Avant-garde cellist Lia Kohl builds resplendence with radio static on The Ceiling Reposes CONCERT PREVIEWS THURSDAY9

Skech185, Rich Jones Skech185 headlines; Jyroscope, Defcee, Rich Jones, and Fess Grandiose open. 9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $12. 21+

Chicago native Willie Lee McIntyre Jr., who raps as Skech185 , relies on vivid, thoughtful bars, not on big, repetitive hooks. Skech can plant a flag in your memory the same way a hook would just by thickening his verses with detail. On “Nights and Weekends” he applies his rich, husky voice to a seesawing monologue that catalogs the thoughts of a bartender worn down by the routines of the job; I keep returning to his novelistic descriptions to marinate in them. (“A thousand hangovers disguised as a doorframe” is one of the many great lines that dot the song as densely as poppy seeds on a hot dog bun.) “Nights and Weekends” appears on the January release He Left Nothing for the Swim Back (Backwoodz Studioz), Skech’s first full-length collaboration with Brooklyn-based producer Jeff Markey. Markey likes smooth, voluptuous samples, but the beats he builds with them feel lived-in and rickety in a way that complements Skech’s raw-knuckled sensibilities. Skech emphasizes nearly every line like he’s trying to convert wallflowers into fans, even though his distinctive turns of phrase will likely sound like a hard-to-crack code to anyone who’s just dipping their toes into underground hip-hop. These days Skech lives in New York, but Chicago shows up strong on He Left Nothing for the Swim Back , whose guest MCs include three of his former crewmates from local supergroup Tomorrow Kings: I.B. Fokuz, Collasoul Structure, and Lamon Manuel. The year is young, but the steamy soul keys and feet-on-the-ground localism of “East Side Summer”—with its fleeting references to hanging out on Constance Avenue in Pill Hill and getting braids put in on 79th and Escanaba—seem likely to make it one of my favorite Chicago hip-hop songs of 2023.

—LEOR GALIL

Rich Jones is a connoisseur of kicking it. The Chicago hip-hop artist came to local prominence about a decade ago with soulful, traditional rap, often singing his hooks. Over the years since, he’s kept his roots firmly planted in Chicago hip-hop while morphing into a widely loved balladeer. Jones has the air of a motivational speaker in his hazy, welltraveled verses, and he’s an epicurean too—a roving foodie who makes music on his adventures. His projects have a bon vivant quality about them, even when they lean sad and pensive.

WHEN I INTERVIEWED EXPERIMENTAL Chicago cellist, composer, and improviser Lia Kohl last year for the Reader’s People Issue, she talked about using radios in her solo work. “Something I really like about the radio is that I’m responding,” she said. “You turn on the radio, and someone could say pretty much anything—except, like, a select number of swear words.” Kohl has an a nity for collaboration—her regular partners include Macie Stewart, Makaya McCraven, and Katinka Kleijn—and she treats her field recordings like active collaborators too. On her new solo album, The Ceiling Reposes (American Dreams), Kohl builds songlike, borderline ambient instrumental compositions that incorporate radio broadcasts she recorded while staying on Vashon Island, just o the southwest coast of Seattle. She frames each fragmentary sample so that even the static feels like a living part of the lush, tranquil, gradually evolving music, and the radio recordings mesh with the other material so well that you might wonder if they weren’t also somehow responding to her. Kohl fleshed out the album with a small symphony of instruments she played herself—cello, of course, plus synthesizers, kazoo, wind machine, piano, drums, bells, and concertina. When a rococo piano figure needles through the sound of a radio jumping among stations on “Became Daily Today,” it ushers in a brief but flourishing melody that feels as calming as a warm bath.

