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Talkhouse

Steve Gunn is a New York-based guitarist and songwriter. With a career spanning nearly 15 years, Steve has produced volumes of critically acclaimed solo, duo, and ensemble recordings. His latest release, the Nakama EP, is out now on Matador.

Steve Gunn

Music

Steve Gunn and Joshua Abrams on Starting Out in New York Versus Chicago

Floatie is a rock band based in Chicago. Their new album Voyage Out is out now via Exploding In Sound Records.
(Photo Credit: Ash Dye)

Floatie

A Floatie Photo Essay

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Chicago’s V.V. Lightbody coined herself as “nap rock”, but she’s the first to admit how much her sound is changing. Make a Shrine or Burn It, her much-anticipated Sophomore LP, came out May 1, 2020 on Acrophase records.
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V.V. Lightbody

In Conversation: V.V. Lightbody and OHMME

Rich Jones is a prolific Chicago artist, community figure, and veteran of the cultural scene. Known for his versatile and evolving style, his latest album How do you sleep at night? finds him returning to his hip-hop roots as he tackles class complacency and complicity under American authoritarianism and the value of human life vs. what’s profitable.
(Photo Credit: Katie Levine)

Rich Jones

Three Great Things: Rich Jones

Deeper&#8216;s Shiraz Bhatti, Nic Gohl, and Drew McBride take a thoughtful and direct approach with their songwriting, yielding spry melodies and inventive structures. It’s a clever combination of jagged post-punk and refined indie rock. A tightly wound rhythm section teeters on the edge, but is anchored by intricate guitar interplay and saturated with an enigmatic spirit. Their first album, 2018’s Deeper channeled the anxiety of change in everyday life and navigating the unhinged political atmosphere. Run takes a more existential approach, reaching down past the emotion and staring back at the inner.
Backed by an astutely scientific cover of the John Maus rarity “Bennington”, Deeper sheds the searching bottled up in previous material, carving out an ambit distinctly their own. Brisk, pointed and efficient, and no note wasted, Run b/w Bennington, a new 7 Inch out in October 2019, sets the stage for the Chicago trio’s sophomore LP.
(Photo Credit: Brendan Carroll)

Deeper

Love is everyday magic. That’s the impression you get listening to Water, the new album by Chicago trio Dehd. Love rises up into the atmosphere like steam off a summer sidewalk and makes you wild. Love breaks your heart and you consider yourself lucky for it. Like water itself, it surrounds us, it supports us; it’s what we’re made of. It takes the shape of its container.
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That’s something Jason Balla, Emily Kempf, and Eric McGrady discovered quickly after forming Dehd in 2014. Balla and Kempf are both veterans of Chicago’s increasingly fruitful DIY scene (Balla with Ne-Hi and Earring, Kempf with Vail and formerly with Lala Lala). When they joined forces with first-time drummer Eric McGrady, they discovered they shared a strange and inexplicable chemistry. The music they make — hazy and reverb-drenched, a scuzzy and hyped-up take on surf rock that could only come from the Third Coast — came so intuitively, it made all three feel like they were stewards of something bigger than themselves, even while that very thing is unmistakably drawn from their own personalities.
Water finds Dehd’s three members united as they push themselves beyond their natural limits and end up in places they wouldn’t have imagined. Balla’s production incorporates flubbed notes and dropped beats, and it emphasizes he and Kempf’s occasionally strained voices. It’s all animated by the red-lining feel-good spirit of the Velvet Underground’s Loaded and the breezy melodicism of C86-era indie rock, with a dash of the Cramps’ spooky-hop bop courtesy of McGrady’s locomotive drumming.
Which makes Water feel like a different kind of record: It’s at once a mature and grounded look at adult relationships, and a raucous celebration of friendship, and a cracked piece of purely musical bliss. It’s a clear-eyed look at the wild nature of everyday life that’s been spun up in sugary sweet melodies and scratched-crystal sounds.
(Photo Credit: Alexa Viscius)
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Dehd

Dehd and Deeper Talk Chicago’s DIY Family Unit

Jack Dunphy is a filmmaker, animator, actor and writer from Chicago whose short films Serenity and Chekhov have played at Sundance, AFI and festivals around the world. His latest short, Bob&#8217;s Funeral, won Best Nonfiction Short Film at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. His new podcast, Revelations with Jack Dunphy, premieres on October 15. His short film Revelations premiered at Slamdance and went on to play the Champs-Élysées Film Festival in Paris, France. His short film Brontosaurus played the True/False, Nashville, Florida, Philadelphia and Cucalorus film festivals. He starred in Assholes (directed by Peter Vack) which won the audience award at SXSW. He co-wrote Stinking Heaven, which premiered at the International Festival of Rotterdam, with Nathan Silver, and wrote, edited and produced Silver’s The Great Pretender, which played Tribeca, AFI and festivals around the world. (Photo by Shutterstock.)

Jack Dunphy

Film

“Everybody Dies Frustrated and Sad and That is Beautiful,” or How Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali Helped Me Through a Shitty Time

Split Single frontman Jason Narducy is a universally beloved lifer, having first appeared on the scene at age 11 in the ‘80s Chicago punk band Verböten. He fronted Epic/Sony alt-rockers Verbow during the ‘90s alt-rock bubble, then spent nearly a decade as the bassist and backup vocalist for folks like Bob Mould, Robert Pollard, Telekinesis and Superchunk. Split Single’s <a href="http://www.shopbenchmark.com/splitsingle/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Metal Frames</a> was released in 2016.

Jason Narducy

Talkhouse Weekend Playlist: Here’s What Jason Narducy Played for the Cubs After Their Big Win

Talkhouse Playlist: Sweet Ohmme Chicago

BJ the Chicago Kid is a Chicago singer-songwriter who has worked with the likes of Chance the Rapper, Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West. His record, In My Mind, is out now.
Mick Jenkins is a rapper who has worked with the likes of Chance the Rapper and Vic Mensa. His debut album, [T]he [H]ealing [C]omponent, is out September 23, 2016.

BJ the Chicago Kid and Mick Jenkins

Your favorite musicians, filmmakers, and other creative minds one-on-one. No moderator, no script, no typical questions. The Talkhouse Podcast offers unique insights into creative work from all genres and generations. <a href="https://pod.link/Talkhouse" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Subscribe now</a>, and explore more illuminating shows on the <a href="https://talkhouse.com/category/podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Talkhouse Podcast Network.</a>

Talkhouse Podcast

BJ the Chicago Kid Talks with Mick Jenkins for the Talkhouse Music Podcast

Stuart Gordon was a writer-director-producer of film, television and theater. He is best known for the cult classic Re-Animator and for having murdered his wife Carolyn in his films whenever possible.

Stuart Gordon

“That Pisses the Fuck Off Outta Me”: Adventures with Young David Mamet

Take an Inside Look at the Talkhouse Music’s Trip to Pitchfork Music Festival

<div>Zachary Lipez is the singer of the band Publicist UK. He is the co-author (with Stacy Wakefield and Nick Zinner) of a number of books, most recently 131 Different Thinks (Akashic 2018). He is a freelance writer in NYC and tends bar at 124 Old Rabbit Club.</div>
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Chicago