When I think of techno, I imagine meticulously, rigidly arranged electronic tones and beats. But people usually call Berlin-based American producer Laurel Halo a techno artist, and her recordings are often sleepy or a bit sluggish, with a decidedly homemade feel—her beats can be muffled or restrained, and her soft-edged synth patterns don’t always fit neatly between bar lines. Even her singing sounds subdued, as though she’s furtively experimenting in her apartment and trying not to disturb the neighbors....

Steppenwolf’s long association with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the legendary South African male a cappella choral group, stretches back nearly 30 years, since Tug Yourgrau’s apartheid-era drama The Song of Jacob Zulu went from the company’s stage to Broadway under Eric Simonson’s direction. Simonson subsequently collaborated with the company on Nomathemba, and now he’s written and codirected (with Jonathan Berry) Lindiwe. The title character, played by the effervescent and vocally magnetic Nondumiso Tembe, falls for Adam (Erik Hellman), a young blues drummer in Chicago, while touring with Mambazo and finds herself in a few different kinds of hell—from an ICE detainment center to an afterworld run by Yasen Peyankov’s “Keeper,” who wants to keep her from singing and is willing to use her love for Adam as a bargaining chip to make that happen....

Q: I am male. A close female friend was raped by an old acquaintance of mine. I knew this guy when we were tweens, I didn’t really care for him as we got older, so it goes. It turns out that a few years ago, he raped my friend in an alcohol blackout situation. I don’t know more than that. She says she considers the encounter “not strictly consensual” and confided that this guy didn’t react well when she tried to talk to him about it....

These days it feels as though the difference between a rapper who sings and a singer who raps is as negligible as the difference between a rap mixtape and a rap album; a lot of it comes down to attitude and self-identification. Take Tyrone Griffin, better known as Ty Dolla $ign, a singer who was included in XXL magazine’s “Freshman Class” issue in 2014—an honor usually bestowed only upon MCs (his compatriots included Vic Mensa, Lil Bibby, Lil Durk, and Chance the Rapper)....

Welcome to the Reader‘s weekday news briefing. Chicago agrees to pay $20 million settlement in lawsuit over fatal crash caused by a drunk off-duty police officer The city of Chicago will pay “$20 million to settle a code-of-silence lawsuit brought by the families of two young men killed in a fiery drunken driving crash caused by an off-duty police detective,” according to the Tribune. Former Chicago police detective Joseph Frugoli had a blood alcohol level of 0....

Although he’s only a hair’s breadth into his 20s, Gus Dapperton makes effervescent music that feels like it emerged from an early 80s time capsule that was discovered buried deep within a picturesque California mountainside. The songs on his self-released EP Yellow and Such, which came out last August, are so mellow that even its faint tambourines vibrate like thunder, and they contain the kind of luminescent keys and gently reverberating guitars that evoke the atmosphere of beachfront vacations (which most of us who are stuck in single-digit weather yearn for right about now)....

Today is the 80th birthday of American musician Herb Alpert: trumpet player, denizen of numerous junk-store record crates, and “schlockmeister” according to a mid-90s “Spot Check” column by Peter Margasak. No argument with Peter there, though I would say that Alpert has one triumph under his belt—the late-70s double whammy of “Rise,” a number-one-charting single, and “Rotation,” which is essentially a continuation of the style and melody of “Rise.” Both are on the 1979 album Rise, and the title track is arguably more famous for being sampled by Diddy and Notorious B....

You’d think that with the pandemic still spreading, along with historic economic crises, uprisings for racial equity, and an attempted overthrow of our federal government, the city’s first openly gay and only second female mayor would have made more strides for justice and equality in her city. For a mayor just halfway into her first term, Lori Lightfoot has racked up a stunningly long and sundry list of controversies. But the disdain the mayor seems to have for some of her constituents, who she often refers to as Twitter trolls, has cemented her as a particularly callous leader; a far cry from what many thought, if misguidedly so, was going to be a term of progressive policy and racial justice....

On his latest album Blue Mesa (Bloodshot), suave roots-rock maven Luke Winslow-King has thankfully expunged the acrimony that dripped from his 2016 breakup album, I’m Glad Trouble Don’t Last Always—suggesting that album title was a testimonial. Back then his vitriol toward an ex was so strong he called her out by name, so it’squite a contrast when he opens his new album with an expression of unconditional support on “You Got Mine....