—LEOR GALIL

In October 2022, Jones was on holiday in the Pacific Northwest when he teamed up with Thaddeus Gincig, aka Goldenbeets, a Portland producer and wine-and-mood enthusiast whose tracks combine pretty samples with drums that honor J Dilla and allow plenty of space for intentional lyrics. (His 2021 album Sommelier is instrumental gold.) The duo’s new collaborative EP, It Is Decidedly So, is the product of what Goldenbeets described on Twitter as “kicking it and having a great time with a friend.” And indeed the record is chill and joyous. “Slurricane” has a staccato snare, twinkling piano, and a sweet sampled vocal melody that together cre- ate a fluff y backdrop for Jones’s thoughtful crooning. Chicago treasure GreenSllime upgrades the stony microdosed track “Hasheesh” with a shot of humor and a hilarious hook. “The Sting” closes the EP with maturity and self-love, as Jones declares, “I waited three decades and change to finally be OK with me.” Jones’s gi s are abundant and he knows it. And his music, like any great merlot, gets better with age. —CRISTALLE

BOWEN

Friday10

Lia Kohl See Pick of the Week at le . 7:30 PM, International Museum of Surgical Science, 1524 N. Lake Shore Drive, $15, $7 with membership. b

Friday17

Century Stress Angel, Wraith, and Force open. 8 PM, Reggies Music Joint, 2105 S. State, $15. 21+ have patience for. I’ve revisited that Humming Byrd clip over and over because it conveys the adrenalized joy of a certain kind of concert: a young, casually iconoclastic rock band, standing nose-to-nose with their fans in a small, packed venue, find their way toward the germ of a melody for a minute and a half, then draw up short and suddenly unload a crunchy, distorted blast that feels colossal even through shitty laptop speakers. The pandemic has made me anxious about the thought of being in a crowd like that, but We Weren’t Invited have done a lot to remind me of what I’m missing.

The five-piece formed in 2021, and they’ve released three EPs and a couple singles. We Weren’t Invited debuted with what’s since become their most popular song on Spotify, “Me + U = Heaven,” a melodramatic, rawboned acoustic ballad— hugely different from the material on Flesh Vehicle, Pt. 2 , where the melodrama comes from florid arrangements rather than desperate-sounding lyrics. On “Sorry 2 Piss on Your Pity Party,” for instance, guitarists Isaac Rodriquez and Michael Locascio punch up the loopy, gear- shifting funk metal with wizardly thri -store riffs that recall late-80s Sub Pop seven-inches. The wild-man screams of vocalist Johnny Wynne belong to the world of hardcore, and the group’s intensity would make them a good fit for the gnarliest ChiTown Futbol lineup—but their songwriting takes them somewhere else entirely. I’m not sure where they’re headed, but their creativity will be a boon to whatever scene eventually claims them.

GALIL

Sunday19

Ibeyi Annahstasia opens. 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport, $30-$40. 17+

Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Diaz, the French AfroCuban twin sisters in Ibeyi, have spent the past eight years making soulful alternative R&B that honors womanhood, ancestry, and communal spirituality across the Black diaspora. The duo have long been familiar with the painful reality of death; they lost their father, famed Cuban percussionist Miguel “Angá” Díaz, when they were 11, and their sister Yanira passed away a few years later. Rather than face death with fear or uncertainty, the songs on their third and latest album, last year’s Spell 31 (XL), act as a healing channel that connects them to the sisters’ lineage and heritage.

LUDWIG

Deep in the hell of 2020, the duo Century arose from Stockholm’s metal scene with a four-song self-released demo that was so much fun it could actually give you a brief reprieve from the unrelenting awfulness of that year. MMXX channels the outsize triumphant spirit of such 80s giants as Mercyful Fate and Judas Priest as well as the gonzo melodies of contemporaneous Swedish bands like Gotham City and Axe Witch. It overflows with catchy guitar licks and copious hooks, punctuated by the occasional hair-raising falsetto scream. Buzz spread quickly via word of mouth, just as it would have when that vintage heavy metal was new, and the first cassette run of MMXX sold out on day one. Century make their Chicago debut ahead of their full-length debut, The Conquest of Time (due in April on Electric Assault), and the album is every bit as raw and adrenalized as I’d hoped it would be. Unlike so many groups that trade in classic sounds, Century don’t feel pinned to the past—with fastand-dirty musicianship and tight, compact songwriting, they breathe fresh air into their fantastical tales of fighting eagles, dark magic, and epic battles. For their live shows, drummer-bassist Leo Ekström Sollenmo and guitarist, bassist, and vocalist Staffan Tengnér recruit two more players, becoming a four-piece that can deliver their sonic attack at full force. Break out the leather (or the vegan leather) and throw on your battle vest, because by the time Century play here again you could be bragging to friends that you “saw them when.” —JAMIE

