006 → The Pitchfork Musical Festival, 2022
Online Publication, Coverage/Review
Coverage and review contributions for Pitchfork Music Festival online publication, detailing performances throughout the weekend including aftershow coverage for Pitchfork Music Festival 2022 artists. All photographs by Morgan Winston Photography.
Pitchfork Music Festival 2022
Coverage/Review
This year's Pitchfork Music Festival was a soggy celebration filled with a stacked lineup, including Dry Cleaning, Mitski, Earl Sweatshirt, and many more. The rainy weather is a fitting symbol for Pitchfork-goers, as it seems the festival continues to take place during the rainiest week in Chicago, where the determination of music fans shines brighter than their Instagrammable festival attire. Attending Pitchfork has become a rite of passage for indie folks who come to thrash in the mud alongside listening to their favorite beatnik performers. The event is a touchstone for indie performances and celebrates the newfound success of artists' shift to notoriety. Discover the artists below.
FRIDAYArooj Aftab The festival began with Pakistan-born, Brooklyn-based composer and singer Arooj Aftab, the first Pakistani woman not only to win a Grammy but also to be nominated for one. Her set immersed the crowd in a meditative trance of classical instrumentals, Sufi spoken devotions, and electric vocals from Arooj Aftab herself; a reverberated echo heard throughout the festival grounds. The critically acclaimed quartet crafted a light, incandescent set for the lost souls.
Indigo de Souza Just in perfect time with the Chicago storms, Indigo de Souza raised a hue and cry with symbolic, angsty scuzz from her bandmates paired with her ghostly yodeling and vocal shifts. As the crowd, dressed in colored ponchos and using raincoats as picnic blankets, sang along to every word of "How I Get Myself Killed" while tilling mud between their shoes and the soil.
Wiki New York rapper Wiki debuted his charming smile and iconic dialect at the festival alongside Wiki’s producer Subjxct 5. The duo told a story to the crowd through trembling tracks, long-winded monologues of his New York roots, and new sounds from the upcoming release, "Cold Cuts," a mixture of “the disco era and the Memphis era all in one,” says Wiki.
SATURDAYBack-to-Back Magic from Lucy Dacus, Japanese Breakfast, and Mitski. Lucy Dacus kept it sweet yet heavy, explaining, “Not really a festival tune” after singing “Thumbs” off her 2021 release, "Home Video." Lucy and her band matched the festival’s brooding energy while finishing with a thunderous cover of Cher’s “Believe” that invited the crowd to smile and sway while soulfully participating in the sing-along. Japanese Breakfast smashed through her musical toolbelt in a quick hour-long set. During the outset, she was radiant with her pop aesthetic and wearing what seemed to be a poodle across her chest with a gong mallet in hand during Jubilee songs “Paprika” and “Be Sweet” (a crowd favorite). Later, she welcomed Chicago musician Jeff Tweedy and performed harmonies between the two while ending with an iconic hard rock performance, the gong mallet substituted for her electric guitar. The luminous artist Mitski headlined on Saturday and played through her greatest hits one after the other with no room for breath. Surprisingly, showing off tracks from 2018’s "Geyser" more than her recent release, "Laurel Hell." Mitski ran around the stage performing interpretive choreography while the crowd reacted to every step, kick, and swing. One true art performance that kept the crowd wired after two lengthy, wet days.
SUNDAYL’Rain
Kicking off the last day with some chopping, jamming, and howling with the crowd through experimental soundscapes, contorted rhythms, and versatile jazz melodies. Her technique and style reflect her multi-instrumental background in performance studies at Yale University. The set felt like a daydream on a loop that I wished would never end.
Cate Le Bon Secluded on the Blue Stage, Cate Le Bon’s performance was hypnotizing and immersive, her warm vocals colliding with the band’s austere instrumentals. The set focused on her latest two albums, "Pompeii" and "Reward," from the peculiar bop of “Home to You” while the crowd cooed every word back, and the luminous hymn “Daylight Matters” repeating “I love you but you’re not here,” a melancholy tune that lasts longer than the hour-long set.
