Few records from 2017 knocked me out like The Book of Transfigurations (Songlines), the second album from husband-and-wife group Dálava. Helmed by singer Julia Ulehla and guitarist Aram Bajakian, the project surveys the traditional Moravian folk songs collected by Ulehla’s great-grandfather Vladimir Ulehla, a biologist by trade who spent much of his life documenting music in the area around his native Strázince. The couple, who started their duo in New York and currently reside in Vancouver, are joined on the album by a slew of jazz musicians, including cellist Peggy Lee, drummer Dylan van der Schyff, and keyboardist Tyson Naylor, who help them transform the songs in a rich, visceral array of settings that move between art rock, folk, and jazz while honoring the eastern-European essence of the source material....

This story is part of a package on homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Click here to read the accompanying piece. The homeless people who I know have not practiced social distancing, have continued to smoke snipes (other people’s cigarette butts found on the streets), do not regularly wash their hands, and have demonstrated a cavalier attitude about health concerns. They claim that they’ve built up their immune systems because of everyday exposure to the difficult conditions affecting their lives....

This fantastic double bill testifies to the enduring power and malleability of mainstream jazz tradition, where dazzling facility, individual voice, and casual erudition can bring new vitality to decades-old approaches. For me, no current jazz singer can touch the effortless mastery, range, and imagination of Cécile McLorin Salvant, who just won a Grammy for Best Vocal Jazz Album for her stunning 2017 double CD Dreams and Daggers (Mack Avenue). Her aesthetic is rooted in the sounds of classic singers such as Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington, and she essays standards and blues with dazzling pitch control, improvisation-rich phrasing, and an easygoing theatricality that emphasizes her nuanced lyric reading—a skill she often utilizes to sharp comic effect....

Otherworld Theatre has taken over the former Public House Theatre space in Lakeview, and the acquisition may have taken a big bite out of the operating budget because its debut production there is a continuation of the very cost-effective Fight Quest series. Fight Quest 4 Peace features an ensemble of actors improvising a superhero story based on audience suggestions from the audience; the improv forms the connective tissue between choreographed fight scenes....

In the graphic novel BTTM FDRS, Ezra Claytan Daniels and Ben Passmore capture the horrors of gentrification in a Chicago neighborhood through a Technicolor lens. The book follows Darla, a young Black artist and Chicago native, as she grapples with the colonization of the Bottomyards, the fictional south side neighborhood that she was born and raised in. She comes to the frightening realization that there has been something living in the walls of her apartment building, a monster that will take her body over from the inside out....

Steven Soderbergh shot his new psychological thriller Unsane (which is now playing in general release) on an iPhone 7 Plus and in the unusual aspect ratio of 1.56:1. Slightly wider than the classic Academy ratio (which is 1.33:1) but noticeably narrower than the formats in which most modern movies are shot, this aspect ratio heightens the film’s sense of claustrophobia as much as the iPhone imagery heightens its sense of disorientation....

To be queer and in love in a 90s play is a pitiable fate. At best, characters who express romantic interests outside of heteronormative societal expectations are forced to live their truth in shameful secrecy or as a risky act of public defiance. At worst, by violence or sickness or despair, they’re issued a death sentence. Lest anyone think Diana Son’s ubiquitous 1998 one-act romantic drama is dated, though, it is worth remembering that the recent London bus assault on two women—an attack that eerily mirrors Stop Kiss‘s plot two decades on—occurred less than a year ago....

Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.

“You know what the midwest is?” Kanye West asked in 2004’s “Jesus Walks.” This may in fact be true. I have no idea, since I’ve never been to a small town in Iowa and haven’t set foot in South Dakota since Michael Jordan was playing for the Bulls. I’ve spent over two decades living in the midwest, in two different states, and have family in two more—and yet somehow managed to have zero experience with the cultural touchstones that supposedly define my region....

What happens when people are truly left to their own devices? The first minutes of Anna Jordan’s 2015 play about two brothers raising themselves on a diet of porn, video games, and junk food in a garbage-laden London council estate flat are abrasive and over the top. It takes some time to suspend one’s disbelief enough to buy that two young men are portraying a 16- and 13-year-old. But as more and more details of their lives emerge, it becomes a devastating portrait of the effects of neglect, building to a violent but inevitable climax....

