MUSIC

trial techno with meticulous attention to detail, are at the vanguard of this sound. They collide clattering synths and screeching, slamming beats with dense, overwhelming textures, but the energy of their music ensures that even its noisiest and most terrifying moments feel like a great time. The duo’s influences include the late Jah Shaka’s bone-rattling dub sound system, Lightning Bolt’s primordial noise-punk chaos, and the industrial techno of pioneers such as Regis and Surgeon. Some commentators simply call the end result “techno punk,” but it’s more accurate to describe it as high-octane techno that revels in punk’s reckless energy.

On Giant Swan’s latest release, a five-track EP Fantasy Food , they push their propulsive beats to the forefront of their frantic sound. Standout track “Abacuses” centers a pulsating techno beat, with turbulent, frenetic synths dancing around the periphery. On closer “RRR+1,” the duo adorn an unrelenting beat with their characteristic choppedup vocal samples. Fantasy Food leaves you feeling out of breath in the best sense—its sweeping tornado of texture and rhythm is among the very best that contemporary techno has to offer.

Martin Dupont Beau Wanzer and Justin Carver open. 8 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, $26, $21 in advance. 18+

Martin Dupont was one of the most enigmatic and exhilarating coldwave bands of the 1980s. The group was founded in 1980 in Marseille, France, by songwriter and bassist Alain Seghir, who wanted to explore new wave a er spending time in rock and jazz bands. Over the next few years he linked up with several musically adventurous artists, including Brigitte Balian, Beverley Jane Crew, and Catherine Loy, to create sprawling tracks suffused with a haunted, kinetic energy. Martin Dupont’s 1984 debut album, Just Because (Facteurs d’Ambiance), showcases their frenetic songwriting. Synth melodies weave dizzyingly in and out of “Sticks in My Brain” as band members trade off vocal lines stacked with bratty yelps and paranoid warbles. On tracks such as “Willy Nilly,” they push their experiments even further, manipulating vocals to the point of cartoonish absurdity.

The band refined their approach on their next two albums, 1985’s Sleep Is a Luxury and 1987’s Hot Paradox . The Sleep song “I Met the Beast” melds needling guitars and eerie synth melodies in a consummate gothic reverie. On “My Analyst Assez” from Hot Paradox , the band layer cryptic, distorted synths and rupture them with Crew’s clarinet; on “He Saw the Light” they deliver warped, allconsuming freestyle.

Martin Dupont disbanded in the late 80s, but they re-formed last year and began playing shows again in early 2023. On their new comeback album, Kintsugi (Minimal Wave), they reconstruct songs from throughout their discography. Inspired by the titular art form—the Japanese practice of repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with metal dust— the band brought their classic works into a new era by linking with Sandy Casado and Thierry Sintoni, both of French goth trio Rise and Fall of a Decade. That reinvention is clear from opener “Bent at the Window,” which transforms the homespun original into a massive track with choral vocals and string arrangements. This month Martin Dupont make their first U.S. tour with a fleshed-out lineup that includes Casado, Sintoni, and French musician Ollivier Leroy. Their stop at Metro will allow generations of fans to experience their coldwave brilliance firsthand. —JOSHUA

MINSOO KIM

Saturday27

Bollweevils The Dopamines and the Reaganomics open. 8 PM, Chop Shop, 2033 W. North, $22.22. 18+

It feels like a lifetime since Chicago pop-punk veterans the Bollweevils have put out an album. They formed in 1989, and unless you count a posthumous compilation, they haven’t released a full-length since 1996—that one was Weevilive, a live recording of a Metro set from the previous year. The group went dormant a er a final show in ’97 so front man Daryl Wilson could focus on his career as a doctor. (He currently works in the emergency department at Edward Hospital in Naperville.) Wilson has found a way to balance a life in medicine with the pursuit of music, and the band have been increasingly active since they began reuniting in the 2000s, first for a WLUW show at Metro in 2003 and then for a couple Riot Fest dates in 2006. This month they released the long-in-the-works Essential (Red Scare Industries), and its tight, vigorous performances make a strong argument for more frequent Bollweevils albums. The band’s four members are locked in together on these tidy recordings, and their collective action underlines one of the album’s main themes: communal interdependence and unity. The value of those ideas comes across most clearly on the soaring “Galt’s Gulch,” via a satire of rugged individualism from the perspective of an Ayn Rand stan. With the passage of the years, Wilson’s angsty bark has acquired a honeyed softness around its edges, and his blunt delivery meshes perfectly with the sugary jolt of the band’s swinging gallop. Most impressive, the Bollweevils have found a way to age gracefully in pop punk. They don’t try to pretend they aren’t getting older—the last song on Essential is called “Liniment and Tonic”—but they’ve retained the urgent ferocity that made them a phenomenon in the first place. —LEOR GALIL

Tinariwen 8 PM, Old Town School of Folk Music, Maurer Hall, 4544 N. Lincoln, sold out. b

In 2017, Reader critic Peter Margasak noted Tinariwen’s recurring practice of featuring rock musicians as guests on their records. Their new album, Amatssou , doesn’t change that approach, but it perfects it. Originally, the long-running ensemble of Tuareg musicians (also known as Kel Tamasheq, meaning speakers of Tamasheq) intended to make the album at Jack White’s private studio in Nashville, but COVID issues scotched that plan. Instead, recording took place on three continents. From one record or tour to the next, Tinariwen reconfigure their lineup around the core of singer-guitarists Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, Touhami Ag Alhassane, and Abdallah Ag Alhouseyni, and for Amatssou a six-member edition of the band laid down tracks in a temporary studio set up in a tent at an Algerian oasis. Percussionist Amar Chaoui added hand drums in Paris, country-and-western session veterans Wes Corbett and Fats Kaplin contributed from Nashville, and producer Daniel Lanois—who’s also worked with Brian Eno, Bob Dylan, and Emmylou Harris—added final touches in Los Angeles.

