Jamie Ludwig

6 days 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.

1 week 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).

1 week 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.

1 week 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.

2 weeks ago | chicagoreader.com | Jamie Ludwig

For Ethiopian-American singer Mereba, music is a refuge and a means of connection. Born Marian Azeb Mereba, she moved from city to city as a kid, following her professor parents as they took jobs at different schools; she turned to songwriting to cope with this instability and with the outsiderness she felt as the child of an immigrant father.