The Reader’s archive is vast and varied, going back to 1971. Every day in Archive Dive, we’ll dig through and bring up some finds. On Sunday, Lupe Fiasco Tweeted the video for his new song “Harold’s,” a tribute to the beloved south side fried chicken chain. As Leor Galil pointed out in a blog post yesterday, the track is part of a long and honorable tradition of referencing Harold’s Chicken Shack in Chicago hip-hop, going all the way back to Common in 1992....

Since forming in 2012, Montreal’s Big|Brave have strived to balance volume with silence, harshness with beauty, and stoic minimalism with full-on intensity, using tools such as space, breathlike rhythms, and a thundering low end that only seems more cavernous next to the clear, striking alto voice of singer-guitarist Robin Wattie. Each of the experimental trio’s four albums has been better than the one before, and the recent full-length A Gaze Among Them cements their transformation from band on the rise to heavy-music essential....

Although Donald Trump crept closer to Hillary Clinton in the polls this week, the most likely outcome of this year’s presidential race (i.e., a win for Clinton) can be largely explained by a few simple electoral maps. You’ve probably seen them making the rounds on social media. It didn’t happen overnight. For decades, voters of color have supported Democrats in national elections, largely because the party made more progress on civil rights....

It’s 2018, and Saturday, April 21, is the 11th annual Record Store Day—does anybody still need to have this peculiar holiday explained to them? If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve already woken up early on a Saturday in April to stand in line with vinyl addicts and record flippers. You know the score, for good or for ill. Record Store Day started as a way to celebrate and rally support for the last remaining independent brick-and-mortar music retailers, but not even the best-intentioned commercial undertaking can entirely immunize itself from the distortions of capitalism—for some small indie shops, Record Store Day is now basically an injection of overpriced major-label vinyl that turns them into hosts for a parasitic inventory that’s alien to what they usually sell....

Andy Warhol once observed that “dying is the most embarrassing thing that could ever happen to you because someone has got to take care of all your details. . . . You’d like to do them all yourself, but you’re dead, so you can’t.” That goes double for the emotionally taxing process of sorting the physical possessions loved ones leave behind, a process that inspired Steppenwolf ensemble member Molly Regan‘s new solo play, The Accidental Curator....

Richmond quintet Inter Arma have just released their fourth full-length, Sulphur English (Relapse), and it is a monster. The band, who share three members with furious black-metal environmental avengers Bastard Sapling, bring a razor-sharp, savage edge to their lumbering, spine-crushing atmospheric doom. Unlike many superheavy slow bands, Inter Arma don’t make music that feels relaxing or somnambulant—the new album’s down-tempo passages, proggy space voyages, and acoustic interludes provide enough mystery and surprise to keep you on your toes before bringing you to your knees....

Do you think that the feds are listening to us right now? Why do you think it was OK to talk about black politicians in those terms at the time you were recorded? Why do you think millennials-especially African-American millennials-should support you? Of course, Mark, it’s good to talk to you. v

I recently finished reading the 2011 Will Hermes book Love Goes to Buildings on Fire (Faber & Faber), an entertaining and well-researched account of cutting-edge music in New York between 1973 and 1977. Hermes crafts a strictly chronological, diaristic collage, each entry addressing one of the various scenes—Latin music, free jazz, hip-hop, classical minimalism, protopunk—that were then colliding in a thrilling, freewheeling way. I thought of the book when I read violinist Sam Bardfeld’s liner notes to his new trio album, The Great Enthusiasms (BJU), where he briefly describes growing up in New York in the 70s and early 80s:...

In a November radio interview, Meek Mill gave a shout-out to a trio of rising Chicago rappers: Lil Zay Osama, Polo G, and 147Calboy. “I’m putting y’all on some real vibes right now,” Mill said. “These the vibes that’s gonna be poppin’ and streamin’ crazy in the next 30, 40 days.” Meek’s Nostradamus skills were eerily on point with Lil Zay Osama: the south-side rapper dropped his breakthrough video, “Changed Up,” just before the New Year, and it’s racked up roughly 16 million views in the months since....

Every year about this time the venerable Chicago composer George Flynn celebrates his birthday with a Sunday afternoon concert at the Green Mill, and this year’s event—marking his 78th year—doubles as a celebration of a strong new album of compositions performed by some of the city’s finest players. (Flynn’s actual birthday is January 21.) In fact, all of the musicians who appear on American Forms (the latest in a superb series of albums released by Southport Records that collect the composer’s work) will be present to perform the four pieces on the album....