Best of Chicago 2014: Music & Nightlife

on June 25, 2014 at 8:00PM

Best R&B Star on the Verge

Tink

by Miles Raymer on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

In her short career this 18-year-old vocalist, born in Calumet City as Trinity Home, has shown a considerable gift for blurring lines that other artists take for granted as fixed. Tink has sung R&B over a Chief Keef beat and rapped over Timbaland-style R&B; she's appeared on the 2014 compilation Boss Shit Only with Atlanta mixtape superstars Migos and Young Thug; and she's collaborated with avant-club artists such as Fatima Al Qadiri and Junglepussy.

Best Transgender Rock Star

Laura Jane Grace

by Leor Galil on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

When Against Me! front woman Laura Jane Grace moved to town last summer, it'd been more than a year since she'd been known as Tom Gabel, and her Florida-based agitprop punk band was preparing for the January release of Transgender Dysphoria Blues. Grace clearly drew inspiration from her own experiences for the album, Against Me!'s first since she came out as a transgender woman in 2012; it's a vital, poetic document of her struggle with gender identity, and her introspective lyrics fuel its huge, anthemic songs.

Best Band Named After Something That Goes Great With Cream Cheese

Hot Bagels

by Leor Galil on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

I won't lie, when I found this band's recent debut full-length on Bandcamp, I listened to it because of their name—the album's title, Toasted, was just the schmear on top. But my amusement at Hot Bagels' silly jokes was quickly overshadowed by my love for their lo-fi rock jams.

Best Band Name That Riffs on a Decade-Old Onion Headline

Meat Wave

by Kevin Warwick on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

The headline in question reads "Dozens Dead in Chicago-Area Meatwave," and it's still such a good dig. Meat Wave guitarist and front man Chris Sutter and drummer Ryan Wizniak are old friends, and Sutter says Wizniak so frequently quoted the 2003 Onion story—which goes into gory detail about the "estimated 40 residents dead of steaks, chops, ribs, bacon, and various other forms of meat exhaustion"—that it became a running joke between them.

Best Art-Rock Band Less Than 30 Years Old

Dead Rider

by Philip Montoro on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

I say "less than 30 years old" so I won't have to choose between Dead Rider and Cheer-Accident, but there isn't the brightest line between the two bands. Guitarist and front man Todd Rittman, who launched Dead Rider in 2009, used to play in Cheer-Accident himself; Thymme Jones and Andrea Faught, who sing backup and play varying combinations of synth, bass, and trumpet, are founding and part-time members of Cheer-Accident, respectively.

Best Rapper Taking Drill Into Pop

Lil Durk

by Miles Raymer on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

Lil Durk first came to national attention as part of the south-side drill scene and an associate of Chief Keef's Glory Boyz Entertainment crew, but he's quickly proved that he can hold his own. Over the past year he's signed to the Coke Boys label run by New York rap kingpin French Montana, appeared on tracks alongside French, Diddy, Rick Ross, and Jadakiss, and been featured in XXL's annual Freshman Class issue.

Best Rapper Getting Slept on Because People Can't Pronounce His Name

Wteve Baker

by Leor Galil on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

When Lucki Ecks broke out last year with his debut mixtape, Alternative Trap, his Outsiders Clique crew shared a bit of the spotlight—but that wasn't enough for Wteve Baker. This Outsider has released only a handful of songs in the past year, but every one of them slays.

Best Chicago Answer to Tune-Yards

Oshwa

by Erin Osmon on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

Singer and multi-instrumentalist Alicia Walter of Oshwa is a classically trained pianist who studied composition with Marcos Balter at Columbia College, alongside her bandmate Jordan Tate; in interviews the group has cited the influence of avant-garde composers such as Scriabin and Bartók. As a vocalist, though, the 24-year-old Walter is entirely self-taught. Her playful, idiosyncratic singing on the band's 2013 studio debut, Chamomile Crush, sounds a little like Gertrude Stein, but she's happy to admit that her actual inspiration is Merrill Garbus, aka Tune-Yards—Walter's been listening to her since finding the Tune-Yards MySpace page as a sophomore in college.

Best One-Man Electro Army With a Vine Account

Jim Magas

by Leor Galil on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

The world has yet to realize the full potential of Vine, but plenty of musicians are having fun trying to get there. When it comes to using the app's short looped videos to blast original songs around the globe, an aspiring teenage MC in Maryland who calls himself Semi is leading the charge—he went viral last year with a clip tagged "another 6 sec rap."

