This heist began with frustrations about the one before, Stace recounts: “We'd intended the previous album Late Style to be the most elegant record released during a rather scruffy time, but COVID necessitated all the contributing musicians to record in isolation in locations around the country without the espirit de corps that infuses performances by people playing together in real time in the same space. The prime motive here was to go one better, to arrange the songs first, then record them as a band, playing live in the studio, to let it be a ‘players’ record, allowing for expressive solos, room to relax a little. Studio 1935 is open plan, very welcoming, not lots of little isolated booths, so we were all able to congregate and converse.”

The sound is expansive, generous, lush, even groovy, by turns mellow and dramatic, a far cry from Stace’s strummy folk-rock records of yore. What’s happened? “There’s no reason why my songs shouldn’t swing like I want them to, despite all their words, like those CTI and Kudu records I listen to in the kitchen. Check out Esther Phillips doing Gilbert O’Sullivan. Why not? 

“All of a Sudden” swells between naturalistic chamber folk arrangements, operatic vocal performances, and sprawling instrumental expanses. O’Tierney’s collaborators fill the mix with meditative droning sax, echoing guitar harmonics, and cascading arpeggiated keys, letting each disparate part swirl together around O’Tierney’s crystalline vocals. The tide of instrumentation ebbs and flows with imperceptible ease, settling into a serene atmosphere midway through before steadily crescendoing to a gorgeous climax, guided by resolute guitar strums and dizzying jazz-tinged sax runs. O’Tierney gives the track subtle instrumental shades, but she leaves the emotions plain and direct, addressing an old love while offering a clear-eyed look a hopeful future ahead: “I still have the leaf you gave me / The autumn that you left / I still have the grief you gave me / But it’s not all I kept / On my own I know I’m home again.”
Under the Radar Magazine

The Claudettes: GARAGE GLAMOUR Red-hot dance cuts, ice-cold noir songs, rabid rock, passionate soul...the Claudettes reach a whole new level of sound and style with GARAGE GLAMOUR. The album's title points to the signature blend of glitz and grit that the Claudettes bring to the stage and studio. And the music? Fellini would nod and smile at this carnival ride of an album, which is bookended by two of the most nakedly sincere songs of the Claudettes' career.

Remastered 1985 debut release from Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper. The start of it all for the legendary late Mojo Nixon. August 2, 1957 — February 7, 2024 Mojo Nixon How you live is how you should die. Mojo Nixon was full-tilt, wide-open rock hard, root hog, corner on two wheels + on fire… Passing after a blazing show, a raging night, closing the bar, taking no prisoners + a good breakfast with bandmates and friends. A cardiac event on the Outlaw Country Cruise is about right… & that’s just how he did it. Mojo has left the building. Since Elvis is everywhere, we know he was waiting for him in the alley out back.

After more than a dozen years as an entity, Expo’76 rolls on — impossibly fresh in each performance, their reputation as the Chicago area’s most reliably potent and unpredictable cover band firmly established. Their secret all along has simply been remaining true to themselves, playing the music they want to play. Their set list is a far-flung assortment of hits, forgotten classics and deep cuts.

The Chris Greene Quartet - led by the Evanston saxophone colossus - played its first gig in 2005 and has since become one of the most highly visible, award-winning and critically lauded bands in the Chicago area. While honoring jazz's tradition, the band incorporates elements of funk, hip-hop, rock, Afro-Cuban, the blues and reggae, reflecting their diverse backgrounds. CGQ is celebrating the release of "Conversance," the first ever jazz release for Chicago's longest-running indie rock label, Pravda Records.

On Steve Dawson’s new album, Ghosts, his sixth as a solo artist, the Chicago-based musician and songwriter, well-known for the impassioned alternative country of the band Dolly Varden, crafts ten songs that find reasons to believe – in music, in human connections, in desert vistas – even as the ghosts move all around him, all around us. These ten songs combine intimate confessions and tightly constructed narratives. Their ghosts are often personal, but they intersect enigmatically with a broken world. “‘Is this really happening?’” he asks on “Walking Cane.” But there’s no clear answer to the violent changes. “Have we learned nothing? Here we go again.” But sometimes those ghosts leave gifts – of wisdom, of wonder – and sometimes living with them is also a kind of hope. “I am glad to be alive,” Dawson sings with his partner Diane Christiansen. Recorded live in-studio with a “dream band” of Chicago all-stars, the musicians suffuse these songs, some of the finest Dawson has ever written, with harmonies, rhythms, and textures that make them come alive and imbue them with hope. Dawson says, “Many of my favorite albums were recorded live in the studio. The arrangements on this new album were created on the spot, and rather than a collection of overdubs, the album is a performance.”