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Blake Karlson says that when he founded the label Chicago Research late last year, he’d been thinking about building “a more cohesive platform for the current state of postpunk, electronic, and industrial music. This city is too often overlooked as a musical hub. Great things are happening right now.” This wolf couldn’t agree more—and those great things have helped Chicago Research leave the gate firing on all cylinders! Karlson describes the label as a “collective, with a solid group of musicians, artists, designers, and writers that all collaborate,” and its initial batch of releases includes a vinyl version of the first single from Death Valley (aka the chilly synth-wave solo project of Ariel Motto) and the plodding, hooky postpunk of Bruised, whose LP Rotten Codex includes the neck-snapping “(Beneath A) Heap of Glass....

I am not equipped to analyze last week’s events, but I did almost call the MAGA coup attempt “fucking shenanigans” instead of “events.” You can’t hear the angry Chicago accent that comes out when I say “shenanigans,” which might convey the mix of frustrated annoyance, disbelief, fear, and rage I feel—and under those circumstances, I’d rather not use a word that might make you think of fun times. At any rate, here at the Listener the goal is for us Reader staff to tell you about the music we’ve been listening to lately, and since Wednesday night it hasn’t been easy to shut off the news and retreat into my record collection—something I usually recommend as a way to begin the important process of self-care....

When the Art Ensemble of Chicago reinvented itself as an orchestra for its 50th-anniversary recording, last year’s We Are on the Edge, the idea didn’t come out of thin air. It reflected a use of the classical methods and sounds that the ensemble’s lone surviving founder, woodwind and percussion player Roscoe Mitchell, has been pursuing in his own work since the 1980s. The new album Distant Radio Transmission consists of four completely notated works, three of which are derived from Mitchell’s improvisational practice....

Also known as the “fourth trimester,” the postpartum period is an incredibly challenging time for people who give birth. Up until recently, that challenge included finding appropriate underwear. With that neglected need in mind, friends and thirty-something new mothers Aubrey Howard, Eden Laurin, and Mia Clarke set out to create FourthWear Underwear, an undergarment with an opening for an ice or heat pack to address often “unmentionable” issues that affect postpartum bodies (and souls)....

Fefu and Her Friends “My husband married me to have a constant reminder of how loathsome women are,” begins María Irene Fornés’s radical 1977 drama, which is variously about madness, women’s agency, and internalized misogyny. The speaker, Fefu, is herself “fascinated with revulsion”; she and her husband, Philip, play a game in which she shoots him and he dodges her “bullets.” (The gun isn’t loaded—or at least Fefu thinks it isn’t loaded....

Welcome to the Reader’s cannabis column, To Be Blunt. We’re here to answer your canna questions with the help of budtenders, attorneys, medical practitioners, chefs, researchers, legislators, and patient care advocates. Send your cannabis queries to tobeblunt@chicagoreader.com. “Pop-up cannabis supper clubs have existed in the Chicago area for years! Supper clubs’ origin as underground Prohibition roadhouses fits perfectly with still-illicit cannabis. Illinois’s new adult-use laws do not take effect until January 1, 2020....

Art Shay Maybe you’ve heard of Vivian Maier? The “North Shore nanny” who exploded into posthumous fame after thousands of her photos were uncovered virtually by accident? Human empathy shines in Maier’s street photography, the best of which hones in sharply on the eccentric and downtrodden. She’d have had a kindred spirit in Chicago-based photojournalist Art Shay, now 93, whose portraits, like Maier’s, reflect a photographer who sees deep. Though he’s shot the likes of Mohammad Ali and Marlon Brando, it’s Shay’s wife of 67 years, Florence, who really draws out the love stuff in his photos....

“I don’t think there’s much difference between dance and everyday movement except for intent,” says dancer Robby Lee Williams. “Are you feeling out some rhythm, some music in your head? Or adding different qualities if you have an emotion?” A conversation with Sarah Najera, artistic director of Oak Park integrated dance company MOMENTA, sparked his recent exploration. “We were talking about how putting your pants on could be a dance movement....

Chicago producer DJ Corey is footwork royalty. His father, DJ Clent, got hooked on ghetto house in the early 90s, and by the end of that decade had established a career in the faster, more aggressive styles of juke and footwork. Clent began nurturing his son’s interest in music long before Corey could make tracks on his own. In a 2009 video recorded when Corey was a toddler, he’s practically in his father’s lap while he plays around with Clent’s MPC—and the raw track they’re working on includes a sample of the young producer-to-be gleefully saying “DJ Corey....

