- Music, Music Feature, Jun 13, 2013
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A new box set gives experimental composer David Tudor his due
Despite his pioneering work with electronics and indeterminacy, he’s far more obscure than his friend John Cage—in part because he considered his music a living practice rather than something to be documented.
- Music, Music Feature, Jun 6, 2013
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The Reader's guide to the 30th annual Chicago Blues Festival
Bobby Rush, Irma Thomas, Eddie Floyd, and lots more—plus the fest's first-ever Millennium Park concert.
- Music, Music Feature, May 30, 2013
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Why mixtapes don't hit the charts
It's not because they aren’t a vital format or the fuel for a parallel music economy—it’s because Billboard and the RIAA ignore them.
- Music, Music Feature, May 23, 2013
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The return of Dance Mania Records
Twelve years after it folded, the Chicago label that helped birth ghetto house, juke, and footwork music makes a play for the new EDM crowd.
- Music, Music Feature, May 8, 2013
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What music's outsiders and oddballs got up to before the Internet
A new coffee-table book and CD set documents the weird bygone world of private-press records.
- Music, Music Feature, Apr 23, 2013
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Chance the Rapper drops Acid Rap
The local MC's second mixtape is about to take him to some places he's only imagined.
- Music, Music Feature, Apr 18, 2013
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Our guide to Record Store Day
The annual celebration of vinyl and the shops that sell it has been getting more hectic and harder to enjoy, but the Reader is here to help.
- Music, Music Feature, Apr 17, 2013
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Of Paramount's importance
Record Store Day is a good day to remember that a subsidiary of a Wisconsin furniture company released some of the most significant blues records of the 1920s.
- Music, Music Feature, Apr 17, 2013
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Record Store Day 411
The stores, in-stores, discounts, and goodies
- Music, Music Feature, Mar 25, 2013
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Getting back to Marcos Valle
This Brazilian singer-songwriter’s best records came out more than 40 years ago and just got their first U.S. release.
- Music, Music Feature, Mar 20, 2013
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Why South By?
Given that SXSW’s industry influence is on the wane, are there still good reasons for upstart bands to brave the festival?
- Music, Music Feature, Mar 14, 2013
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Reader readers built their very own jukebox
We asked what would be in the perfect jukebox, and you queued up the tracks.
- Music, Music Feature, Mar 6, 2013
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Here comes Mae Ya Carter Ryan
The 11-year-old Bronzeville native has a voice that sounds decades older than she is. People are starting to listen.
- Music, Music Feature, Feb 27, 2013
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Who's really doing the Harlem Shake?
What this month's biggest meme says about cultural property and appropriation on the Internet.
- Music, Music Feature, Feb 20, 2013
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Tim'm West and the masculine mystique
In his career as a hip-hop artist—and now through his work at the Center on Halsted—West has demonstrated that there's more than one way to be a black gay man.
- Music, Music Feature, Feb 19, 2013
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Vaporwave and the observer effect
Like many online microscenes, vaporwave turned into something else as soon as someone noticed it.
- Music, Music Feature, Feb 14, 2013
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Virtuosity without borders
Violinist, vocalist, and composer Carla Kihlstedt combines avant-garde pop, contemporary classical, and dreams in a new commissioned work for ICE.
- Music, Music Feature, Feb 14, 2013
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Carla Kihlstedt's At Night We Walk in Circles and Are Consumed by Fire
Video from last month's world premiere at the Ecstatic Music Festival in New York
- Music, Music Feature, Jan 22, 2013
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Brenmar’s strange groove
"If you can make some weird shit and have it pop off, I don't think there's anything cooler to me."
- Music, Music Feature, Jan 14, 2013
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Catching up with Mister Lies
Chicago producer Nick Zanca has had a whirlwind year, and his debut album doesn’t even come out till next month
