Gossip Wolf has been anticipating the debut album from Chicago gothic-industrial monsters Hide since first covering them in 2014, and according to the duo’s vocalist, Heather Gabel, they’ve been waiting almost as long: “We recorded Castration Anxiety in two weeks and then waited two years for it to come out,” she says. “But it’s been well worth the wait, since we’ve found the perfect home with Dais Records!” On Friday, March 23, the New York label releases the deliciously brutal LP, and that night the band celebrate at the Empty Bottle with openers Forced Into Femininity and Lilac (both including folks who played with Hide’s beat maker, Seth Sher, in Coughs) and a DJ set from Hogg.
New experimental tape label Reserve Matinee (founded by Uptown pals John Daniel, Jon Macintosh, and Michael Stumpf) dropped its first releases in February, and a second batch of four arrives on Monday, April 2. Gossip Wolf is especially taken with Smoke Signals by the anonymous Exhibitionist, which Daniel says mixes “samples of old lounge/jazz vinyl records and slowed-down jazz music and bar sounds from many nights spent at the Green Mill making field recordings.” Check out “The Big Stir” on Exhibitionist’s Soundcloud for an amazingly atmospheric taste! v
