Instead, Grosz and Kirsch created a vegetable soup (onion, carrot, potato, celery root, green peas, leek, cashews, and fresh spinach) that utilized hemp seeds two ways: ground seeds in the soup base, and whole toasted seeds as a garnish. To bump up the hemp flavor, they also added hemp oil (which comes from the seeds). In a medium-size pot, heat water, ground hemp seeds, carrot, potato, celery root, cumin, bay leaf, onion, garlic, black pepper, turmeric, and two tablespoons of olive oil....

It’s hard to think of another band that defined turn-of-the-century indie-rock hipness quite like Interpol. Taking the stage dressed in crisp three-piece suits and hammering out emotionless, crystalline postpunk with a strong nod to Joy Division, they’d set the blueprint for how young New York bands should look and feel by the time of the breakout success of their debut full-length, 2002’s Turn on the Bright Lights. In retrospect, it’s strange to think about what direction indie rock would have taken in those days if they hadn’t made such an indelible mark....

If it were released in any other year, L.A. Witch’s new Play With Fire would be the perfect album to blast through the car stereo with the wind in your hair while indulging in an adventure with your best pals. Unfortunately, summer 2020 has proved to be far from carefree, but while the trio’s nostalgia-tinged mix of indie rock, garage, punk, and country can twinge the heartstrings over what we’ve lost, a feel-good record like this can also remind us that it’s still possible to feel good....

As one of the worst-dressed journalists in Chicago—no small feat—I realize I’m the last person who should weigh in on the new Cubs uniforms. Yes, I love the White Sox. But, no, I do not hate the Cubs or their fans. In fact, some of my best friends are Cubs fans (what up, Cap!). By the way, on a political tangent—speaking of rants . . . Thank you, Gregory Pratt of the Tribune, for unveiling it....

Though it takes place in Tallahassee, Florida, the independent drama Life & Nothing More might be described as a foreign film. Antonio Méndez Esparza, who wrote and directed it, is a Spanish émigré who’s lived in the U.S. for a number of years, and he brings to the drama an outsider’s perspective that often suggests that of an ethnographer. He likes to keep his camera at a slight remove from the action, resulting in visual compositions that balance one’s sense of characterization with a sense of social milieu....

Creepy twin brothers, with two arms between them, in Fish & Cat Shahram Mokri’s Fish & Cat—the revelation of this year’s Festival of Films From Iran—has all the makings of a cult classic. The film has the novel distinction of being the first Iranian slasher movie, and it’s also an astonishing formal achievement. Fish & Cat unfolds in a 130-minute single shot that repeatedly violates the common assumption that continuous takes preserve the flow of real time; it contains numerous flashbacks and flash-forwards, often cycling back to the same events to find that major details have changed....

Chicagoans have the opportunity to see a larger-than-average number of jazz-related films this month. Currently playing in weeklong runs are Francis Ford Coppola’s new director’s cut of The Cotton Club (at the Landmark Century) and the new documentary Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool (at the Gene Siskel Film Center), and a week from tonight the Chicago Film Society will screen Robert Altman’s 1997 documentary Jazz ’34: Remembrances of Kansas City Swing at the Music Box Theatre as part of its ongoing collaboration with the Jazz Institute of Chicago....

Almost ten years ago, I was offered a free ticket to see New Orleans rapper Curren$y and Chicago duo the Cool Kids at Metro. I remember two details from the show: the harrowing experience of having my wheelchair pushed up two flights of stairs to the theater, then lowered back down in a process that was somehow even more grueling and scary, and the fact that Curren$y gave me a T-shirt....

On the Bandcamp biography for Partner, a Canadian rock group led by guitarists and singers Josée Caron and Lucy Niles, the duo say they’re best friends. From the sound of their debut, September’s In Search of Lost Time (You’ve Changed), that’s easy to believe. The album’s arsenal of muscular guitars, effervescent vocal harmonies, and indestructible, catchy melodies screams “fun”—specifically, the kind of fun that comes from spending time with someone who knows you inside and out....

