17 stories by "Noah Berlatsky"
Chicago-born, Los Angeles-based rapper Open Mike Eagle is a seemingly inexhaustible font of laugh-out-loud one-liners, and he delivers as always on his latest album, Component System With th…
The term "world music" has never been adequate to the task we've set it"even in its most benign reading, it implies a division between the listener and the rest of […]
The post The <i&g…
When Santigold emerged in the late 2000s, her hip alterna-pop seemed to waltz out of left field, incorporating elements of every genre she could put her hands on: punk, hip-hop, […]
The po…
Wanuri Kahiu's Look Both Ways in other contexts might simply be a fairly inoffensive feel-good romance riff. As it is, though, the film's lack of courage is painful and unforgivable.
The pos…
Kehlani's second album, 2020's It Was Good Until It Wasn't (Atlantic), features the brooding, moody, left-of-center R&B that's become their signature. The singer's new LP, Blue Water Roa…
I'm sure Bodies Bodies Bodies will have many enthusiastic fans. I'm just at the stage in life where I don't take much pleasure in watching the kids hurt themselves.
The post Bodies Bodies B…
"I'm a twentysomething / Don't you think it's about time?" Chicago singer-songwriter Claudia Ferme, aka Claude, sighs on "Twenty Something," which opens her debut full-length, A Lot's Gonna …
It's unlikely that someone's going to see The Reef: Stalked and go out and murder a bunch of sharks. But the fact that we tend to see nature as victimizing us rather than the other way aroun…
The smaller humans who saw the preview were delighted, and their parents didn't seem to be suffering.
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If you want to see Crispin Glover's Olivia Newton-John impersonation, head around the bunny-headed Jesus, past the John Wayne Gacy display, and watch your head down the stairs.
The post Odd …
California singer-songwriter Cuco (aka Omar Banos) makes distinctively woozy bedroom pop that mixes vocals in Spanish and English with laid-back beats, fuzzy guitar reverb, synth wash, 808s,…
It's impossible to listen to DakhaBrakha right now outside a political context; they're a Ukrainian folk band based in Kyiv. After Russia launched its full-scale war on their country in Febr…
The effort is appreciated as far as it goes. But it doesn't matter how enthusiastically you dial if you end up with a bore on the other end of the line.
The post The Black Phone appeared fir…
Critics sometimes say that films like Running Man and Battle Royale implicate the viewer. When you watch them, you're supposed to recognize the ickiness of your own enjoyment of uber-violenc…
Nashville rapper, multi-instrumentalist, and part-time extraterrestrial Namir Blade follows in the space wake of his beloved Sun Ra less through style than through vibes. His new self-produc…
Prison is a massive, racist source of violence and harm. A film about incarcerated people, especially one purporting to advocate for them, needs to engage with that fact.
The post Chicken ap…
Philip Glass's soundtrack for piano, pipe organ, and chorus mirrors the repetition in the summoning spell.
The post Horror is a sound you can't stop saying appeared first on Chicago Reader.
