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I was once taken by well-meaning hosts to a large Italian chain restaurant in the midsize city of Gwangju, South Korea. After several weeks of stuffing me with everything the putative bread basket of the peninsula had to offer, they thought I might be missing a taste of home. So we went for pizza. Jennifer Kim of Passerotto is the next candidate for this esteemed club. Kim, you may remember, was formerly a chef at the ungoogleably named, extortionately priced, and ultimately doomed C Chicago, who escaped that shipwreck with her then- boyfriend, chef Bill Montaigne, and resurfaced to open Snaggletooth, a marvelous Lakeview microdeli where the two made art with cured fish and bagels....

In What Is Democracy? Astra Taylor, a Canadian filmmaker, writer, and organizer, poses that question to Greek scholars, Guatemalan immigrants in North Carolina, Syrian refugees, a Miami barber who’s a convicted felon, and many others. In one scene, black middle-schoolers discuss how their voices are often ignored by teachers. “What you say to us all the time is, ‘Go to college so you can do what you love,’ but you don’t even love what you do,” says one student, to the applause of her classmates....

In my preview of this weekend’s performances by trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith at Constellation, I discussed how active he’s been of late, dropping strong new work at a prodigious rate. But his partner in Celestial Weather, the project he brings to town, bassist John Lindberg, has also been getting busy, releasing new albums by a pair of very different-sounding trios. Lindberg remains best known for his invaluable work alongside Anthony Braxton during the 70s and 80s and as a founding member of the String Trio of New York, a combo that forged a special brand of chamber jazz, but these new efforts reinforce an easy versatility in his abilities....

Chicago multi-instrumentalist Ben Astrachan was born nearly two generations after 1967’s famous Summer of Love, but he understands the whimsy, grace, and joy of that era’s music so well you’d think he helped make it happen. He impressed me with his contributions to a rough-around-the-edges 2020 album by freak-folk duo Berta Bigtoe (where he plays with Austin Koenigstein), and he’s now branched out into further flower-power experiments as a solo artist....

There are a couple of things you need to remember when listening to a new Bob Mould record. First off, Mould will never be able to meet the fervor and frenzy of his Husker Dü days or the heartfelt perfection of the Sugar records. And when an artist has a discography as vast as his, there are bound to be some missteps. Take 2005’s Body of Song, where Mould edged away from his signature punky college rock for trancy, vocoder-infused dance punk....

My clock says it’s a few minutes before 6 AM. I said I would arrive at 5:30 but I miscalculated my morning and now I’m late. It’s also cooler than I expected for a July morning. I dig for a sweater as I remember to also grab my mask. I walk along the cool grass of the park towards the south side of the Point, a man-made peninsula that curves into Lake Michigan in the Hyde Park neighborhood....

American news media can be frustratingly myopic. But even when mainstream reporting fails to deliver the goods from outside our bubble, the simple act of listening to an album can remind us that we’re part of a global community of people who share more common interests—and face more common threats—than our leaders would have us believe. On Contra, the new seventh album from Chilean four-piece Vuelveteloca, the band use a spacey blend of psych, Krautrock, and post-rock to tap into dystopian visions of the future and a beautiful spirit of resistance and reemergence....

Cold Specks’ Ladan Hussein (aka Al Spx) is one of a number of artists, among them FKA Twigs, Kelala, Dawn Richard, and Frank Ocean, who combine R&B and rock into uncategorizable pop—though her particular version of it has been characterized as “doom soul” or quirky indie soul in the past. The Somali-Canadian performer’s latest album, Fool’s Paradise, sounds less odd than her earlier material, in part because it’s so perfect. Hussein’s new arrangements are less fussy than before, their electronic elements seamlessly incorporated into a series of dreamy midtempo tunes worthy of Sadé, and also like Sadé, above it all floats Hussein’s marvelous, insinuating voice....

Seeking: women Occupation: music editor and Beer and Metal columnist for the Reader What do you do when you’re not working? His friend says: “Philip tells funny stories, knows lots about beer, and has long hair like a mermaid. He is also very kind.” Biking, reading, playing drums, going to shows, wishing I had more time to cook, displacing about .08 cubic meters of air. Smoker? I bum the occasional cigarette....

Earlier this week, cinephiles noted the passing of French actor, director, and producer André S. Labarthe, best known for the legendary documentary TV series Cinéastes de notre temps (1964-72) and its follow up, Cinéma, de notre temps (1993-2016). In his honor, our list this week features five extraordinary films about film—ones that move beyond simple documentary and are great works of cinema themselves. One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich As the title’s reference to Solzhenitsyn implies, this superb 1999 video portrait of the late Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky by his friend Chris Marker is a protest against the post-Stalinist persecution that eventually drove Tarkovsky into exile....

