For more than two decades, singer and guitarist Matt Christensen has led Zelienople, a Chicago trio that explores the outer limits of slowcore by dismantling its melodies and song structures. Christensen focuses on similar territory in his solo work—at least, that’s the impression I get from what I’ve heard so far. His Bandcamp page features more than 120 releases he’s made since 2011, though one is a retrospective-slash-primer compilation he put together as part of a 2018 interview for Glassworks Coffee’s website (the roaster’s founder, Ben Crowell, worked for Touch and Go before launching his coffee business)....

Twenty-two-year-old Atlanta singer and multi-instrumentalist Sequoyah Murray grew up in a musical family, and you can tell. He makes music the way a dolphin swims—effortlessly, playfully, and with supreme confidence. Murray’s remarkable debut full-length, Before You Begin (Thrill Jockey), recalls Prince not so much in its approach or themes as in its ambitiously openhearted eclecticism. The short opening track, “Here We Go,” suggests a deeper-voiced Marvin Gaye running jazzy phrases beside an opera singer while blips of electroacoustic noise wander through the background....

As Chicagoans grapple with the new reality of the COVID-19 pandemic and the radical restrictions which public health requirements have put on the places in which we live, work, and play, it makes sense to step back and ponder some aspects of what makes the situation such an emotional and psychological challenge. My mantra for analyzing place comes from Yi-Fu Tuan, a geographer/philosopher, who wrote: “What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with values....

The Synthesizer Chili Cook-Off started as a lark in 2011 but has grown into a reliably fun (and bizarre) annual event. There’s something satisfying and lighthearted about having four musicians cook up some chili and then perform original “sonic interpretations” of their culinary creations. The Synth-Chili Cook-Off celebrates its fifth year Sunday at the Empty Bottle. Defending champion Travis Thatcher takes on Wesley Groves, Tyson Torstensen, and Peter Speer. This unusual competition has become one of my favorite new wintertime activities, and I’m not alone in that sentiment....

When I contacted Jeff Lescher of legendary mod/glam/punk/power-pop band Green to find out what his set would be like for this special gig, he responded quickly and kindly, but added, “One ‘angle’ that I hope you’ll avoid in your reportage is the overworked and untrue ‘Green was a group that should have been big but never were.’” I’ve gotta admit it’s hard to not go there, as it’s a bit of a head-scratcher to me that Chicago bands such as Veruca Salt, Urge Overkill, and Local H got signed to major labels while the beloved Green didn’t (in 1991 the Reader’s Bill Wyman dubbed them “Chicago’s Great Green Hope”)....

Playwright Gina Gionfriddo originally sat down to write a play about pornography. Instead she gave us Rapture, Blister, Burn, a work that explores the gamut of feminist responses to pornography but seems at a loss when it comes to human beings. We watch women across three generations of the feminist movement search for answers to their unhappiness, only to seem just as dazed and confused in the end as when they began....

The Chicago Blues Festival has tried to expand its scope this year to include a wider spectrum of artists and genres—and I can say that with some confidence, since for the first time in decades I served on the volunteer committee that helps book the fest. The lineup includes several aggressively contemporary acts, including incendiary young guitarist-vocalist Melody Angel and southern soul-blues artists Karen Wolfe and O.B. Buchana. Guitarist Benny Turner makes his Blues Festival debut this year, building on the legacy of his brother, the late Freddie King; so does Nigerien singer-­songwriter and guitarist Bombino, who exemplifies the complex, long-standing cultural exchange between American blues and African music....

Windy City Playhouse’s immersive ambulatory production of Jonathan Caren’s The Recommendation, conceptualized by Amy Rubenstein and directed by Jonathan Wilson, balances on the razor’s edge of hilarious excess and wrenching realism, guiding the audience from college dorm to sushi bar to jail cell (replete with beverages for most occasions) as the story twists and twists again. Carrying the suspense are stellar performances by Hester, Pogue, and Brian Keys (as convict Dwight Barnes), who reveal their characters with sympathy and complexity....

How are you going to make a difference this Earth Day, Chicago? 

