Through the transitive power of jangle, Hozac Records will be celebrating new releases from two different, yet like-minded, acts tonight at the Empty Bottle. Listen to new recordings from hot Chicago acts Radar Eyes and Bare Mutants here. more ›

Taking plenty of cues from artists like Kate Bush and The Knife, Austra made tidy drums, dance-ready synth beats and powerful vocals feel like a musical feast. more ›

The quartet's latest, rock-filled self-titled album is streaming in its entirety over at AOL's Spinner site, which compares them to Superchunk and Whiskeytown. Plus, the band announces a record release show at The Hideout. more ›

OK, so there's not an official fan-club style "I love Future Islands" group, but praise for the Baltimore-based group and their recent "On the Water" has been pretty much non-stop since the kickoff of their fall tour. Since their breakthrough early last year with "In Evening Air," Future Islands has climbed out of the "buzz band" category and earned themselves a sterling reputation on the strength of their intense live shows and tightly-crafted post-wave electro fun breakup music. more ›

If you're looking for an ethereal, yet ominous, listening experience to accompany you on these rainy October days, look no further than the new EP from Chord, a high-concept ambient offshoot of Chicago post-metal band Pelican. Chord, a five-piece featuring Pelican band member Trevor Shelley-de Brauw, released their new EP, titled Gdim13, in late September. more ›

St. Vincent's Annie Clark didn't quite thrill. And she showed that the darkest part of her nearly 90-minute set was…the stage lighting. more ›

Last fall, rough-around-the-edges Chicago garage rockers Mannequin Men debuted two new tracks from an then-upcoming Hozac Records single. One of those songs, "Hobby Girl," has re-emerged as the first single from their upcoming self-titled third record, which sees release in November on Addenda Records. Download it here. more ›

Unicycle Loves You, a local power-pop trio, released the first official single from Failure, its upcoming third album. "Sun Comes Out (And I Don't Care)" was released on Monday, and it's a driving, lush blend of layered psychedelia and mid-fi garage rock. more ›

Cinematic instru-metal Chicago trio Russian Circles will release a new record, Empros, on Oct. 25. The group released a first track, "Mladek," through Rolling Stone on Wednesday . more ›

7:00 p.m., Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $10 more ›

Disappears guitarist Jonathan Van Herik updates us on the band's new material, their summer tour plans, and what's in store for record number three, which they plan to record in Hoboken, New Jersey later this year. more ›

As a special treat while he works on his The Otherside Redux mixtape, rising Chicago rapper Rockie Fresh released a new song, "Sour," through his Twitter page late Tuesday afternoon. more ›

Sophomore year just called: Hop in the mini-van, exit off of Fullerton, and get ready to kneel by the Fireside. (Bowl, that is). Braid are back. more ›

The stop-start rhythms of political post-punk and the warm, inviting vocal melodies of 70s singer-songwriters might not spring up immediately for listeners as two musical aesthetics to merge. But for Chicago band The Island of Misfit Toys, anything goes. more ›

Reflective, autotuned-tinged Chicago rapper Rockie Fresh will release a new video Monday for "Sofa King Cole," a track which originally appeared on his The Otherside mixtape. Fresh will also release a remix mixtape called, The Otherside Redux on June 29. more ›

'Round Labor Day last year, Hollywood Holt dropped a mixtape that contained several tracks that would've dominated Chicago speakers for the summer. This Memorial Day, Holt returned with new single "The Show." Prepare to get amped. more ›

Two up-and-coming Chicago bands sharing a bill at the Empty Bottle Monday have released tracks from their upcoming records. Download them here. more ›

Local rockers Mickey dropped an advanced MP3 for their upcoming Hozac records full-length debut, Rock N' Roll Dreamer, and you can listen to it here. more ›

Having recently been tapped to pass strange for Bailiwick Chicago, presumably without the help of non-inflammatory medicine or a laxative, local soul stars JC Brooks And The Uptown Sound are plenty busy. Good thing they stopped in to Coach House Sounds for a quick little session back in March. Otherwise, we might not have gotten two new tracks from the band. more ›

