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Chicago singer-songwriter Gia Margaret makes what she calls “sleep rock.” Its mellow vibes make it well-suited for early-morning or late-night listening, while its catchy melodies and driving beats can get heads nodding–albeit gently. Margaret’s 2018 debut full-length, There’s Always Glimmer, creates inviting atmospheres with crisp production and varied instrumentation: Margaret’s double-tracked vocals glow amid a calming mix of electronic drums, piano, and guitar. She builds upon that foundation on her new second album, Mia Gargaret (Orindal), though unlike its predecessor, it’s largely an instrumental record–she sings only on the closing track, “Lesson,” and occasionally samples voices, including a lecture by British philosopher Alan Watts. Margaret made it while recovering from an illness that robbed her of her singing voice for about half of 2019; rather than put music aside, she adapted in order to move forward. Opening track “Apathy,” released as an early single, channels Mort Garson’s Plantasia, with a hypnotic looped arpeggio of synth and piano that evokes stillness as well as growth. Near the end, Margaret introduces a sample from one of her vocal-therapy sessions, where she’s dealing with the loss of her primary instrument but staying determined and optimistic. Elsewhere she translates her compositional voice to other instruments: on “Lakes,” a field recording of waves ushers in acoustic and effected guitars. No matter the tools she uses, these songs convey patience and a thoughtful way of developing ideas. Margaret’s choice to conclude the album with “Lesson” suggests that she’ll eventually return to the singer-songwriter style of There’s Always Glimmer, but I hope she also continues to explore the approaches here. Necessity is the mother of invention, and Mia Gargaret makes it clear that it’s necessary for her to make music any way she can. v

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Singer-songwriters Amy Ray and Emily Saliers have been playing folk-rock guitar and singing harmonies together since the early 80s, when they were high school students in Decatur, Georgia. In 1985, they began performing as the Indigo Girls, and their earnest lyrics and dual guitars earned them a loyal and dedicated fan base that grew exponentially after the 1988 release of their self-titled second album (which was also their major-label debut). An Indigo Girls concert can feel like a fun night at summer camp: nearly everyone sings along. Their new 15th studio album, Look Long, doesn’t stray far from the template that the duo has established, but why mess with a formula that’s worked for so long? Most of the songs on Look Long highlight the perspectives of middle-aged people reviewing their pasts with wistful affection: “When We Were Writers,” for instance, is a heavy-handed, nostalgic ode to being young, creative, and “pulling all-nighters.” I’m especially taken with the bittersweet ballad “Country Radio,” where Saliers draws on her experience growing up gay in 1970s Georgia. The protagonist (whose gender is carefully unspecified) says that every night after a shift at the mall food court, they listen to country songs about idyllic boy-girl romances and get swept away in the stories–even though the songs are selling a heterosexual fantasy that isn’t for them. “I want to know what it’s like to fall in love / Like most of the rest of the world,” Saliers sings. “I’m just a gay kid in a small town / Who loves country radio.” Look Long is filled with the sort of didactic lyrics that folk rockers with their hearts on their sleeves can’t resist (and for which they’re often derided). But I’m grateful that the Indigo Girls are still laying it all out there–there’s always a small-town kid who needs to hear it. v

