Jamie Ludwig

Indulging my many sound fixations. Writing. Coffee. Associate Editor @chicago_reader. Freelance everywhere. (Illustration by @berhuff.)

Articles

Harpist Moriah Bailey meditates on the past to find a brighter future

4 days ago | chicagoreader.com | Jamie Ludwig

Language can convey a lot, but no matter how thoughtfully and precisely we use it, it can still feel inadequate for expressing emotion. That reality pervades the spacious, somber chamber-folk arrangements and breathy emoting on Moriah Bailey’s most recent album, 2022’s I Tried Words.
Chicago Record Report: May 2025

1 week ago | chicagoreader.com | Jamie Ludwig

Chicago Record Report is a monthly series highlighting some of the new local music that has caught the ear of Reader staff.
Detroit alt-folk group Neu Blume keep their eye on the big picture

2 weeks ago | chicagoreader.com | Jamie Ludwig

Neu Blume make music that celebrates the joy and contentment in the everyday. The Detroit-based band is led by the duo of vocalist Mo Neuharth and vocalist-guitarist Colson Miller, who moved to the city from Arizona, where they’d cofounded Phoenix indie-rock group Nanami Ozone. In Neu Blume, they create spacious, sunlit alt-folk that feels light not because it ignores life’s ups and downs but because it transcends them.
Calgary postpunks Preoccupations face reality with optimistic dread on Ill at Ease

2 weeks ago | chicagoreader.com | Jamie Ludwig

Calgary postpunk four-piece Preoccupations formed in 2012 from the ashes of noisy art-punk outfit Women. As Viet Cong, they dropped a strong debut album in 2015, then changed their regrettable name the following year in response to accusations of racial insensitivity and cultural appropriation. As Preoccupations, they’ve released three more solid albums of tantalizingly complex postpunk, infused with electronic flourishes and textured with elements of psychedelic, shoegaze, and ambient music.
Chicago indie rockers Moontype expand their imaginations on I Let the Wind Push Down on Me

3 weeks ago | chicagoreader.com | Jamie Ludwig

In 2021, Chicago indie-rock group Moontype made a big impression on the city’s music community with the release of their debut full-length, Bodies of Water. The record fleshed out the sparse songs that bassist and vocalist Margaret McCarthy, using the Moontype name, had begun writing in 2017, while still a student at Oberlin Conservatory.
Buffalo punk outfit Science Man makes music for mutants on Monarch Joy

3 weeks ago | chicagoreader.com | Jamie Ludwig

In 2018, Buffalo punk musician John Toohill was on tour with his band Radiation Risks when he began writing songs in the back of the van without any particular project in mind. Eventually, the material spawned Science Man, a one-man punk outfit powered by a drum machine and lots of adrenaline—and that’s when things started getting weird. “I’m an all or nothing kind of dude,” Toohill told Ottawa Showbox in 2019.
Stress Positions stick to their guns

4 weeks ago | chicagoreader.com | Jamie Ludwig

Chicago hardcore group Stress Positions are sitting outside a watering hole in the Dutch city of Tilburg, but they’re not far enough from home that they don’t have fans around. A couple of Finnish guys approach the band and ask to take a picture with them. “We don’t usually have fanboy moments,” one of them says. “But oh my god, I’m melting.”I’m interviewing Stress Positions while they’re at the Roadburn Festival on a brief tour of Europe and the UK.
Detroit electronic duo Adult. go where the darkness take them

1 month ago | chicagoreader.com | Jamie Ludwig

When Adult. emerged out of late-90s Detroit, the city’s art-rock scene was dominated by the revival of protopunk and garage rock, not by drum machines and synths—so this electronic duo sounded like a signal from a futuristic parallel universe. Nicola Kuperus and Adam Lee Miller (who are also married) have since released nine studio albums of dark, gritty, danceable music—most recently 2022’s Becoming Undone (Dais).
Chicago singer-songwriter Official Claire smirks in the face of mundanity

1 month ago | chicagoreader.com | Jamie Ludwig

Chicago singer-songwriter Official Claire combines laid-back indie rock with whispery folk, and her incisive, often witty lyrics sometimes make listening to her feel like pricking your finger on a hidden thorn on the stem of a beautiful flower.
Straight-edge screamo band Frail play Chicago 30 years after they split up

1 month ago | chicagoreader.com | Jamie Ludwig

High school bands come and go, and very few make an impact that lasts for decades. Screamo group Frail formed in Philadelphia’s northern suburbs in 1993, when four of the five members were sophomores, and lasted only till the fall after their senior year. But in their brief time together, they put out a handful of singles and EPs and toured the country.