We Weren’t Invited Hostages, Sarin, Bound, and Bird Law open. 7 PM, Cobra Lounge, 235 N. Ashland, $14.84. 17+

Earlier this year I found a live YouTube clip of Chicago punk band We Weren’t Invited made last fall by local music site the Humming Byrd. They’re performing “A Fly on the Wall (Nobody Is Home)” from their EP Flesh Vehicle, Pt. 2, self-released in January. We Weren’t Invited play hardcore, more or less, but they channel their aggression in perverse directions—including arty affectations, proggy changes, and long tangents that most of their peers don’t

With each new record Ibeyi have grown as musicians and songwriters, and on Spell 31 they embody an infectious exuberance for love and connection. Album highlight “Sister 2 Sister” is a jovial, anthemic dedication to the sisters’ lifelong bond, celebrating the power they continue to draw from each other through their music. In their June performance of the song on Jools Holland, Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi could barely hold back wide-mouthed grins and bursts of laughter as they sang into each other’s eyes and reached for each other’s hands. Their October single, “Juice of Mandarins,” carries on in that upli ing vein—it’s a tender, sensory ode to a lover’s closeness, dizzying and disruptive in its delight. Ibeyi find euphoria and strength in the physical and nonphysical worlds they inhabit. They can’t help but see magic all around them, and they conjure it in turn through their music. —TASHA

VIETS-VANLEAR

Wednesday22

Sona Jobarteh 8 PM, Old Town School of Folk Music, Maurer Hall, 4544 N. Lincoln, $35, $33 members. b

Sona Jobarteh was born in London to a family of Gambian griots, musicians and storytellers who maintain the oral tradition that keeps the histories of their people alive. Jobarteh’s family is one of fi ve in West Africa associated with the kora, an instrument that combines features of a harp and a lute, with a large gourd resonator and two ranks of strings. Jobarteh began learning kora as a child and has become the first woman from a griot family to rise to global prominence for her mastery of it. Jobarteh’s music, activism, and scholarship are informed by her commitments to gender equality and to adapting ancient traditions for a modern world. She’s the founding director of the Gambia Academy, which seeks to give African students an empowering, engaging education through an anticolonial lens; the school’s curriculum includes music, dance, capoeira, and agriculture alongside academic pursuits.

Last year Jobarteh released Badinyaa Kumoo , her first full-length record since 2011, and it’s well worth the wait. Singing in Mandinka, she presides over an inviting fusion of traditional music, Afrobeat, jazz, and pop with her clear, resonant voice. She also introduces an array of guest stars into her musical world. Senegalese superstar Youssou

N’Dour lends his commanding vocal presence to “Kambengwo,” and Israeli-Yemenite singer Ravid Kahalani of Yemen Blues adds pure, yearning tones to “Kafaroo” that raise goose bumps in the song’s gentle, lullaby-like setting. Malian kora master Ballaké Sissoko joins Jobarteh on a duet named for him, and the two of them explore the full magical potential of the kora: delicate, harplike notes run like a clear stream of water, inviting the listener to carve out space for focused, intentional listening in the chaos of the day. Alabama-born bluesman Jock Webb contributes searing Delta blues harmonica to “Nna Kangwo,” while Memphis saxophonist Kirk Whalum (that’s him on Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You”) evokes ascension with a solo on “Nna Mooya.” Jobarteh doesn’t need this level of international star power to shine, but the mix of musicians adds an intriguing energy to the record. Jobarteh made her local debut at the Chicago Cultural Center on her first North American tour in 2018; this return performance, part of the Old Town School of Folk Music’s World Music Wednesdays series, will feature a full band with electric bass, drums, guitar, and percussion. —MONICA

Album Reviews

Before she began fronting trailblazing Chicago ska band Heavy Manners in the early 80s, Kate Fagan was a new-wave powerhouse. Her 1980 single “I Don’t Wanna Be Too Cool” became the best-selling local release at Wax Trax. Since then, unfortunately, physical copies have been all but impossible to come by. A house fi re destroyed its second printing, and a 2016 seven-inch reissue by Manufactured Recordings (which included two previously unreleased bonus tracks) sold out quickly.

a steel drum. Fagan’s sound is rooted in the 80s, but these tracks—which delve into the mysteries and frustrations of love and the falseness of trend chasing—are enduring. This release should fi nally cement Fagan’s rightful place in Chicago punk history.