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On April 5, 2010, a coal-dust explosion at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia, killed 29 miners. Though subsequent investigations found that a pervasive pattern of negligence and safety violations had led to the entirely preventable tragedy, in 2015 Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship got off with a slap on the wrist: a single misdemeanor conviction for conspiring to violate mine safety and health standards and a one-year prison sentence. In 2018 he unsuccessfully ran for Senate as a Republican and–lest anyone think he’s the least bit repentant for his role in such a massive loss of life–he’s currently running for president with the far-right-wing Constitution Party. The Upper Big Branch Mine disaster briefly cast a bright national light on Appalachia, including the big-business exploitation of local workers and natural resources, the bitter class divides among its communities, and the love-hate relationship its residents have with a fading industry that’s shaped so much of the region’s economy and cultural life. All of these conversations coalesce on Steve Earle’s 20th studio album, Ghosts of West Virginia. He wrote seven of the ten songs on Ghosts for Coal Country, a play by “documentary theater” playwrights Erik Jensen and Jessica Blank that premiered at New York’s Public Theater in early March. Earle adapted gospel, country, bluegrass, and blues to a narrative-song style, and while he played the material solo onstage during the play’s run, on the album he’s backed by his band, the Dukes. While some of his compositions, including “Heaven Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” and “If I Could See Your Face Again,” sound ancient, he makes the traditional “John Henry” his own (John Henry is also the name of one of Earle’s sons, so I bet he’s wanted to put his spin on that tune for a long time). Earle, who is well-known for his leftist leanings, has said that he wants to engage with people who aren’t on his side of the political spectrum, and in West Virginia, left-right divisions also play out in a decades-long struggle between those devoted to coal as a traditional way of life and those who have turned toward environmental activism and a postcoal economy. “Union, God and Country” is Earle’s stab at opening the conversation by finding shared ground in West Virginia’s history of fierce labor battles, which is a source of pride for many locals. “Devil Put the Coal in the Ground” is a country-blues stomper that puts a dead-on folkloric spin on the contradiction of loving coal and hating it. The album’s heart is probably the brooding, furious “It’s About Blood,” which ends with a spoken-word vigil: a recitation of the names of all 29 men who perished in the mine explosion. But Earle prevents the record from wallowing in despair–and helps protect it from accusations that it’s the sort of poverty porn rightly criticized in the region–by lightening the mood with “Fastest Man Alive,” which celebrates one of West Virginia’s favorite sons, ace pilot Chuck Yeager. v

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In 2017, celebrated Malian Wassalou singer and activist Oumou Sangare released Mogoya, her first new album since 2009. During the intervening eight years, she’d largely stepped away from the spotlight to pursue a variety of business ventures, including establishing agricultural projects, opening a hotel, and launching a new car, the Oum Sang. For Sangare each of them has offered the chance to support and empower the Malian people–proceeds from the Oum Sang, for example, benefit a scholarship fund. Wassoulou music, which arose in a part of West Africa that includes southwestern Mali, is widely considered a precursor to American blues; it’s traditionally sung by women, and since the late 80s Sangare has approached its soulful sounds with a modern feminist spirit, tackling subjects such as female autonomy and the pitfalls of arranged and polygamous marriages. (Sangare began working at age ten to help support her family after her father abandoned her mother, who was his second wife.) On Mogoya (which translates to “Human Relations”), she updated her sound by collaborating with producers in Sweden and France and incorporating elements of rock and funk; the album’s sleek, eclectic tracks sparkle with robust energy, even when tackling complicated topics such as mental health, as she does on “Yera Faga” (“Suicide”), which features legendary Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen. In 2018, Mogoya got a club-ready makeover when its songs were remixed by Sampha and Aunti Flo. Acoustic takes the opposite approach: recorded live in two days with no second takes or overdubs, the album strips down songs from Mogoya to nothing but vocals, guitar, and a traditional Malian stringed instrument called the kamele ngoni, similar in appearance to the harplike kora and usually tuned pentatonically. These don’t feel like laid-back tunes to sing around a campfire, though–the bare-bones approach enhances the emotion of each song and the stunning skill of each contributor. The intensity of the call-and-response vocals, hand claps, and soaring vocals on “Bena Bena” (“Ingratitude”) gets ratcheted up even further on the following track, “Kounkoun” (“Bad Seeds”), with its grooving, dueling strings. While many Americans are enduring intense isolation, Acoustic’s warm, rich textures and Sangare’s incomparable voice offer a sense of connection–and the feel of live music–from half a world away. v

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Chicago rapper Taurus Bartlett, better known as Polo G, rose to national prominence so quickly that new listeners could be forgiven for assuming he’s been a star for at least a few years. He broke out in January 2019 with “Pop Out,” a collaboration with New York MC Lil Tjay, where Bartlett mixes irrepressible joy and gut-wrenching sorrow in prismatic pop. Bartlett maintained that single’s narrative gravitas and melodic sweetness for the entirety of his debut album, June 2019’s Die a Legend. In early May, he announced his follow-up, The Goat (Columbia), on which he displays more flexibility as a rapper. On “Go Stupid,” producer Mike Will Made-It concocts an antagonistic vibe with metallic drums and austere keys, a mood that jibes better with the guests on the track, Stunna 4 Vegas and NLE Choppa, than it does with Barlett himself. He sprays compact, burly lines tinged with a bit of his old melodic bliss, performing with the vigor of an artist already hungry for the next challenge. v