The cantering banjo, swooping pedal steel, and Lanois’s trademark ambience complement the songs without overwhelming their bluesy vibe. The production draws out layers of percussion— hand claps, calabashes, dumbeks—to provide a more detailed rhythmic foundation for Tinariwen’s weaving, open-ended guitars and assertively conversational bass lines. But their songs, sung in Tamasheq, continue to address Tinariwen’s eternal theme of cultural survival. During the band’s lifetime, the Tuareg people have faced off against the Malian and Nigerien governments, climate change, and most recently, Islamist insurgents from abroad and nearby. The anthemic “Anemouhagh’’ calls out for pan-Tuareg unity, while “Iket Adjen’’ recounts the confusion and distrust that must be overcome for such a unification to take place. This Old Town School of Folk Music show opens the band’s eightdate American tour. It’s sold out, but you can sign up on the venue’s site to join the waiting list for any tickets that become available before showtime.

—BILL MEYER

Album Reviews

here. In a January interview with Paper, she admitted that while making early single “Me First” she considered quitting music. But with RBDD she hit new peaks while rediscovering her love for her cra .

Born in Little Rock and based in Los Angeles, Faux has found success partially by purposely disconnecting from industry music-making standards and giving herself the space to innovate. She created this well-paced album in Chicago, working alongside brilliant not-so-local musicians TheMIND and Phoelix (they also provide guest vocals on “Past Life,” and Phoelix is her partner) and producers 2forwOyNE and Park Ave. Together, they sculpt a backdrop that’s equal parts thump and think, all while positioning Faux’s growth as a musician front and center. The record also features guests such as Mississippi rapper Big K.R.I.T., Toronto hip-hop artist Jazz Cartier, late great Memphis queen Gangsta Boo, and southern hip-hop pioneer Devin the Dude—who offers a taut, naughty verse that displays he has yet to miss a step in his long career.

Kari

Faux, Real B*tches Don’t Die Drink Sum Wtr

karifaux.bandcamp.com/album/real-b-tches-dontdie

Finally! An album for the real bitches. The ones who let their heart override their wounds and will flash fangs when necessary. This type of R&B- and funktinged, southern-fried hip-hop can’t be duplicated, only demonstrated, and that’s exactly what rapper Kari Faux does on her anthemic new album, Real B*tches Don’t Die

Every artist wants to top their past work, and given the punch of her 2020 release Lowkey Superstar (Deluxe), Faux had a steep climb ahead of her

As a vocalist, Faux knows how to twist a phrase and push an earworm. Her tone is equally fun and “not fucking around with you,” and she knows her pockets; even when she stretches her vocal capabilities, she makes up for any potential shortfall with her charisma and command. Lyrically, she’s at her best on Real B*tches Don’t Die , lobbing callbacks to pop-culture moments and Black southern music’s brightest artists, such as Project Pat and Jermaine Dupri.

On “Money Angels,” Faux douses her lines with humor (“Melodies from heaven / Like Kirk I got the Franklins”) and croons a dreamlike mantra atop a melodic, bass-driven knock. Jazz Cartier levitates on the track with a nomadic, confident flow, expressing gratitude for being resilient, blessed, and highly favored.

Kari’s words on “Drunk Words Sober Thoughts” are even more potent: “This is for my gangsta bitch- es that need forehead kisses / Who’s le to pacify themselves whenever the plot gets thickened,” she raps, and “I fear I’m made in my mother’s image.” This track reminds us that even the jokesters most hardened by their paths can also be so , squishy, and self-reflective. Real B*tches Don’t Die is an ode to Faux’s southern roots, a well-rounded win for self-proclaimed underdogs, and a balm for real bitches. It couldn’t have come at a better time.

—CRISTALLE BOWEN

Yakuza, Sutra

Svart yazkua.bandcamp.com/album/sutra

Has it really been more than a decade since Yakuza released an album? Yes it has, and I’m probably not the only Chicago metal fan who feels old about it. When the avant-garde metal outfit first sidled onto the local scene in 1999, they threw down a gauntlet: clarinet and saxophone weren’t o en thought of as metal instruments before Yakuza front man Bruce Lamont demonstrated how it’s done. In hindsight, though, it seems obvious that with the right attitude, bloody-mouthed reeds and circular breathing techniques can be metal as hell.

Yakuza’s new Sutra (Svart) is the band’s seventh studio album and their first since 2012’s monumental Beyul (Profound Lore). Their lineup has stayed mostly the same in the meantime, though bassist Jerome Marshall (Hatemonger, Contrition) replaced Ivan Cruz in 2018. When I asked Lamont what caused the long hiatus, he chalked it up