The two-drink minimum is a standard at old-school comedy clubs, a subtle reminder that making money is priority number one. A glance at the menu at the Rosemont Zanies makes the already unpleasant proposition even worse: a drink called the “Louis C.K.” is still prominently featured on a list of specialty cocktails. By the way, it’s a combination of coconut vodka, creme de cacao, and hazelnut liqueur that would surely give me a hangover that rivals the queasy feeling I get whenever I think about C....

Since I’d already vetted all the judges up for retention during slower moments of the baseball playoffs, I brought my copy of All the King’s Men to the polls this morning to entertain me in case there was a long wait. There wasn’t, but I dipped into it during lunch anyway, because it’s been echoing in my head all election season, especially when I hear someone describing Hillary Clinton as corrupt or a liar....

At some point early one evening at Stephanie Izard’s new Duck Duck Goat, I looked up and wondered, “Who are all the dead Chinese?” That’s because the walls of that particular semi-isolated dining room (one of several) are covered with sepia-toned portraits of old-timey Asian people, like a gallery of ghosts, each one tagged with a circular red sticker. A server explained that these incongruous dots are meant to draw the eyes upward when the lights go down and the photos fade into the wallpaper, but they just looked like someone had forgotten to remove price tags after returning from the flea market....

Cauliflower ears and all, Mark Pracht turns in a remarkable performance as the declining “punchy” Mountain McClintock in this revival of the great Rod Serling’s boxing play from 1956 (also the basis for a TV show and film). After a swaying, wordless opening fight sequence that mimes the crush and tumult of a beatdown, McClintock receives doctor’s orders never to set foot in the ring again. Now that he can’t box, McClintock’s manager, Meysh Reznick (Patrick Thornton), guilts him into betraying his only asset—the knowledge that he never threw a fight—to brave the seamy underworld of celebrity wrestling where “everybody knows there’s a fix on....

The Chicago Zine Fest has been bringing hordes of self-publishing enthusiasts together for eight years, and its ninth edition arrives this weekend. On Friday, May 18, it hosts a reading and panel discussion at the Institute of Cultural Affairs (4750 N. Sheridan), and on Saturday, May 19, the main event takes over Plumbers Union Hall (1340 W. Washington) with 250 zine exhibitors, food trucks, a bake sale, a GlitterGuts photo booth, and lots more....

ARTIST: Mute Neighbor SHOW: Rlyr, Sweet Cobra, Fotocrime, and Paletazo at Beat Kitchen on Sat 4/21 MORE INFO: etsy.com/shop/muteneighbor

As is usual during pretrial hearings in the case against former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, advocates for police reform packed the pews in Judge Vincent Gaughan’s courtroom last Thursday. Among them was 45-year-old Tyrone Williams, an activist with the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. Though Van Dyke, who faces first-degree murder charges for shooting and killing 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in October 2014, was the center of attention, plenty of other defendants were also waiting for hearings in front of Gaughan....

Listening to music causes our brains to release dopamine, a neurotransmitter that increases our ability to feel pleasure and motivation. It can also positively impact heart rate (among other functions) and help control nausea, which is especially helpful when every day brings a new litany of disgusting GOP malfeasance and cruelty. Though neuroscientists believe that any music you love can trigger these chemical changes, not all songs are equal in the “feel good” department....

At 5 PM Saturday, March 21, Governor J.B. Pritzker’s COVID-19 Executive Order No. 8, aka the Stay at Home order, took effect. Here’s a daily-ish journal of how Reader staff, our friends, family—and our pets—are spending our time. Bandcamp. The platform is donating its share of revenue to artists this Friday (We recommend these albums and many more!). What super powers we’re developing: v

When a band hit the road to celebrate a milestone anniversary of a monumental album, they’re of course trafficking in nostalgia—and the musicians usually share in that rosy glow with their fans. This tour by UK trip-hop pioneers Massive Attack is belatedly celebrating the 20th anniversary of their beloved third record, 1998’s Mezzanine (Virgin), but in this case the fans may be the only ones looking back fondly—the production of Mezzanine was plagued by intraband tensions, and it received middling reviews when it finally dropped several months after its long-anticipated release date....