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Chicago punk multi-instrumentalist Seth Engel can deliver a sweet, melancholy riff so gracefully that you’d think he lives inside the guitar chords from Jawbreaker’s Dear You. Engel, who records solo material under the name Options, is a busy young man about town. He drums with mathy progressive trio Pyramid Scheme as well as heavy indie-rockers Great Deceivers, and he’s a member of several groups that are on pause, including Lifted Bells and Anthony Fremont’s Garden Solutions. He also gets called up to play auxiliary roles on album sessions by local emo and punk acts; his recent credits include Retirement Party and Nature’s Neighbor. On the other side of the board, he’s a studio wiz who engineers, mixes, and masters music for a laundry list of Chicago DIY artists at his Bridgeport headquarters, Pallet Sound. Since debuting Options with 2014’s What You Want, Engel has been cranking out emo-laden rock songs whose clean power-pop hooks bind together joy and woe, and he pulls it off with surgical precision. Options’ sixth album, Wind’s Gonna Blow, continues this strange, intoxicating balance of blissful euphoria and vague gloom. On “Blue,” Engel transforms mundane sadness into an existential wound, oozing with fuzzy riffs and sullen singing, and cauterizes it with sharp guitar stabs and drum bursts–the music makes it feel possible to heal even when everyday grief won’t stop. v

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No Age have always been great at making very little sound like a whole lot. Since they began blending influences from hardcore punk and noise rock with indie-rock catchiness 15 years ago, the Los Angeles-based duo have been on the cutting edge of cool–they’ve always seemed a step ahead of their peers in the guitar-rock world. On the brand-new Goons Be Gone, No Age’s second full-length for Drag City, guitarist and singer Randy Randall and drummer and singer Dean Spunt have created their most lush and thoughtful music yet, proving that their well of greatness isn’t going to dry up anytime soon. This time around the band dive into psychedelic rock, layering dreamy guitars to create spacey textures and soundscapes; meanwhile their vocal melodies lean into mod textures, with equal parts attitude and smooth hooks. No Age have always fleshed out the two-member dynamic so well, and they’ve upped their game even further on Goons Be Gone–sometimes they break away from their minimalism, and they sound like a six-piece band cutting loose. When they pair their new sense of pop grandeur with the inventive guitar leads, pushy drums, and unstoppable energy of their signature sound, No Age are bigger and better than ever. v

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Lucinda Williams writes raw, visceral songs filled with beaten-down people liberating themselves from bullies. “I changed the name of this town / So you can’t follow me down,” she sings on “Changed the Locks,” from her 1988 self-titled album. Her new record, Good Souls Better Angels, takes on similar demons, though its antagonists don’t just pick on individuals but seek out victims on a global scale. Williams snarls truth to power on “Man Without a Soul,” a protest song that recalls Phil Ochs: “All the money in the world will never fill that hole,” she sings to an unidentified man (she recently told NPR that she thinks of her target as Donald Trump, but he could just as easily be Mitch McConnell or anyone else who uses their power to abuse others). On Good Souls Better Angels, Williams sounds like a cowpunk roadhouse version of a singer-songwriter–more than four decades into her career, she’s more powerful than ever. Williams pushes her country-rock alto into the microphone on “Big Black Train” as she repeats “I don’t want to get on board,” as if to shut up anyone who wasn’t convinced. And her longtime backing band, Buick 6, enhances her brilliant songwriting and forceful performances: on “Wakin’ Up,” which tells a startling story of escaping an abusive relationship with an addict, Stuart Mathis’s jagged guitar riffs match the emotion in Williams’s voice. v

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A couple Chicago Cubs reveal they are just like the rest of us by Patrick Sheldon

Chicago Bulls: Why are some in the organization infatuated with Jim Boylen? by Patrick Sheldon

The Chicago Blackhawks and Edmonton Oilers are going to match up in the play-in series.

The Chicago Blackhawks are going to the playoffs if the return to play format goes through. There are still some hurdles to climb over but it seems like hockey is coming back. The Hawks have a chance to give fans their first winning experience in the playoffs since the Stanley Cup victory in 2015. It has been a crazy year but they are going to have the opportunity to come back and play.