Best Black-Metal Studio Project to Hit the Stage

Vukari

by Philip Montoro on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

Last summer, when I first heard Vukari's debut full-length, Matriarch, the "band" was a studio project led by front man, guitarist, and composer Marek Cimochowicz. Originally he had no intention of playing in public—a common choice in extreme metal, in part because it's difficult to find like-minded musicians with the chops to get through such demanding songs onstage, where they can't piece together a perfect take digitally.

Best Desert-Rock Band

Mount Salem

by Miles Raymer on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

Most Chicago metal bands seem to find inspiration in its famously brutal and unforgiving winters, resulting in some of the darkest, most hateful music ever committed to tape. Local four-piece Mount Salem, on the other hand, play windswept, lysergic guitar boogie that has more in common with "desert rock," a style that evolved in the arid wilderness of southern California.

Best Soundtrack for Staring Into the Void

Circuit des Yeux

by Steve Krakow on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

Haley Fohr started out playing sludgy noise rock with the duo Cro Magnon in 2007, and her solo project, Circuit des Yeux ("the nerve that connects the eye to sight," as she explains on Facebook) began in 2008 with blasts of primordial skronk. She played dingy basement shows, often armed with only a Casio keyboard, a floor tom, and tapes, but a few leaked CD-R recordings piqued the interest of the DeStijl label, which in the late aughts released the primitive, experimental Symphone and Sirenum.

Best Southern-Soul Singer Based in the North

Nellie "Tiger" Travis

by David Whiteis on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

Nellie "Tiger" Travis is a postmodern blues diva, equal parts sass, class, brazenness, and vulnerability. "Slap Yo' Weave Off," from 2008's I'm a Woman (CDS), is a wickedly satisfying bad-girl throwdown; on the same album, "Don't Talk to Me" is an anguished breakup song, Travis's taut vibrato quivering with emotion as she reluctantly kicks her ex to the curb.

Best Surprise Festival Set

Jody at Lollapalooza

by Leor Galil on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

Just as neurotic bookworms like me have nightmares about showing up to a big exam late and naked, I'm sure professional musicians lose sleep to terrible dreams about their instruments breaking down in the middle of a career-making performance. At Lollapalooza last year, that nightmare came true for local experimental-pop production duo Supreme Cuts.

Best Concert Series in a Recording Studio

Outer Ear at Experimental Sound Studio

by Peter Margasak on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

In 2004 2000 Ravenswood's invaluable Experimental Sound Studio launched the Outer Ear Festival of Sound, a multivenue celebration of unconventional music and sound art that brought in important international performers, among them Peter Brötzmann, Jaap Blonk, Phill Niblock, the Sons of God, Laetitia Sonami, and Stuart Dempster. In 2010 economic shifts forced the organizers to reinvent the festival as the relatively modest year-round series Outer Ear, with most of its events in ESS's main studio.

Best Way to Get a Free Two-Step Lesson

From Jeffrey Cannon during the Hoyle Brothers' Friday sets at the Empty Bottle

by Luca Cimarusti on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

The Hoyle Brothers wind up the after-work crowds with an old-school honky-tonk throwdown at the Empty Bottle every Friday at 5:30 PM, and for the past ten years, nearly all their shows have included local dance instructor Jeffrey Cannon. A Texas native who studied ballet in college, he's also a lifelong lover of country music.

Best Little Big Band

Jason Roebke Octet

by Bill Meyer on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

Midsize jazz ensembles have been around for as long as jazz has existed, and they're especially versatile: Louis Armstrong's Hot Seven provided a supportive, uncluttered framework for soloists; Charles Mingus obtained an orchestral array of moods and colors from an octet on Mingus Ah Um; and Peter Brötzmann's Chicago Octet (later Tentet) combined titanic massed blasts with breakout subgroups that yielded unpredictable free improvisations. The Jason Roebke Octet, led by one of the city's hardest-working bassists, does all that and more.

Best New Artist-Run Label

Aerophonic Records

by Peter Margasak on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

Once upon a time, when a label existed specifically to release a musician's own output, it was called a vanity label. These days, though, putting out your own music is simply a smart decision.

Best Throwback Pop Band That's Sweeter Than Its Name

The Lemons

by Leor Galil on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

Seven-piece pop outfit the Lemons debuted this winter with Hello, We're the Lemons, a straight shot of summertime. The band's charmingly wistful, borderline ramshackle tunes about ice cream, jelly beans, and Chubby Checker make it sound like these folks just leaped out of a time machine from the mid-60s.

