When British guitarist and vocalist Anna Calvi released her self-titled debut album in 2011, it felt like she’d emerged as a fully formed icon. Drawing from rock, punk, opera, and flamenco guitar, Calvi combined talent, eclecticism, and swagger in a way that had less in common with indie songwriters of her generation than with the likes of Annie Lennox, Prince, and Nick Cave. After putting out her third full-length, 2018’s Hunter, she wrote music for season five of Peaky Blinders, and insofar as that job asked her to delve into the mind of crime boss Tommy Shelby, it might’ve inspired her to look at her recent work with fresh eyes. On the new Hunted, Calvi has stripped down seven songs from Hunter, with help from guests such as Julia Holter and Courtney Barnett. Though some of the material on Hunter was fairly minimalist to begin with–on “Away,” Calvi’s voice floats over guitar strumming and a hushed backdrop of shimmering strings–on the new versions she does away with all window dressing to zero in on stark, raw emotion. On the updated “Eden,” a tale of hiding away with a lover during a rainstorm, Charlotte Gainsbourg’s whispers commingle with Calvi’s angelic croons to conjure an atmosphere even dreamier and more intimate than that of the original. But not every song is so rose-colored or escapist. Anchored by a driving guitar riff, the Hunter version of “Wish” feels powerful and determined, but the Hunted version (which features Idles vocalist Joe Talbot) pushes past the original’s bright, warm surfaces to something unhinged–it even gets a little maniacal when Calvi unleashes an operatic wail. That fierce mood continues through Hunted closer “Indies or Paradise” (the song appears midway through Hunter), where she mixes banshee cries with hushed incantations and trades the original’s chic grooves for blistering guitar rhythms. Making a great record is hard enough, but making one in two distinct and equally enjoyable versions is a humbling accomplishment. v

Read More

Helmed by charismatic vocalist and guitarist Ryanne van Dorst, Dool combine pop hooks with heady lyrics and complex songwriting that draws from the underbelly of metal, psych, doom, occult rock, and more. Formed in Rotterdam in 2015 by members of Dutch rock outfits Elle Bandita, the Devil’s Blood, and Gold, the band (whose name translates to “Wandering”) have yet to tour the States, but they made waves in the heavy-music world with their 2017 debut, Here Now, There Then. On their brand-new second album, Summerland (Prophecy Productions), Dool lean into the arena-friendly side of their sound without compromising their aesthetic. The album’s name nods to a pagan concept of the afterlife–an idyllic place the soul can visit between incarnations or settle in after reaching a final ascension–and songs such as the title track and album closer “Dust & Shadow” are enhanced by otherworldly, majestic atmospheres. But Dool aren’t concerned solely with what happens after we leave this plane, but also with the road traveled and personal evolution along the way. To that end, they’re more earthbound on tracks such as “Ode to the Future,” anchored by a rich strummed guitar rhythm reminiscent of Patti Smith classic “Dancing Barefoot.” Van Dorst’s vivid lyrics often address themes of self-questioning and strife, and when they’re interwoven into rock epics such as “The Well’s Run Dry” (which features a spoken-word passage from Bolzer front man Okoi Jones), no challenge seems insurmountable. It’s easy to imagine radio-ready album single “Wolf Moon” and rock rager “Be Your Sins” (with a fiery Hammond organ solo by Swedish metal keyboardist Per Wiberg) as gateway drugs for mainstream rock and metal listeners who are primed to discover more esoteric sounds. Dool deliver on that front as well: “God Particle” features a Middle Eastern-inspired intro, a dynamic flow, and an intensity enriched by the album’s backing vocalist, former Devil’s Blood and current Molasses front woman Farida Lemouchi. v

Read More

I wish the right-wing miscreants in the federal government were as dependable as Chicago rapper G Herbo. For close to a decade, he’s released albums and mixtapes of rapid-fire drill with reassuring frequency, and even his most run-of-the-mill offerings benefit from his pragmatic empathy and lucid descriptions–he brings a distinctive emotional gravity to his detailed lyrics about the harshness of the city’s impoverished Black enclaves. Born Herbert Wright, Herbo grew up in a part of South Shore so besieged by violence it became known as Terror Town, and in his music he captures both the up-close-and-personal feeling of mortal fear and a large-scale view of the structural inequality that created the circumstances of his life. That baked-in injustice continues to affect him: ever since his arrest for aggravated unlawful use of a loaded weapon in February 2018, for instance, Herbo has had to deal with local venues canceling his shows. But he’s also used his prominent position to benefit those in need–most notably, as he explained in his episode of the TRiiBE’s Block Beat series in September 2018, he’s part of the team that bought Anthony Overton Elementary School (which Rahm Emanuel closed in 2013) to turn it into a hub for job training and youth afterschool programs. On the February album PTSD (Epic/Machine Entertainment Group), Herbo contemplates the lasting effects of growing up in a community where violence took so many of his friends–it may not be literally around the corner for him today, but it’s still playing out in his life, even now that he’s a genuine star (PTSD debuted at number seven on the Billboard 200). He fills his raps to overflowing with anxiety, grief, and compassion, and he delivers his lines with enough force to convince you he can overcome anything. On tracks such as “Gangbangin,” “Lawyer Fees” (featuring Polo G), and “PTSD” (with Juice Wrld, Chance the Rapper, and Lil Uzi Vert), Herbo transmutes his trauma into euphoria without dismissing or oversimplifying the profound emotions that inspire his music. v