I purchased How to Be Alone sometime last year when my partner and I were taking a break. I remember sitting in the bathtub tearing up, sinking in my bubbles, and tweeting to Lane Moore, the author of the book, that she was getting me through a rough time. I’ve never known how to be alone. I still don’t. I’m a serial monogamist, and even now, my partner (we reconciled six months later) is isolated here with me (like, right next to me)....

Given its blockbuster history, it may be hard to remember that, despite packed houses, Les Misérables got terrible reviews on its 1985 London opening (though American critics adored it on Broadway in 1987). Song for memorable song, Claude-Michel Schönberg’s music and Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel’s lyrics (translated into English by Herbert Kretzmer) still inspire more than 30 years later, in part due to evergreen themes of love, duty, and redemption....

We begged and pleaded for you to embrace a little democracy, and on Tuesday you came through. For the first time in decades, more than half of Chicago voters decided that they weren’t quite ready to coronate their mayor for another four years. Beneath the hype and the hullabaloo, both candidates need to answer more questions about what they’ve done and what they’re planning to do. Here are a few issues they should start with....

The phrase “permanent food installation” sounds like the result of an unpleasant medical procedure. But in Avondale at a new cocktail bar called Ludlow Liquors, it’s what’s used to describe the activity in the kitchen, its food, and its chefs—Nick Jirasek and his sous chef and collaborator Eric Valdivia, who go about their business under the rubric of Old Habits. I haven’t heard many laments for the Orbit Room, but I sorely begrudged the loss of that creation....

Ex-mayor Rahm Emanuel has his share of detractors for what he did—and didn’t do—for the city, but I’d argue that the silver lining of his tenure, perhaps the one thing that many Chicagoans can agree he did a decent job with, was transportation. The administration racked up a number of transportation wins, generally, if not always, with an eye on equity, including: constructing several new CTA stations, overhauling the south Red Line tracks, building safer streets for walking, opening dozens of miles of new bikeways, and launching the Divvy system....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Tuesday, September 26, 2017. Sharon Fairley resigns from police oversight agency to run for attorney general The chief of the city’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability, Sharon Fairley, is resigning from the new agency to run for Illinois attorney general, according to the Tribune. Mayor Rahm Emanuel appointed Fairley chief administrator of the Independent Police Review Authority in 2015, and she helped transform the controversial agency into COPA, which just opened its doors September 15....

One of the jazz world’s less fortunate elements is the antipathy that often arises between its mainstream and progressive wings. The straight-ahead crowd decries radicals for going too far and losing the essentials of the music; avant-gardists disparage the stodginess of orthodox practitioners—and neither acknowledges the commonalities between the camps. This residency is an antidote. Alto, tenor, and baritone saxophonist Dave Rempis has been at the cutting edge of Chicago jazz since the mid-90s, when he sought out Ken Vandermark for lessons and ended up joining his band....

Portland trio Sávila explore their Mexican roots through the venerable style of cumbia, which spread among popular big bands in the 1950s and remains a staple of family celebrations and weddings throughout the Americas. Launched in 2016 by guitarist and bass-synth player Fabiola Reyna (founder of She Shreds magazine) and vocalist and percussionist Brisa Gonzalez (who were soon joined by drummer Papi Fimbres), Sávila take the genre centuries forward and into an altered space....

One of the major cinematic events of the fall is the Rainer Werner Fassbinder retrospective at Doc Films, which runs on Sunday nights at 7 PM through December 3. The series, consisting of nine features (all showing on 35-millimeter), is organized in chronological order, and this allows spectators to consider Fassbinder’s remarkable—and remarkably fast—evolution as it played out. Despite the fluctuations in tone from camp to searing drama, Bitter Tears is one of Fassbinder’s most formally controlled efforts....

Few mainstream trumpeters over the last decade have matched the muscle, dexterity, and soul of Jeremy Pelt, who has morphed from a rising star into a trusted presence. Though he’s a dyed-in-the-wool postbop technician heavily influenced by protean but thoughtful blowers like Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw, he’s been known to make subtle but meaningful adjustments in his practice, changing the personnel and focus of his bands to explore groove-based electric settings or plush, acoustic contexts....

The National Association of City Transportation Officials held its annual conference in the Loop October 30 through November 2, drawing some 800 leaders, planners, and advocates. Workshop topics included “Designing streets for kids,” “Breaking barriers to cycling,” “Introducing empathy into the public process,” and “Bringing racial and social equity into transportation planning.” “Blueprint for Autonomous Urbanism” outlines strategies to prevent the latter outcome. “As cities guide the autonomous revolution, we want technology to solve our mobility challenges; not settle for more of the same,” NACTO president Seleta Reynolds said in a statement accompanying the document....