Best Gothic Prog-Rock Duo

Acteurs

by Miles Raymer on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

Brian Case is front man and guitarist for darkly Krautrocking local outfit Disappears, and Jeremy Lemos is the multi-instrumentalist half of noise-worshipping experimental duo White/Light (as well as a well-traveled soundman and occasional Reader contributor). For their mutual side project Acteurs, though, the two of them have mostly jettisoned the sounds of their long-running groups in favor of a tenebrous, synth-heavy mix of early industrial music, Suicide-style protopunk, and avant-garde electronic compositions from the earliest days of the synthesizer era.

Best Thing Brendan Kelly Has Done in Eight Years

The Lawrence Arms' Metropole

by Leor Galil on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

OK, so I don't know much at all about Brendan Kelly's personal life, much less everything he's done the past eight years—he could've climbed Mount Everest, or caught a really big fish, or eaten an unusually large sandwich. I'm not privy to the milestones he may or may not have passed, because we're not friends.

Best Three-Toed Goblin King Turned Cultural Ambassador

Eric Owens

by Kate Schmidt on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

Crawling out of a misty bog, his hair like Don King's on a bad day, bass-baritone Eric Owens stole the show as goblin king Vodnik in Dvořák's Rusalka at Lyric Opera this spring. He was comically randy one minute, tragically bereft the next—never mind his clown-size three-toed feet.

Best New Vocal-Oriented Contemporary Classical Ensemble

Fonema Consort

by Peter Margasak on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

Forward-looking new-music ensembles dedicated to the work of living composers, especially young ones, seem to be proliferating unstoppably in Chicago these days. The likes of Ensemble dal Niente, Fifth House Ensemble, and Eighth Blackbird regularly perform pieces written for vocalists, but Fonema Consort has distinguished itself by focusing on vocal music.

Best New Album After a 13-Year Absence

Two by Owls

by Leor Galil on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

In 2001 mathy emo outfit Owls released their self-titled debut, a gnarly, complex record that until recently was their only full-length. In the years since, the band's members have put out dozens of albums and EPs—with Noyes, Friend/Enemy, Make Believe, Owen, and Tim Kinsella's main project, Joan of Arc, among others—but fanatics have continued to carry a torch for Owls, keeping the brief, spellbindingly strange Owls on repeat.

Best Proof That Fourth-Wave Emo Is About More Than Nostalgia

Bad Waves Tapes

by Leor Galil on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

For a year or so now, fourth-wave emo bands such as Modern Baseball and the World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die have been landing on the Billboard charts with a new spin on the second-wave sound that grew out of the 90s midwest scene—rugged bass, interlocking guitars, and inept but endearingly sincere vocals. For fans who grew up seeing the Promise Ring and Braid, shows by these fourth-wave groups can be a way to relive bygone nights sweating it out at VFW halls, but it's not necessarily about nostalgia for the people putting out the records.

Best Producer of Bands From Niger

Jamie Carter

by Peter Margasak on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

Recording engineer Jamie Carter, who owns East Pilsen studio Carterco, met Nigerien guitarist Hamadal Issoufou Moumine (better known by his nickname, Almeida), in October 2008: the African was in town to play with jazz guitarist Bill MacKay and percussionist Jamie Topper at Dan Godston's Chicago Calling Festival, and Godston brought the three of them to Carter to document their collaboration. During the late-night session, Almeida began asking about Carter's ability to do mobile recordings, and two days later, after returning to his home in Niamey, he invited Carter to produce a recording by his popular working band, Tal National.

Best New Candidate to Be Footwork's Crossover Hit

"Let U No" by DJ Rashad featuring Spinn

by Leor Galil on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

DJ Rashad was on course to guide footwork music to a crossover breakthrough when he died in April at age 34; he'd performed in Europe, opened for Chance the Rapper on his U.S. tour last fall, and played at many high-profile festivals, including Pitchfork in July. On last year's Double Cup, Rashad pushed footwork toward pop while retaining its eccentric, fluttering beats, hyperactive pace, and strange internal tension among syncopated layers.

Best Nightclub Trying Its Damnedest Not to Be a Nightclub

East Room

by Drew Hunt on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

One of the latest establishments to pop up on what's gradually becoming Logan Square's busiest stretch, along Milwaukee just north of California, has a split personality: half see-and-be-seen River North-esque nightclub, half dark and deserted dive bar. There's often a line to get in to the East Room, but there's no signage outside, just a brick wall and a single red light bulb.

Best Excuse to Get Painted Up Like a Neon Freak Show

Blacklight Blackout

by Jay Gentile on June 25, 2014 at 3:00PM

When you're looking to get weird late at night, Exit is usually a pretty safe bet. But all bets are off when Blacklight Blackout splatters the club's second floor—basically a chain-linked dancing cage—with free UV-reactive body paint.