • VOICES Heard: New Cancer Study Will Center Black Women

    VOICES Heard: New Cancer Study Will Center Black Women
    Black women are significantly more likely to die from breast cancer than white women — even though they are diagnosed less often (Credit: Klaus Nielsen, Pexels).
    In a groundbreaking study, the American Cancer Society will investigate the link between breast cancer and race by exclusively tracking Black women.
    This article was originally published on Word In Black.
    By Jennifer Porter Gore
    Overview:
    Researchers hope to enroll 100,000 Black women of various ages, looking for links between bre
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  • The Secret Sisters return after four years with some serious folk-country Medicine

    The Secret Sisters return after four years with some serious folk-country Medicine
    The Secret Sisters released Mind, Man, Medicine in March, and it already feels like one of the best Americana albums of 2024. The record represents a homecoming, musically and literally—the duo recorded it at the legendary FAME Studios in their hometown of Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Since the early 60s, FAME has served as a forge […]
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  • Sonja’s lusty heavy metal blends goth rock and 80s Sunset Strip sleaze

    Sonja’s lusty heavy metal blends goth rock and 80s Sunset Strip sleaze
    Sonja aren’t a traditional supergroup—the members of this Philadelphia trio have all collaborated with one another elsewhere, most notably in beastly Philly black-metal band Woe. But these folks also have heavy pedigrees outside their shared past, spending time individually in metal outfits Tombs, Infernal Stronghold, Rumpelstiltskin Grinder, and Crosspitter. If you can name a metal […]
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  • Shoegaze legends Ride embrace the journey on the synth-pop–influenced Interplay

    Shoegaze legends Ride embrace the journey on the synth-pop–influenced Interplay
    Ride made an indelible impact on shoegaze and indie rock. The UK four-piece’s first two albums, 1990’s Nowhere and 1992’s Going Blank Again, are widely considered genre landmarks. Though Ride split up just before releasing their fourth full-length, Tarantula, in 1996, the original lineup reunited nearly two decades later. And they’ve stayed reunited: this March, […]
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  • Electronic-music pioneer Suzanne Ciani celebrates the 40th anniversary of her album Seven Waves

    Electronic-music pioneer Suzanne Ciani celebrates the 40th anniversary of her album Seven Waves
    If you’ve seen television commercials from the 1980s, you’ve probably heard Suzanne Ciani, even if you don’t realize it. Do you remember the sound of a Coke can being popped and poured? The space-age shimmers that accompanied the on-screen appearances of logos for the likes of AT&T and ABC? The robotic chirp of a GE […]
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  • Chicago rapper KingTrey angles for a spot in the post-Chance canon with Southend Legend

    Chicago rapper KingTrey angles for a spot in the post-Chance canon with Southend Legend
    According to the 2020 census, the suburban village of Glenview has a population of around 49,000 people, and just 1.4 percent of them are Black. That helps explain the isolation, frustration, and sadness Chicago rapper KingTrey felt navigating that town as a teenager—an experience he makes the focus of “Black Kid / In Glenview,” a […]
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  • Chicago’s Sprite give slacker rock a kick of energy

    Chicago’s Sprite give slacker rock a kick of energy
    The four Chicagoans who recently formed slacker-rock group Sprite have a surplus of indie cred, but none of their previous bands has balanced heavy and heavenly as well as Sprite do on December’s self-released, self-titled album. Separately, the members of Sprite traffic in related but distinct styles. Guitarist Donny Walsh has played in nervy postpunk […]
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  • The Tomeka Reid Quartet goes long on third album 3+3

    The Tomeka Reid Quartet goes long on third album 3+3
    Cellist Tomeka Reid and her powerhouse quartet—guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Jason Roebke, and drummer Tomas Fujiwara—recently celebrated their tenth anniversary of performing together. But you could be forgiven if you thought they’d already had a decade together when they released their self-titled debut in 2015—the album is a marvel of uncanny synchronicity and head-spinning polyrhythms. […]
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  • Chicago troubadour and guitar god Bill MacKay releases Locust Land

    Chicago troubadour and guitar god Bill MacKay releases Locust Land
    I’ve loved seeing kindly troubadour Bill MacKay get more of the spotlight. Once Chicago’s best-kept guitar secret, he now seems to be growing his fan base even faster than his discography, which already included solo works and collaborations with experimental musicians such as Ryley Walker, Nathan Bowles, Katinka Kleijn, and Cooper Crain (Bitchin Bajas, Cave). […]
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  • Drummer, bandleader, and impresario Mike Reed throws a five-day celebration of his 50th birthday

    Drummer, bandleader, and impresario Mike Reed throws a five-day celebration of his 50th birthday
    Mike Reed owns Constellation and the Hungry Brain, coprograms the Chicago Jazz Festival, and directs the Pitchfork Music Festival; he knows how to throw a shebang. But the five-night celebration that he’s planned to observe his 50th birthday keeps the focus on his creative side. Reed is also a drummer, composer, improviser, and bandleader whose […]
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  • TSU’s Duante’ Abercrombie Aims to Bring the HBCU Experience to Hockey

    TSU’s Duante’ Abercrombie Aims to Bring the HBCU Experience to Hockey
    Duante’ Abercrombie, a former coach with the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs, is building a first-of-its-kind hockey program at the HBCU Tennessee State University (Photo Provided).
    By Evan F. Moore
    The first thing newly hired Tennessee State University hockey coach Duante’ Abercrombie plans to do once he settles in his office is to establish a visual—and lofty—representation of what could be possible for the Tigers faithful: a photo of the NCAA Men’s Ice Hockey Cha
  • TSU’s Duanté Abercrombie Aims to Bring the HBCU Experience to Hockey

    TSU’s Duanté Abercrombie Aims to Bring the HBCU Experience to Hockey
    Duanté Abercrombie, a former coach with the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs, is building a first-of-its-kind hockey program at the HBCU Tennessee State University (Photo Provided).
    By Evan F. Moore
    The first thing newly hired Tennessee State University hockey coach Duanté Abercrombie plans to do once he settles in his office is to establish a visual—and lofty—representation of what could be possible for the Tigers faithful: a photo of the NCAA Men’s Ice Hockey Cha
  • No dust to shake off

    No dust to shake off
    On a sunny spring day, Experimental Sound Studio’s Audible Gallery is an ideal place to immerse oneself in the five decade retrospective of interdisciplinary artist Sandra Binion. The walls are covered with tactile displays of timelines, correspondences, and ephemera selected from Binion’s archive by curator Mariana Mejía (166 distinct artifacts, to be exact). In the […]
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  • Confederate Names Of Two Schools Being Restored Following Board Vote

    Confederate Names Of Two Schools Being Restored Following Board Vote
    Photo: Getty Images
    A Virginia school board has reversed its decision to rename two public schools honoring Confederate military leaders.
    On Friday (May 10), the Shenandoah County, Virginia school board voted 5-1 in favor of a proposal that will restore the Confederate names of two of its schools, per NBC News.
    The move comes after the board decided in 2020 to change the names of schools linked to Confederate leaders Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Turner Ashby. Following Tuesday’s v

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