According to a news release, the fine folks at Mountain Dew will release The Cool Kids official full-length When Fish Ride Bicycles,on their Green Label Sound label in Spring 2011. The duo have been promising Bicycles since 2008, making it the Chinese Democracy of hipster rap. more ›

The labyrinthine rhythms of Chicago-based experimental quartet Mahjongg are good for many things. Depending on the track, the group’s deft blend of Afro-pop percussion and trance-inducing synth-tronics has listeners either frantically on their feet, or zoning out with chin-stroking aplomb. But is there room for soundtracking an online foreign policy pissing match on that list? more ›

A recent article in The Guardian by music critic Alex Ross prompted a discussion between arts reporter Ben Schuman-Stoler and me in the Chicagoist HQ's Fine Arts Parlor (required for admittance: beret, loafers, air of condescension). The article's subject was why contemporary classical music is less popular than the contemporary works of other mediums, with Ross concluding that the culprit is classical music's "idolatrous relationship with the past." more ›

Local indie-rock vets Kid, You’ll Move Mountains (Troubled Hubble, Inspector Owl, El Oso) posted some very exciting news recently. Not only are they making a second record, the follow-up to 2009’s atmospheric and underrated Loomings, the band also said they’ve been tapped to open the first of the two Dismemberment Plan reunion shows in February. more ›

After a bit of time away from the local music scene, skuzzy garage-rockers Mannequin Men are releasing new material. Along with a new 7-inch, which will be available for purchase at the veteran quartet’s Dec. 4th show at Schubas, the group posted a new demo, “Don’t Grow,”; on their Soundcloud page. more ›

Since Madina Lake bassist Matthew Leone regained consciousness after enduring a savage assault that left him hospitalized and in a coma, news for the local pop-punk band has become progressively better. Despite Leone’s extensive injuries from the assault, which were so bad he had to have a third of his skull removed, the music community response was compassionate and vast. Special concerts were held in order to help pay for Leone’s hospitalization, which came after he intervened on behalf of a domestic violence victim, whose husband then assaulted Leone. Things have been relatively quiet since then, but Nathan Leone, Matthew’s brother and Madina Lake’s frontman, indicated that the band’s moving forward musically. more ›

Polite, unassuming fans of polite, unassuming and prodigiously talented indie-rock dudes, take note! Two offshoots of your favorite acts, Wilco and The Sea and Cake, are set to release new material this fall. more ›

Nearly two years to the date after their self-titled Highwheel Records debut was released, idiosyncratic power-pop Chicagoans Unicycle Loves You have just announced the details for album number two. Mirror, Mirror which the band self-produced, is due on September on Highwheel, and to promote the record, the band has released the title track as a free MP3. more ›

Dan Peck, who mans the tuba for the new-music group International Contemporary Ensemble, feels that tuba players have been living a lie. Solo tuba music has only been around for a little over a half-century, and like other instrumentalists new to the solo world, there's a pervasive insecurity that comes from comparing the worth of your chosen voice to instruments like the violin or piano that have centuries' worth of repertoire written by history's greatest composers. Try as tuba players might by playing technically-demanding music, often music written for other, more virtuosic instruments, their efforts to be taken seriously only bring the ridiculousness of their endeavor into greater focus. Peck wants tuba players to come to terms with the gigantic maze of metal tubes they bear hug in their laps: the tuba is a bass instrument. In his solo performances, like the one he'll give this Friday night at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Peck digs in his heels and explores the tuba's neglected, extreme-low end range in all its muddled and often silly-sounding glory. more ›

Fulcrum Point and eighth blackbird, two leading ensembles of the Chicago new-music scene, will present multi-discipline, multi-genre concerts at the Harris Theater this week. To make it even more enticing, Wednesday's eighth blackbird show has cheap tickets available. more ›

Here at Chicagoist, our motto's always been "When it's right, it's right." This then raises the question: Why wait until the middle of the cold, dark night? That's the thinking of two Chicagoist faves, Anaphora and Third Coast Percussion, each of whom has scheduled some afternoon delight for this Sunday's day o' love. more ›