As craft beer has exploded in Chicago over the past ten years, so has coverage of the local craft beer scene. But despite hundreds of articles on the subject over the years, nobody has published a print guide dedicated entirely to breweries in Chicago and the suburbs. Now, suddenly, there are two. The Beermiscuous Field Guide, published in July by the self-described “coffee shop for beer” that loaned the book its name, is a pocket-size guide to Chicagoland taprooms and brewpubs, excluding breweries where you can’t drink onsite....

The band is already midflight as the sound fades up at the beginning of “You Are Free to Choose,” the opening track of the Junius Paul double LP Ism (International Anthem). Perhaps unintentionally, this parallels his career, which has also been in motion for some time. The Chicago-born-and-raised bassist first performed in 2002 at Fred Anderson’s legendary Velvet Lounge, and his early experiences in the club’s storied jam sessions led to an enduring relationship with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians....

It was about a week ago that I wrote a post ripping Joe Biden for disappearing when we needed to hear his voice of Democratic opposition the most: right in the middle of a pandemic in which President Trump’s negligence, indifference, and willful ignorance were risking lives. Half the time Donald Trump sounds like a doped-up lunatic—and his supporters are willing to die for him. At least, Jerry Falwell Jr. endangered hundreds of other people’s lives by refusing to close Liberty University, apparently because he wanted to demonstrate how much he didn’t believe the liberal hype about COVID-19....

On a hot Saturday in August, the parking lot of the Middle Eastern Immigrant and Refugee Alliance in West Ridge is filled with the sound of festivities. Kids jump in a bouncy house, Arabic pop music blares on the speakers, and a group of aunties chat as they watch over their charges. The organization, formerly known as the Iraqi Mutual Aid Society, hosts this yearly event as a way to connect the families they serve with the rest of the immigrant community....

Saxophonist and composer Miguel Zenón is a MacArthur “genius grant” recipient who creates jazz that moves seamlessly between the experimental and the folkloric in an ongoing exploration of his Puerto Rican identity. Many of his 12 studio albums as a bandleader reference and highlight diverse arrays of the island’s genres and musical figures without ever mimicking them directly. The most recent, Sonero: The Music of Ismael Rivera, honors legendary Puerto Rican composer and salsa singer Ismael “Maelo” Rivera....

Is a monster still a monster if it knows it’s a monster? Stand-up comedian Sam Tallent has fashioned a golem-like creature called Billy Ray Shafer and set him on an anti-hero’s odyssey into a hell entirely of his own making in Running the Light (independently published), a book that is sometimes so funny it hurts. Along the way I cringed every time Billy Ray blew yet another opportunity to save himself, but I never gave up on the man, no matter how low he sank....

I’ve said it before, but few instruments get less respect than the tuba—not only is it unwieldy to play, but most folks associate it strictly with oompah music or marching bands. Obviously the tuba also has a long history in symphonies, and over the decades a few exemplary explorers have played it in improvised and avant-garde contexts, among them jazz artists Ray Draper, Bob Stewart, and Jose Davila and less categorizable experimenters Robin Hayward and Martin Taxt....

No matter how bizarre things got in the presidential campaign we’ve just lived through, American voters—alarmed and agog—could take comfort in this: both candidates promised that the economy will get better. It was the one thing they agreed on. I put that question to someone who should know—economist and Northwestern University professor Robert J. Gordon. Earlier this year, Gordon published a much-discussed book on this very subject, The Rise and Fall of American Growth....

Comedian Sarah Albritton was 15 when she learned she had narcolepsy. One day in geometry class, she was headed to the front of the room to grab her Texas Instruments calculator when a classmate said something that surprised her (she can’t remember the exact words now) and she collapsed into a cataplexy—a narcoleptic state during which patients lose control of their muscles for a few minutes. Sarah, what kind of pressure do you feel to share with others the fact that you have narcolepsy?...

To any local music freak with half a brain and basically functioning ear canals, Jim Magas has been an obvious leader of Chicago’s “interesting music” vanguard for more than 20 years—my introduction to him was in the mid-90s at the Fireside Bowl, when he was fronting short-lived (and totally excellent) no-wave horror punks Lake of Dracula. If you held a gun to my head today (please don’t!) and told me to make a list of the top ten “rock” bands I’ve ever seen live, I’m pretty sure Lake of Dracula would be on there somewhere....