—KERRY CARDOZA

Rezn, Solace

KENDRICK

Kate Fagan, I Don’t Wanna Be Too Cool Captured Tracks katefagan.bandcamp.com/album/i-dont-wannabe-too-cool-expanded-edition

Early punk connoisseurs will be pleased, then, that the four songs from the 2016 reissue are making their 12-inch debut on an expanded version of the single that features four more previously unreleased tracks. All six additional tunes come from The Kissing Concept, a semi-autobiographical rock opera Fagan wrote in the 80s. “I Don’t Wanna Be Too Cool” is an obvious banger, with a minimal rhythm and a jaunty postpunk riff. Written shortly a er Fagan taught herself bass, the song pokes fun at the hipster poseurs infiltrating the New York punk scene she’d just fl ed. Fagan’s vocals do most of the work, staying at a standard 80s pop level before rising into chirps; with her quavering, high-pitched voice, she o en sounds a bit like Yoko Ono. The single’s original B side, “Waiting for the Crisis,” is a timeless, tongue-in-cheek stab at U.S. arms trading.

The rest of the album recalls Blondie with its tinkling synths and funky dance beats, though you can also hear Fagan’s interest in reggae beginning to assert itself. Closing track “Say It,” produced by Peter Tosh, features offbeat guitar rhythms and a synth line that mimics the tone of

Self-released rezzzn.bandcamp.com/album/solace

Chicago has a tradition of far-reaching heavy bands, and among the current crop, psychedelic metal outfit Rezn (o en styled REZN) have become one to watch. They’ve been pulling away from the usual trappings of stoner metal, and on 2020’s Chaotic Divine they incorporated a mix of influences that don’t o en appear in metal of any kind. In some bands, experiments like those go downhill quickly, but Rezn have proved they can make elements as disparate as doom metal and smooth jazz work together like peanut butter and jelly (or some other flavor combo you find enjoyable).

On the brand-new Solace, the four-piece further refine their craft, expertly shifting among moods and colors. It’s one of my favorite new albums to come out of Chicago so far this year, and Rezn waste no time drawing the listener into their compelling vision. They open with “Allured by Feverish Visions,” a windswept, hallucinogenic instrumental voyage that conjures images of a damned Edgar Allan Poe-like character condemned to comb through sandy beaches for a lost love while slow- ly descending into madness. That oceanic feeling continues through “Possession,” with grooves that create the atmosphere of a gentle low tide—that is, until a dense, surging tidal wave crashes down at the song’s end. The album only gets heavier from there, and when the chunky guitar progressions kick in on “Stasis” it feels genuinely cathartic to get lost in their cosmic abyss. One trademark of the Rezn sound is the soulful saxophone of multiinstrumentalist Spencer Ouelette, and his solo on “Faded and Fleeting” could in another context lure your elderly aunt and uncle out to romance on the dance floor. On Solace, though, it makes for a sweet interlude before album closer “Webbed Roots.” Its ambitious twists and turns (and its elegiac spoken word from French Canadian electronic producer Marie Davidson) help fuel the band’s final li off into outer space

