Given the diverse CVs of Bloodmist’s members, the trio’s music could be many things. Clarinetist and synthesizer player Jeremiah Cymerman has made solo recordings that bridge free improvisation and electronic sound design; synth alchemist and drum programmer Mario Diaz de Leon composes unabashedly dramatic acoustic chamber pieces and electronic metal; and bass guitarist Toby Driver leads ever-evolving goth-prog combo Kayo Dot. But if you had to put your money on just one descriptor, you’d win big if you picked the word “dark....

Five years ago, Canadian brother-sister duo Tennyson were often seen as a prodigy act. Keyboardist and producer Luke Pretty was 17 when the group began to tour and record; drummer Tess Pretty was only 15. Now that they’re 22 and 20, respectively, their performance is less of a novelty, but they retain the same charm. The Prettys started playing acoustic jazz gigs when they were barely in their teens, and these days they make polished electronica fusion with a smoothness you’d expect from people who’ve been working together for most of their lives....

“I could walk out on the sidewalk outside the bar and do a maceration of the weeds in the cracks and call it a fernet,” Billy Sunday partner Alex Bachman is quoted as saying in the new book Amaro: The Spirited World of Bittersweet, Herbal Liqueurs (Ten Speed Press). Author Brad Thomas Parsons, who also wrote Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-All, aims to demystify amaro—a difficult task since there’s no legal definition of amaro and, while it’s most often associated with Italy, it can be made anywhere....

Categorizing the doomsday sonic bludgeon wielded by Providence duo the Body over their two-decade reign of terror isn’t an easy task. Guitarist and screamer Chip King and drummer Lee Buford slice and dice doom, sludge, noise, and avant-metal into a monolithic, nails-on-chalkboard wall of sound. Buford’s hip-hop-mangled thumping and pounding and King’s six-feet-under caterwaul could carve out a niche for the duo all on their own, but they only occasionally create their bleak and heavy hellscapes alone....

Just southeast of Oak Street Beach, there’s a bend in the Lakefront Trail where it turns south, hugging Lake Shore Drive. As you head downtown, there’s a wall on your right, and the path’s concrete surface slopes down toward the water’s edge, where there’s a sheer drop of several feet into Lake Michigan. Convinced by what he saw farther north that the curve would be ice free, he confidently rounded the bend at a high speed....

The Back Room Deal features radio personality and longtime Reader political writer Ben Joravsky arguing local Chicago politics with Reader staff writer Maya Dukmasova. With sharp wit and stinging analysis, Joravsky and Dukmasova cut through the smoky haze of the elections to offer you a glimpse of the current Chicago races—ward-level and, of course, mayoral. Will these historic elections be determined in back-room deals, like so many in Chicago’s past? Let Ben and Maya talk you through it....

Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre, founded by composer Joe Cerqua, choreographer Wilfredo Rivera, and the late visual artist Matt Lamb, celebrates its 20th anniversary with two programs of new works devoted to American identity, including works by choreographers Shannon Alvis and Monique Haley that explore Native American and African American heritage, as well as the premiere of Rivera’s evening-length work devoted to the immigrant experience, American Catracho. Drawing from his own story and those of his loved ones, Rivera says, “I wanted to share the traumatic components of migrating from another country and the story of working men and women who are looking for a new hope, a new land, a new opportunity....

Youlena Zaia fled Iraq for Syria with her children in 2005. Three years later, they fled again to the United States. It was her daughter’s idea to bring the photo album—it mostly contained pictures from the 1980s, when Zaia was working as an engineer on the Haditha Dam. Now they’re the only tangible evidence that remains of Zaia’s old life in a world that no longer exists, when an Iraqi Christian woman could wear pants and work on a major construction project and go fishing in the Euphrates River after hours....

Steppenwolf Theatre Company announced today that actors Celeste M. Cooper and Cliff Chamberlain will join the nearly 50-member ensemble. Cooper made her Steppenwolf debut in BLKS and Chamberlain was recently featured in The Minutes by ensemble member Tracy Letts. “I kept seeing her [in shows],” Shapiro continues, and she was the most transformative young actor I’ve seen in a long time. To see that in such a young person, I wanted to say, ‘We want to give you an artistic home and help you grow that God-given talent and support you....

Sometimes even the best pinball wizards can’t summon their old tricks. “I can’t believe I’m losing at my own game,” Roger says. More broadly, if anyone can lay claim to an entire game or hobby, it’s Roger. A generation ago he was among the greatest players in the world and one of the architects of competitive pinball. He also wrote the first serious book on the subject and worked in the industry in some shape or form for more than a ....