Earl Sweatshirt The jazzy, lackadaisical rapper Earl Sweatshirt, partnered alongside DJ Black Noi$e, brought cynical wit and bouncy tracks to Sunday’s lineup. Earl enters every stage exhibiting his zen yet explosive personality through connecting with the crowd or bringing out niche material, such as “E.Coli,” an internet deep cut that leaked across online platforms before debuting on The Alchemist’s "Bread EP." It is worth mentioning his closed, smudged sound feels anticlimactic in a midday festival setting. His immersive sound is suited for a small, shoulder-to-shoulder venue rather than an expansive festival to fully display the outcome of tracks like “Titanic” from his most recent album "Sick!" Earl Sweatshirt is a bucket list performer; we recommend buying a ticket to a venue where his sonic talent can be entirely appreciated.
Through relentless weather, Pitchfork 2022 is a reminder of what it’s like to be a music lover. Embracing discomfort to see that favorite artist or favorite song alongside a community of like-minded individuals twirling next to each other — just keep your dress shoes at home.
yeule Aftershow, Pitchfork Music Festival 2022
Exclusive Coverage/Review
yeule, the self-described cyborg, also referred to as Nat Ćmiel, took center stage at Thalia Hall during the Pitchfork Music Festival 2022 festivities. A stage was placed in the middle of the concert hall like a theatre in the round. The perfect sonic landscape for their immersive performance. The concertgoers dressed in texturized outfits, platform shoes, and fingerless mesh gloves eagerly waited for Yeule’s arrival. Everything around me felt synthesized yet organic— the lighting, the dance moves, and the sounds.
Casper Mcfadden, the breakcore baddie and DJ enthusiast, warmed up the crowd with his vivid beats and rapidly shifting tempos. The young crowd gyrated with every twist & turn while Mcfadden’s eyes remained glued to his deck, receiving the crowd's energy through each movement. The perfect opener to create the breach into Yeule’s neo-technical, hypnotic reality.
After the opening performance, the crowd parted to make a pathway for the Glitch Princess, one of Yeule’s many identities, as they glided through the mass of people. In a singular breath, Pixel Affection filled every level of the venue with their sanitized, falsetto harmonies mixed with the static instrumentals and interpretative dance moves between every word. Sitting inside the balcony, it felt like I opted into a metaverse performance that I watched from aerial view. Sliding their right foot back and the other forward, they dropped low, then raised themselves again like a prima ballerina who swapped out ballet slippers for chunky combat boots.
Being a former Tumblr 2012 girl, my psyche felt transfixed by their lyrical writing, eclectic distortions, and agile motions throughout the performance. When I took my eyes off them, I noticed the emotions around the stage— glossy eyes mixed with appreciation and reverence. A group of four young listeners stood parallel to one side of the stage, singing along in their post-gothic attire and holding hands as if they were forming a bind. It seemed that Yeule was performing just for them as they echoed the words to I <3 U and Eva (acoustic version) together. Following the moment with a speech of gratitude, “I know some of you have traveled far to see me. Thank you for being here.” The next day, I found the same quartet, in their pre-Raphaelite outfits, at the front of Yeule’s intimate set during the Pitchfork Music Festival. That’s the precious thing about Yeule’s curated reality; they sing about loneliness and not fitting into societal labels creating a lasting community of young listeners who relate deeply to those same pressures. A safe space for the misfits, something I wish I had during my teenage era.
Yeule proved that they are not only a musician/performer but an escape artist blurring the lines between virtual life and real life. From their white-out contact lenses to their step-by-step choreography, everything was intentionally systemized to fit into the synthetic universe of Serotonin II and Glitch Princess. I felt engrossed; I felt a part of something bigger than the small consciousness I have inhabited. I came to deeply understand the words off their opening track, My Name is Nat Ćmiel, “I like pretty textures in sounds, I like the way some music makes me feel, I like making up my own worlds.” After experiencing their worlds, I left the venue reluctantly and secretly hoped they would come back on stage and invite me to stay forever.