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In March 2021, Gossip Wolf was bowled over by the debut demo from local grindcore crew Organ Failure. The band packed four merciless rippers into three thoroughly unwholesome minutes, whetting this wolf’s appetite for even more disgusting noise to come! Late last month, Organ Failure followed up with the delightfully putrid Neurologic Determination of Death, whose 17 tracks fulfill that promise and then some. On “Recycling Gangrenous Tissue” and “Rampant Organ Theft,” drummer Max Rivera, bassist Ryan Reynolds, guitarist Sean Scott, and singer Ted Soukup wield an impressive command of nail-gun blastbeats, unsavory guitar murk, and execrating vocals. The album is available on Bandcamp (name your price) and on cassette and CD from Headsplit Records; on Friday, September 9, Organ Failure play Live Wire Lounge with Vulnificus, Deterioration, HanzXGruber, and Brilliant Behemoth.
Organ Failure’s new album is out on Headsplit Records from Portland, Oregon.
On Thursday, August 18, Chicago musician Ava Cherry visits Gman Tavern to celebrate her recent book, All That Glitters. In the 1970s, Cherry collaborated with her paramour at the time, David Bowie, and sang backup for the likes of Luther Vandross and Chaka Khan; she also followed her own dreams of stardom. Curtis Mayfield coproduced her 1980 solo debut, the disco-inflected Ripe!!!, and she issued two more LPs for Capitol that decade. She’s still making music too! Cherry will read from All That Glitters and talk with critic and Reader contributor Aaron Cohen. Tickets are $30 and include a signed book; the talk begins at 7:30 PM.
Ava Cherry’s 1980 solo debut, produced by Curtis Mayfield, Bobby Eli, and Gil Askey
On Sunday, imaginative multidisciplinary Chicago rapper Sol Patches dropped her first album in a year and a half, Ordinary Circles. She threads gentle house production, relaxed rapping, and audio collage into heartfelt experiments such as the tender, hiccuping “Distant Solstice”—she’s one of the boldest voices to emerge from Chicago hip-hop the past decade.
The credits for Ordinary Circles say it was made in New York, Chicago, Berlin, Reykjavík, and Venice.
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