Read More

If you haven’t already heard Human Impact, you could be forgiven for wondering whether the New York four-piece were soothsayers who’d prophesied humankind’s current struggle with an invisible threat. On “Respirator,” from the group’s new self-titled debut, vocalist and guitarist Chris Spencer (formerly of Unsane) laments, “We’ve made a mistake / Problems that can’t be undone / I see what this will bring / I see, respirator to breathe.” And on “Protestor,” which kicks off with plodding bass and off-kilter keys, Spencer delivers an eerily prescient opening line: “A virus we can’t control.” But this band of noise-rock luminaries–Spencer, bassist Chris Pravdica (Swans, Xiu Xiu), keyboardist Jim Coleman (Cop Shoot Cop), and drummer Phil Puleo (Cop Shoot Cop, Swans)–are so well-versed in dark, apocalyptic, and political themes that it was practically inevitable that some of their lyrics would resonate with our increasingly terrible reality. The longtime friends formed Human Impact in 2018, then spent much of 2019 writing material before making their live debut in New York last August. It’ll be a while before the rest of the country gets to experience the band onstage, but the new album should mollify curious fans (though it might also make the wait for a live show even more difficult). Human Impact aren’t reinventing the wheel–these guys know what they’re good at, and they’re sticking to it, crafting masterful songs whose cacophonous noise, gritty playing, and inescapable hooks summon an atmosphere of despair, dissatisfaction, and isolation. The effect is uncomfortable, for sure, but it’s also cathartic–sometimes the only way to find hope is to dive through the muck. v

Read More

In the tradition of heavy-music genre splicers such as Mr. Bungle, Secret Chiefs 3, and Estradasphere, French act Igorrr hybridizes industrial death metal, breakcore, chiptune, and other genres using a dizzying array of seemingly unrelated styles and instruments. Songwriter, DJ, and guitarist Gautier Serre weaves Baroque music, Balkan folk, Eastern motifs, operatic vocals, and death growls into a fabric made from sludgy midtempo riffs, breakneck drum fills, and all manner of digital manipulation. Originally a solo digital project, Igorrr expanded to include guest musicians in the early 2010s, and the 2017 album Savage Sinusoid expanded the lineup to a full band with a bevy of guests, including vocalist Travis Ryan (Cattle Decapitation), accordionist Adam Stacey (Secret Chiefs 3), and nearly a dozen classically trained instrumentalists. Following a full-band tour around Europe and the States, Igorrr is back with Spirituality and Distortion (Metal Blade), the group’s fourth full-length and its second consecutive album devoid of samples. The most notable addition to the already jam-packed combo of genres is Middle Eastern folk, which widens the music’s timbral palette and increases the occurrence of meditative moments and dancing opportunities. “Downgrade Desert” and “Camel Dancefloor” are the most obvious examples, thanks to the extended oud intro and distinctive melodic scale in the former and the infectious groove in the latter. “Nervous Waltz” borrows more from Western classical; it begins with a beautiful triple-feel string quartet with IDM rhythms and harmonized operatic singing before blastbeats and a quick-twitch piano melody segue into a chuggy breakdown. On “Parpaing,” Cannibal Corpse front man George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher lends his guttural vocals to a digital deathfest interrupted by aggro bitcore. A Frenchy accordion lead pairs with grind and black metal on “Musette Maximum,” and the ubercatchy “Polyphonic Rust” uses interludes by what sounds vaguely like an Eastern European women’s choir to color some of the best head-banging material on the entire album. Spirituality and Distortion can change styles or moods on a dime, and it matches its technical and melodic excellence with its boundary-defying imagination. v

Read More

When the Art Ensemble of Chicago reinvented itself as an orchestra for its 50th-anniversary recording, last year’s We Are on the Edge, the idea didn’t come out of thin air. It reflected a use of the classical methods and sounds that the ensemble’s lone surviving founder, woodwind and percussion player Roscoe Mitchell, has been pursuing in his own work since the 1980s. The new album Distant Radio Transmission consists of four completely notated works, three of which are derived from Mitchell’s improvisational practice. “Distant Radio Transmission” began life as a free improvisation by Mitchell, keyboardist Craig Taborn, and percussionist Kikanju Baku, and was subsequently transcribed and rearranged for orchestra. As performed by 31-piece Czech ensemble Ostravska Banda (joined by Mitchell’s trio), the piece has been expanded from a series of telegraphic exchanges of sonic information into a progression of rich textures charged by interjections from Mitchell’s stabbing sopranino saxophone and the absurdist syllable salad of vocalist Thomas Buckner. Mitchell doesn’t play on the rest of the record. “Nonaah Trio” and “Cutouts for Woodwind Quintet” transform material Mitchell first developed in the 1970s and 1980s into sharp-angled, cubist chamber music, while “8.8.88” is a dizzyingly complex work for Disklavier, a sort of computer-operated player piano. v