D on’t you hate when you’ve defeated another of your fellow wizards from your hellish home dimension, only to find the U.S. government kidnapped your buddy the talking platypus? Browne’s first professional work was a 2007 issue of Stormshadow written by G.I. Joe creator Larry Hama. That’s the year he also started writing, illustrating, and self-publishing God Hates Astronauts. This sci-fi superhero series about farmers illegally launching themselves into space helped build his rep as a weirdo auteur....

No Age have always been great at making very little sound like a whole lot. Since they began blending influences from hardcore punk and noise rock with indie-rock catchiness 15 years ago, the Los Angeles-based duo have been on the cutting edge of cool—they’ve always seemed a step ahead of their peers in the guitar-rock world. On the brand-new Goons Be Gone, No Age’s second full-length for Drag City, guitarist and singer Randy Randall and drummer and singer Dean Spunt have created their most lush and thoughtful music yet, proving that their well of greatness isn’t going to dry up anytime soon....

Twenty-one-year-old Norwegian singer-songwriter Jakob Ogawa titled his 2017 debut EP Bedroom Tapes (Diamond Club), and that’s a pretty good summary of both his methods and his interests. Ogawa’s music is warm, woozy indie pop designed as a soundtrack for cozy loving—think Belle & Sebastian lounging with an extremely chilled-out Pizzicato Five. His first single, 2016’s “You’ll Be on My Mind,” sounds like island music treated to high-gloss production and a fair amount of controlled substances; when he sings “No worries when I’m with you / No raindrops within my view,” he’s not delivering a weather report as much as he’s sharing his ethos....

Rising rapper Lil Keed grew up along Cleveland Avenue in Atlanta’s Zone 3 neighborhood, which has also been home to one of the most colorful and creative forces in the past decade of hip-hop: Young Thug. At 21, Keed is part of a youthful crop of Atlanta MCs who’ve studied Thug’s work and learned how to wring a rainbow of emotion out of a single syllable. Keed buckled down and gave rap his full attention in 2016, and since then he’s ridden that style to fame....

In our 2016 Best of Chicago issue, Brianna Wellen wrote about the joys of Logan Square’s Comfort Station: “Just as the building itself has remained untouched, so has the creative spirit that now drives the space.” Built in 1926 as a warming station, it’s since become a hub for independent arts events in the neighborhood: Comfort Station screens shot-on-video oddities, displays art by local illustrators, and even hosted a recent reunion performance by Chicago underground rap pioneers Stony Island....

This past weekend saw the release of Us, writer-director Jordan Peele’s first film since his breakout feature, Get Out. Us arrives on a wave of hype and anticipation, and the question on everyone’s mind seems to have been, “Will Peele be able to repeat the success of his debut or will he fall victim to the dreaded sophomore slump?” That curse, of course, is not unique to filmmakers, as creative figures in most artistic media who make a splash with their first major work buckle under the pressure of having to repeat or even top themselves with their follow-up....

In the second half of the 20th century, the North Lawndale community area on Chicago’s west side was devastated by redlining and other racist lending practices that led to civil unrest among the neighborhood’s by then booming black population. Fifty years ago this summer, Martin Luther King Jr. moved his family to an apartment in the neighborhood to highlight the need for fair housing and other improvements in black areas of northern cities....

When New York rapper Katorah Marrero, aka Young M.A, released “OOOUUU” in 2016, its low-key braggadocio, minimal instrumental track, and easy, in-the-pocket flow quickly made it inescapable—and turned Young M.A into one of the most celebrated names in hip-hop. The following year, she included the song on the 2017 EP Herstory, and she’s spent most of the past two years working on her debut full-length, Herstory in the Making (M.A. Music/3D), which dropped in September....

This week’s gig poster features a fantasy concert at a real but defunct Chicago venue. Artist Eric J. García created this image in honor of former Pilsen community center and neighborhood anchor Casa Aztlán. García wrote the following to explain his inspiration for the poster: “Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the famed poet and intellectual genius of 17th-century New Spain, LIVE! Her brilliance was so powerful that she was banished from the public and cloistered away by the Catholic church....

Chicago producer Jerome Derradji juggles lots of projects—not only is he a busy DJ, but he also runs a label called Still Music (and its imprints, Past Due and Stilove4music) and organizes a flurry of events under the Still banner. One of those is the new loft series the Church of Black Gold, which makes its debut at Avondale arts space Elastic on Saturday, April 9. The venue is hardly the kind of grungy warehouse space where countless underground dance parties helped breed a thriving culture in the 80s, but the Church of Black Gold isn’t just another concert: Illuminated Brew Works and New Belgium are slinging craft beer, and Logan Hardware is hauling in a pop-up record shop....