When I was growing up in central Pennsylvania, there were Amish settlements nearby, so you never had to travel far for some Lebanon bologna (Pennsylvania Dutch-style beef sausage) or a jar of “chow-chow” corn relish. But I never saw those technology-averse folks riding bicycles until I took a recent train-and-bike trip to the Amish country of northern Indiana. I pedaled to Chicago’s Millennium Station early one Saturday morning and rolled my bike onto the South Shore platform, where a conductor cheerfully showed me to the two bike cars....

Welcome to the Reader‘s weekday news briefing. Have a great weekend! Ten years after the tragic Lane Bryant shooting, Tinley Park police release new image of suspect Five women were shot and killed in a Tinley Park Lane Bryant on February 2, 2008, and the case remains unsolved. Tinley Park police have released a new composite image of the suspect created by the Michigan State Police “[utilizing] the latest in facial identification technology to provide a more life-like representation,” according to a statement....

Ever since guitarist Sandy Ewen moved from Texas to New York City in 2017, she’s been a prolific performer, both at conventional venues (Bushwick Public House, Downtown Music Gallery) and at house shows. Sometimes she’ll gig more than once a day, improvising with the likes of Stephen Gauci, Daniel Carter, Maria Chavez, and Michael Vatcher. Ewen eschews traditional playing methods and technological enhancements, including effect pedals, in favor of a tactile, action-oriented approach to the electric guitar....

Through the Elevated Line honors Tennessee Williams and A Streetcar Named Desire,” writes Silk Road Rising artistic director Jamil Khoury in a program note, “yet it was never intended to be an adaptation.” Well, intended or not, an adaptation is what the thing’s turned out to be—to its great detriment. Novid Parsi’s new play so slavishly mimics each plot point and set piece in Streetcar that if you’re at all familiar with Williams’s 1947 masterwork you find yourself spending its 135-minute running time just counting up the equivalences....

Agnes of God Played with depth, nuance, and a whole lot of heart by Lisa McConnell, Dr. Martha Livingstone, the central storyteller in this brilliantly acted two-hour drama from Aleatoric Theatre Company, says, “I believe in the existence of an alternate last reel.” But a happy ending never materializes. The same holds true of her encounters with Sister Agnes (Courtney Stennett) and the Mother Superior (Joette Waters). Agnes is accused of killing her newborn child, whose father remains the ultimate mystery, and Dr....

For more than four decades, Hiromi Moritani has been making music by her own rules. She’s largely known for the short-lived art-rock band Aunt Sally, which she started as a teenager in late-70s Osaka, and for her 1981 self-titled solo album under the name Phew. Since then she’s continually honed her craft as Phew, expanding beyond her postpunk beginnings into straight-ahead rock, otherworldly pop songs, and avant-garde experimental pieces built around her voice....

In June, Chicago rapper Chris Crack self-released Cute Boys (The Rise of Lil Delicious) on Bandcamp roughly two months after dropping White People Love Algorithms. Most artists releasing 36 songs in a couple months would qualify as prolific, but Chris Crack isn’t most artists; last year, he’d put out four albums by July. All of which is to say we could very well be at the beginning of a new deluge from one of the country’s most prodigious underground MCs....

The Invisible Institute is a tough concept to get your mind around. It calls itself a “journalistic production company” that develops strategies “to expand and operationalize transparency.” The name itself is a joke: years ago founder Jamie Kalven was running a muckraking website, the View From the Ground, out of an empty apartment in a since demolished CHA high-rise along South State Street. To dress up the operation in ironic fashion, Kalven declared that the View operated under the auspices of the Invisible Institute, a name pulled from thin air....

On the evening of August 18 last year, Eboni Senai Hawkins, cofounder of Chicago’s chapter of the black bicycle group Red Bike and Green, witnessed Joshua Thomas, a 22-year-old African-American, being stopped by police while riding a Divvy bike-share cycle on the sidewalk near Chicago Avenue and Rush Street. The officers handcuffed and frisked Thomas, called in the serial number on the baby-blue bike, and discovered it was stolen. They arrested Thomas, who was later sentenced to two days in jail....