They are going to play the Edmonton Oilers in the play-in series for a chance to move on. That has a chance to be one of the most intriguing matchups of the entire playoffs. It has everything you would want in a series of this type in a season like this. The series’ between the Minnesota Wild and Vancouver Canucks and the one between the New York Rangers and Carolina Hurricanes come close in terms of the “intriguing” aspect but this Chicago vs Edmonton one is king.

Some of the best players in the world will headline this series. Edmonton has players like Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins leading the way. Meanwhile, Chicago has Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, and Duncan Keith who are all still great and have been there for so long. With McDavid, Kane, and Draisaitl, you have three of the five or six best players in the world.

There is a scenario where McDavid is just so fast and makes the Blackhawks look old and slow. He is significantly faster than every player on the Hawks (and every player in the world for that matter). The only player who might be able to keep up with McDavid in terms of pure skating speed is Andreas Athanasiou who the Oilers acquired from Detroit at the deadline. There are going to be times where McDavid wins a puck race and nobody should get mad about it.

There could also be a scenario where the Blackhawks contain McDavid and Draisaitl just enough to squeak by them. If Corey Crawford can be elite like we know he can, especially against those two, the rest of the Oilers team isn’t loaded with talent. Combine that with a good series from Patrick Kane and you have yourselves a chance at a short series win.

Hot: Chicago Blackhawks 2020 Stanley Cup odds

It is an intriguing matchup because it is basically a youthful team with some high-end skill going up against a veteran-led team that also has some young players. It could be looked at as brains vs speed. The Oilers probably aren’t happy to have the league’s two leading scorers and were well on their way to the playoffs yet they still have to play the Hawks, but nobody asked for the coronavirus to take over. Fans of hockey in general, however, should be super excited about this matchup.

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Chicago Blackhawks: New Stanley Cup 2020 odds by Vincent Parise

Chicago Blackhawks: Most intriguing play-in series vs Oilers by Vincent Parise

A couple of Chicago Cubs show they’re a lot like the rest of us.

It has been a rough few months for Chicago Cubs fans still struggling through a world without the ability to watch their favorite team. As the two sides — the players and the owners — duke it out in the media, a resolution and agreement to play the 2020 season seems to become further out of reach each day.

However, amid all of the bad news, the team recently gave us a couple of cool moments that reminded us of something we often forget — these players are people first. They have the same emotions as the folks who pack Wrigley each day to watch them play a game.

Chicago Cubs’ Kris Bryant shares a cool moment with son

First up was Cubs’ third baseman Kris Bryant sharing an awesome moment with his infant son, Kyler. All Cubs fans will forever remember where they were that October night in 2016 when the team ended their World Series drought. Chances are you were spending it with someone close to you — a parent, a brother, sister, or best friend. And for the rest of your lives, you’ll want to relive that moment together.

Now imagine having been a part of that moment and having the chance to share it as a dad with your newborn son? That’s just what Bryant got to do, and the pure emotion and joy on his face is something any parent can relate to.

Next, we got a peek behind the curtain into the thought process of Jason Kipnis who spoke about the emotional side of changing teams. As fans, it’s easy to just see the multi-million dollar contracts these players sign in free agency and wrongly assume that takes the emotion out of it. That’s clearly not the case as Kipnis reminded us.

Jason Kipnis talks conundrum of playing for Chicago Cubs

Speaking of that 2016 World Series, Kipnis was on the losing end of that Game 7 in which he came painfully close to winning it all. Kipnis recently replied to a tweet from a fan who wondered how tough it must be for him to now be a part of the team that denied him his greatest chance of reaching the promised land.

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Truth be told it’s a mindf*ck at times.. my first reaction when someone says “go Cubs” to me is still a clenched fist and to tell them where they can go.. but playing for a hometown team is a lot of players’ first dream as a kid… so I gotta imagine it’s worth it to not pass up! https://t.co/xfupru8pza

— Jason Kipnis (@TheJK_Kid) May 27, 2020

The level of candor in his response is something we don’t often see as fans but reading the tweet, it resonated with me. These players grow up as fans of their hometown team, and then develop new allegiances as they play for others. But how surreal it must be when those two worlds collide in the way they have for Kipnis?

Kipnis walked us through the emotions of a process that every fan can understand, if not relate to. It was really cool to see that side of a player, just as it was awesome to see Bryant enjoying such a special moment with his son.

Next: The Cubs need a “Last Dance” documentary of their own

In the absence of live sports, these are the kind of moments that carry the day — and I’m totally here for them.

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