SmartBar Launches In-House Record Label
Your favorite northside club is behind your new favorite label.
"Northside '82" is the year SmartBar opened its doors and its general location, and it is also the title of the new record label....
Bell Boys Kick Out the (Very Slow) Jams on Star Creature
Chicago DJ, producer and impresario Tim Zawada and Ben Van Dyke have teamed up for an intriguing new label.
"Star Creature" has released three records, the last two of which dropped this week and will...
Brawther. Endless. Balance.
For six years Brawther has been floating at the edge of most people's consciousness, seemingly always working at the margins. It's hard to imagine a person less concerned with the trappings of fame, which...
Spirit of the Black 808: Invasion of the Black Bass
Sometime between Record Store Day and Summer, Spirit of the Black 808 will release at least an album's worth of material on two labels. Combined, the two EPs - Infroduction on Hizou and this...
Sequences: The World According to Tevo Howard
The Sequence Project: Vanity
Tevo Howard's Black Electro Orchestra: Holiday EP
Someone I respect very much - the rare man that got old without getting mad - once told me that how much you love something...
Won Hunnid: thatmanmonkz on Delusions of Grandeur
Scott Moncrieff (aka thatmanmonkz) hasn't released an average record yet. I mean that: from the first time I heard from him a couple of years back, he's been churning out superb releases, both his...
Robotnick and Pinsky’s Analog Session, Mark Two
We now join in on another exhilarating adventure with theoretically obsolete technology manipulated by two guys who know their way around a synthesizer and a 4/4 beat.
Ludus Pinsky has soldered his share of...
Harry Wolfman & Laurence Guy: The Lone Grazer EP
Having just heard the sad news that the brilliant Lost My Dog Records are to close their doors in 2015, I must confess that writing this review feels bittersweet to say the least. Young...
Now and Then: Ten Years of Hudd Traxx
Hudd Traxx turns ten in 2015, and part one of their landmark anniversary compilation packs one hell of a wallop.
It's easy, as we all know, to release records like you're making a festival flyer:...
Ka One and St Sene: Inside Silent
Ka One and St Sene deliver with a four track EP of Deep House that has a pulse, melodic Techno that's bright-eyed and alive and sings.
It was long ago that I gave up trying...
STREAM: Playin’ 4 The City’s Backfire
They don't give you a gold watch or a handsome trophy when you pass a certain threshold in House Music. If they did, Olivier Portal would own 'em all. Portal's catalog stretches back twenty...
Robert Hood & Floorplan: Shaker/Ritual
Nostalgia is an illness, or at least that's what doctors once believed.
Today, it's less a communicable virus than a kind of collective mania. In times of uncertainty, frustration and personal and economic dislocation,...
Urulu & Steve Huerta: 25 Cent Color EP
This record is incredibly sexy - something that never goes out of style and inevitably gets better with age. Knowing nothing about Urulu and Steve Huerta, hearing the music and observing track names...
STREAM: DJ Pierre Rides The Underground
While we're making up new genres, how about "Wild Pitch Disco"?
DJ Pierre is back with a new release on his Afro Acid label. "The Underground" leads you by the end through a dark,...
Dirty Sole ft. jOHNNY DANGEROUs: Connect the Dots
I played this for some friends yesterday and one of them told me it was "too funky." How do you mean? If you're tryin' to tell me anything is too funky for your dancefloor...
Mazi & DJ Motion: When Time Becomes a Loop
Audio Soul Project and Fresh Meat are back and it feels good to say it. This is but the first of two superb records the Chicago label is releasing in the next 30 days...
Alex Agore Record Store Day Release: Keep it Coming
When is it ever enough? Alex Agore has armed more DJs with more dope wax in the last few years than anyone. Show me the record collection of anyone making folding money as a...
Brett Johnson’s The Bounce Is Back
There's always that one great mix people remember you for. Mine is called Bodegas and it was a labor of love put together in the summer of 2002 when I was back home from...
Mistress 5 Is The Most Ambitious Record Released This Year
Amidst all of the doom and gloom of the music industry - as a few dollars are replaced with a few dimes and now a few dimes by a few pennies, courtesy of streaming...
N.O.I.A.’s Long Strange Groove
I'm an outlander, but I think you can probably trace a brief history of Italian alternative music through the 10 year career path of N.O.I.A. Starting out as punkish provocateurs prone to riling audiences...
MUST READ!
Library of Congress adds Jamie Principle’s “Your Love” to National Recording Registry
The classic of classic Chicago house tracks was selected for preservation as one of "the defining sounds of history and culture." Here's how it was made.