In the Reader‘s 2015 Best of Chicago issue, Sasha Geffen declared glam-rock group the Gold Web the “best onstage psychedelic costume party.” In case you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing the band’s menagerie of outfits and props in person, this month they released a video for “The Emperor,” the glittery, swooning lead single from their brand-new third album, Acidchrist Superspice & the Candyboys. The riotously colorful clip is pretty hard to sum up—it’s not like there’s a narrative to follow—but you get to see women smearing cake on their faces, front man Max Perenchio (aka the Silver Wizard) chased across the screen by a string of time-delayed duplicates of himself as he tickles his guitar, and somebody in wings, an eyepatch, and a leopard-print bodysuit smashing a watermelon with a huge hammer....

Jeff Zoline In a lonely gravel lot on the 6200 block of North Pulaski Road, a billboard poses a question in plain black text to all who pass: “Who is John Galt?” It seems a rather cryptic query, unless of course you’re one of Ayn Rand’s devotees, a group whose membership has included everyone from the late Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey to the Catholic churchgoing congressman Paul Ryan....

Editor’s note: We sent Marc Monaghan to photograph Donald Trump supporters at Friday night’s rally at UIC. Marc came back with the following photo essay, as well as notes on those he encountered. Most said “no thanks” when I asked to take their picture; a woman thanked me for asking and then said no. Younger Trump supporters were more willing to have their picture taken, but they wanted group photos....

However, newly obtained video appears to show Devereaux initiating contact with Green, pulling him off a barrier, then tussling with him after he lands, with protesters attempting to separate the two. Police allege that during a second altercation, which ended in Green’s arrest, Green spit at an officer and grabbed his duty belt near his gun. It’s not known whether that alleged incident was captured on video. Charles T. Fogarty contributed reporting....

Chicago has sent a lot of great sound into the world, not always getting back the recognition due. If you’ve got an opinion about which moments in our city’s music history were the most important (CSO’s first concert, 1891? “Johnny B. Goode” at Chess, 1958? Muddy? Mavis? Ardis?), the Arts & Business Council of Chicago wants to hear it. They’re making a list, and offering a prize for help in compiling it....

On July 19, 2016, Mohammad Al Jarboai, his wife, and three children pushed a loaded luggage cart into the crowded waiting area of Terminal 5 at O’Hare International Airport. They had just landed after a 13-hour flight from Amman, Jordan. On the right, people were chatting at a cluster of tables next to a McDonald’s. Al Jarboai wondered what the people were saying, but the crowd pushed him onward. A man near the door caught sight of the family, walked over in no hurry, and extended a hand....

In the four years since her previous solo album, singer and fiddler Sara Watkins has reunited with her old bandmates in Nickel Creek and led a veritable hootenanny of roots-music all-stars called the Watkins Family Hour with her guitarist brother Sean. Her bluegrass roots have given way to folk-pop gloss, and her record Young in All the Wrong Ways (New West), released this summer, suggests that other things have been afoot as well....

The most consequential Election Day in Chicago history is upon us, and many have held out on voting until the last possible minute. We’re with you. There are so many choices for mayor, and a host of competing candidates in many wards for alderman, too. Or maybe you’ve waited this long to vote because there’s a special something about voting on Election Day proper, when the buzz of the collective fulfillment of civic duty is thick in the air....

Experimental musician Serpentwithfeet (born Josiah Wise) is many things, including a man of his word. “Life’s gotta get easier / Can’t carry a heavy heart into another year,” he vows on “A Comma” from last April’s EP Apparition. If you take the new Deacon (Secretly Canadian) at face value, he hasn’t: the album is the artist’s most ecstatic release to date. But like much of his output, the record has a promise at its surface that masks layers of depth underneath....

In the late 70s and early 80s, British five-piece Spandau Ballet helped drive the short-lived but influential New Romantic movement, which was strongly identified with London nightclub the Blitz. A kid who hadn’t absorbed punk’s antipathy to Ziggy Stardust-style glitz and androgyny could find them flourishing among the fashion-­focused crowd at the Blitz, where Spandau Ballet played chilly, melodic postpunk inspired by Kraftwerk and Frank Sinatra. In 1983 young folks who’d never set foot in the club flocked to the band thanks to the international success of the gossamer, R&B-­influenced ballad “True,” the title track of their third album....