Philip Montoro

Chicago

Music Editor at Chicago Reader

Music editor, union unit chair, Chicago Reader. Opinions my own. He/him/y'all. [email protected]

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Articles

Rhythm Fest celebrates two decades of Third Coast Percussion with a bill full of their heroes, partners, and friends

1 week ago | chicagoreader.com | Philip Montoro

Chicago quartet Third Coast Percussion continue to celebrate their 20th year with this kaleidoscopic all-day event at Epiphany Center for the Arts. Rhythm Fest consists of 17 sets in four spaces (plus three open jams and an audiovisual installation by drummer Glenn Kotche), and the lineup is thick with TCP’s current and former collaborators.
Dragged Into Sunlight make metal as a purgative for the evil in humanity

3 weeks ago | chicagoreader.com | Philip Montoro

The first Dragged Into Sunlight show I saw ended up on my Reader year-end list of the best live metal of 2012. “The music roars out of a thick fog lit only by a blood-red glow and a spasming strobe,” I wrote.
Posthardcore giants Young Widows return with all the menace but less baggage

1 month ago | chicagoreader.com | Philip Montoro

When you’re not in a good place, it can help to listen to music by somebody who sounds like they’re not in a good place. I love lots of those records, and Young Widows have made a few of the best. Guitarist and front man Evan Patterson and bassist Nick Thieneman founded this Louisville trio in 2006, and drummer Jeremy McMonigle has been aboard since 2008.
Valentina Magaletti seeks the poetry in percussion at her solo Chicago debut

1 month ago | chicagoreader.com | Philip Montoro

Local promoters Lampo and the Renaissance Society are bringing drummer and sound artist Valentina Magaletti to Hyde Park for her first solo concert in Chicago. Born in Italy and based in London since 2000, Magaletti is a restless shape-shifter and voracious collaborator (she’s described herself as “really easily bored”), and in more than two decades of music making she’s crossed paths with dozens if not hundreds of artists, among them Nicolas Jaar, Bat for Lashes, Jandek, Nídia, and Susumu Mukai.
Chicago Record Report: April 2025

2 months ago | chicagoreader.com | Philip Montoro

Chicago Record Report is a monthly series highlighting some of the new local music that has caught the ear of Reader staff. The alt-rock duo of Claire Molek and Jason Savsani thought they were isolating themselves in a secluded Victorian mansion in rural Illinois to record their third album, but they quickly got the sense that they weren’t alone.
Obituary hit the road to celebrate a founding document of death metal

2 months ago | chicagoreader.com | Philip Montoro

Over the past two decades, Florida Man has emerged as a mythical avatar of disorder—he might throw a live alligator through a Wendy’s drive-through window or break into jail to hang out with his friends. But go back another 20 years, to the mid-80s, and you’ll find a bunch of Florida men doing something arguably weirder and definitely cooler: inventing death metal.
More Eaze & Claire Rousay leave their comfort zone to make a comfortable record

2 months ago | chicagoreader.com | Philip Montoro

Experimental musicians Mari Maurice and Claire Rousay are now based in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, respectively, and they both have extensive discographies of their own. But when they began releasing collaborative records in 2020, they lived in Texas.
Guitarist Jules Reidy makes songs that mirror the ecstatic liminality of surrendering to love

Mar 24, 2025 | chicagoreader.com | Philip Montoro

Jules Reidy makes intimate songs fraught with dissonance and tension. They sing through Auto-Tune, digitally mapping their gentle voice onto the familiar intervals of equal temperament, while their customized electric guitar plays in just intonation.
Rewind: Punk is dead! Long live punk!

Dec 24, 2024 | chicagoreader.com | Jessica Hopper |Philip Montoro

Jessica Hopper has been an important national voice in feminist music criticism since the 2010s, when she became the first music editor at Rookie magazine and assembled teams of top-shelf talent at Pitchfork and MTV News. But 20 years ago, Hopper was still freelancing regularly for the Reader, and she wrote this lively scene report from Warped Tour.
Bin Chen, The Solar-Cell Chemist

Nov 13, 2024 | chicagoreader.com | Philip Montoro

Bin Chen, 33, is a research associate professor in the chemistry department at Northwestern University, where he manages a team of 30 people within the 80-member lab led by Canadian scientist Ted Sargent. The team is developing materials used in renewable energy applications, with support from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office. Chen focuses on perovskite solar cells, a relatively new technology with great potential to increase efficiency and reduce costs.