[embedded content]Read More

Enforced mass social isolation can really make you crave constant stimuli. As each day feels longer than the one before, the slow crawl of hours makes the frenetic dance music on Blood Blood Blood Blood Blood–the latest howler from Chicago-based producer RXM Reality, aka Mike Meegan–sound like a salve. It’s Meegan’s sixth album under that name and his most tightly crafted yet, brimming with ideas. “Exhale” evolves from glossy synth arpeggios to cryptic, fumbling beats, then employs an angelic vocal sample. On “Deaths, Resurrections, and Ascensions” Meegan plays a similar trick: after creating an airy, dizzying vortex of electronics, he injects it with glistening blips and an almost wistful atmosphere. The tracks mutate freely, shaped with the type of confidence that makes for a gripping listen; the constant chaos rarely gives you a moment to catch your breath. Despite their superficial fragmentation, though, Meegan’s jittery productions feel fully formed–like mini worlds unto themselves. This is the key to the success of Blood: no single moment feels more important than any other. Every second contains another explosion of fractured sonics, and they all jell together due to the album’s inspired restlessness. v

Read More

Chicago has many independent hip-hop labels, but few maintain rosters as multigenerational as that of Machine Wash Music. Rapper Daryl “Decay” Stewart cofounded Machine Wash after he had an unsatisfying experience putting out his 2008 album, The Unlikely Hero, through Molemen Records–he wanted a more mutual artist-label relationship. “The process wasn’t the same and I didn’t enjoy making that record as much,” Stewart told Voyage Chicago in 2018. “I went back to my friends and felt we needed to help artist [sic] realize their dream without taking their control.” Machine Wash doesn’t even have a dozen releases yet, but on the new compilation Machine, the label rolls deep, documenting the many current dimensions of underground Chicago hip-hop. Machine features savvy youngsters (Defcee, Green Sllime), long-grinding veterans (Encyclopedia Brown, Stewart’s alter ego Decay, the Llama), producers from the arty beat scene (Lanzo, Uncle El), and an MC who helped build the foundation for the local scene (Ang-13). The comp reframes hip-hop with a peculiar new slant, even when the big-footed beats and rubbery wordplay carry a whiff of tradition–and even the cuts that defy convention sometimes feel like long-lost classics. On “Rats,” rapper-producer Green Sllime attacks a bleary instrumental with glorious non sequiturs like he’s slicing through underbrush with a machete. Few artists sound like Sllime, and I wish more would take notes. v

Read More

A couple years ago, Chicago archival label Numero Group launched Cabinet of Curiosities, a compilation series focused on fringe private-press releases of yore. A lot of the strange music they’ve reissued under this banner intensely evokes the eras in which its creators lived, and Cabinet of Curiosities comps are unified less by genre than by spirit. The 1980s electronic sounds on 2018’s Escape From Synth City, for example, include glacial new age (“Konya” by Al Gromer Khan), chintzy boogie (“Intellectual Thinking” by New World Music), and progressive house (“Whirr” by Reader contributor Frank Youngwerth); the LP sleeve looks like a classic NES cartridge, a theme that Numero took further by creating an Escape From Synth City side-scrolling video game. The songs on the new Whispers: Lounge Originals ooze the laid-back essence of 1960s hotel bars, martini glasses, and Pat Boone, but the artists push the concept of lounge music to its outer edges. “Kids,” a lo-fi, bittersweet shot of blue-eyed soul from Minnesota singer-songwriter Chuck Senrick, rubs shoulders with “These Moments Now,” a bizarre intergalactic psych-rock romp by North Dakota act Justen O’Brien & Jake. Lounge music generally doesn’t try to draw much attention to itself, but the odd, twisted, and boldly beautiful songs on Whispers definitely deserve it. And this time the LP sleeve looks like a matchbook, naturally. v

Read More

Well, look at that. The world is ending. Suddenly we’re all cooped up, we can’t see friends or loved ones, we can’t go out for pizza, and we can’t grab a beer at the bar. I don’t know about you, but even if people weren’t suffering and dying from coronavirus, I’d be starting to feel really down. I’m frustrated and anxious, I’m stir-crazy, and I’m sleeping terribly. Everything is canceled–tours included–but at least there are still new records coming out. I’m finding the new U.S. Girls album, Heavy Light, to be a little ray of sunshine. U.S. Girls is the project of Toronto-via-Chicago musician Meghan Remy, who has been releasing various strains of experimental pop music under that name since 2007. Her first records skewed toward dark, fuzzy bedroom-recorded starkness, with lo-fi production and drum-machine backing. But she’s since developed her sound and shifted to the brighter side of the street, and Heavy Light is her biggest, cheeriest release yet. This time around Remy plays with lush AM Gold disco feels, foregrounding upbeat funky fun; it certainly wasn’t what I expected, but in these dark times, it was more than welcome. v

Read More