—JAMIE LUDWIG

Sleaford Mods, UK Grim

Rough Trade sleafordmods.bandcamp.com/album/uk-grim

When a band have as limited a format and as minimalist an approach as Sleaford Mods, it’s always great to hear them come out with completely fresh and exciting sounds. The British postpunk duo have done this time and time again for more than 15 years, and every one of their releases is engaging, unnerving, and wildly unique. Their brand-new album, UK Grim, demonstrates their airtight, undeniable formula: producer Andrew Fearn lays out ultra-stark, herky-jerky, electronic postpunk gloom while vocalist Jason Williamson loses his mind, his ranting and raving balanced on the line between aggressive hip-hop and furious anarcho-punk. Over the years, Sleaford Mods have slowly and subtly expanded their palette, sometimes coming surprisingly close to pop music—2021’s smasher of a single, “Nudge It,” features guest vocals from Amy Taylor of Australian punk rockers Amyl & the Sniffers. UK Grim sticks to territory that’s less melodic and catchy than that, though, and by the sound of Williamson’s performances he’s saltier and angrier than ever. What’s he so pissed off about? Judging by his lyrics, everything: the state of the government, DIY posers, lame haircuts . . . no one is safe from his unrelenting, bombastic commentary. UK Grim’s biggest surprise arrives on “So Trendy,” when Perry Farrell (of all people) shows up to add fun hooks while somehow matching Williamson’s percussive vocal attack. Sleaford Mods’ angry worldview and direct, confrontational style results in a wholly satisfying and cathartic release.

—LUCA CIMARUSTI

Son Rompe Pera, Chimborazo Aya ayarecords.bandcamp.com/track/chucha

The marimba-forward folkloric cumbia of Son Rompe Pera’s 2020 debut album, Batuco , didn’t entirely prepare me for the Mexican quintet’s visceral, madcap live shows. The style of cumbia in which they specialize more typically soundtracks intergenerational family celebrations than crowd surfing and mosh pits. But the group’s new second album, Chimborazo, sheds light on how they straddle both those worlds (and then some).

Recorded in the famed Mambo Negro Studios in Bogotá, Colombia, Chimborazo pays homage to cumbia (which was born in Colombia) while pushing it far beyond its usual boundaries. With help from a variety of guests, Son Rompe Pera incorporate additional textures and hues into their raw energy. Colombian cumbia orchestra Frente Cumbiero layer lush horns into the psychedelic swing of “Batuco.” On “Chata,” Chilean superstar and longtime collaborator Macha (Chico Trujillo, El Bloque Depresivo) adds intensity to the over-thetop chanting, while Colombian trio La Perla bring in Andean vibes with flutes called gaita.

Son Rompe Pera also continue to expand the genre elements they fold into their cumbias: Bogotano rapper N. Hardem adds reggae coloring to “Chico Migraña” with his rhymes and phrasing. On “Proteus,” Oaxacan musician Gil Gutierrez bridges the marimba riffs with his precious guitar stylings. And por supuesto, there are shades of punk: “Cumbia Is the New Punk” (which just might be my favorite tune on the record) toggles between Mexico’s languid cumbia rebajada and hyperactive spaghetti-western licks with frantic percussion.

Chimborazo is a fun jam that embodies the spirit of the declaration Son Rompe Pera make in “Cumbia Pa Tu Madre”: “Como los Andes cordillera, la cumbia es la reina sin fronteras.” (“Like the Andes mountain ranges, the cumbia is a queen without borders.”) Cumbia could be considered the lingua franca of dance in the Americas, and Son Rompe Pera are perfectly fluent in all of its irresistible dialects.

—CATALINA MARIA JOHNSON

Spektral Quartet, Behind the Wallpaper

New Amsterdam spektralquartet.com/btw-project

One of my favorite moments in music comes in the fourth movement of Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2. In that piece, the quartet is joined by a soprano, who floats a verse by poet Stefan George over the soft glow of strings: “Ich fühle Lu von anderem Planeten.” (“I feel air from another planet.”) Schoenberg’s quartet was booed and heckled upon its 1908 premiere, but when I first heard that line—as a young person coming to terms with my gender identity, weeks before my 21st birthday and weeks a er Donald Trump had been elected president—George’s words tossed down an escape rope. I still don’t know why they meant so much to me. Maybe it was the promise that someplace existed, somewhere, that could see me for me.

I still haven’t really found that place, as a journalist working in an industry and a world that become more virulently transphobic with each passing day. But if such a place exists, it sounds like Alex Temple’s Behind the Wallpaper , also written for singer and string quartet. Temple lived here from 2009 to 2017 while pursuing a doctorate in composition at Northwestern University, during which time she settled into her own gender identity. Her attendant emotions and experiences—isolation, absurdism, and alienation, followed by the succor of belonging—all made their way into Behind the Wallpaper ’s poignant, surreal libretto and piquant timbral palette.