Red Xerox: Chicago Youth Beat 2020-2025

Various Artists — 2026

“A living snapshot of a scene that’s already reshaping indie rock.”

Chicago has always had something going on musically, from house music to the Smashing Pumpkins blowing up arena rock. That tradition kept rolling when, around 2020, a guy named Eli Schmitt started pulling together a loose community of young bands under a scene they called Hallogallo. The name comes from a Can track, and the attitude fit: weird, homemade, and very much not interested in what the mainstream was doing. Schmitt, who runs the zine Unresolved and has connections to the Numero Group, spent years documenting this world through shows, livestreams, and photocopied zines left at coffee shops and Blue Line stops. Red Xerox: Chicago Youth Beat 2020-2025 is the payoff. The debut imprint from Brooklyn’s beloved indie comic and zine shop Desert Island, this 12-track LP collects early cuts, unreleased recordings, and lo-fi sessions from the Hallogallo scene’s first half-decade. The record also comes with a handmade 24-page zine with band bios, which really drives home that this thing was built by hand and on purpose. As a document of a scene that is clearly producing some of the best young bands in indie rock right now, it feels like one of the more essential releases of 2026.

I think the easiest way to describe this record is: a lot of different things that somehow make sense next to each other. You get raw, guitar-forward post-punk, bedroom pop, no-wave noise, folk songs with Ecuadorian roots, and some pretty out-there psychedelic stuff. What connects it all is that none of it sounds polished or calculated. These tracks feel like they were made by people who just wanted to make something real and put it out. The production is lo-fi across the board, with the kind of tape-worn texture you get when bands are recording in basements or on whatever gear they can find. What stands out is how well it all holds together as a single listen. It is not a record that sounds expensive, and that is entirely the point, but it sounds committed in a way that a lot of carefully produced albums simply do not. It also makes you want to hear more from each band on the tracklist.

This compilation is not trying to show where these bands ended up. It is showing where they started, and that turns out to be more rewarding than you might expect. Horsegirl and Lifeguard are probably the best-known names here, both now signed to Matador Records with recent records that landed in The Fire Note’s Top 50 of last year. Sharp Pins, the Lifeguard offshoot from Kai Slater, also placed in that list. Hearing these bands in their earliest, scrappiest form on Red Xerox makes it clear the foundation was always solid. Friko, whose anticipated sophomore album Something Worth Waiting For arrives on ATO Records April 24, is represented here by “Get Numb To It!”, a track that already pointed toward where they were headed. The lesser-known acts on the record feel like they are right behind them. That is not a small thing to say. This scene has a track record now, and Red Xerox is the proof of where it all came from.

If you like Yo La Tengo, Tall Dwarfs, or Young Marble Giants, you will find new bands to check out here. The DIY spirit and guitar tones have a lot in common with those acts. The noisier moments remind me of early Pavement or certain Guided By Voices recordings where the fidelity is low but the ideas are strong. The softer bedroom-pop tracks on the second side share some ground with Florist or the more gentle side of Olivia Tremor Control. Fans of Good Flying Birds or This Is Lorelei should also really be into this compilation. What sets Red Xerox apart from just being a nostalgia trip for fans of those influences is that these bands are pulling from all of that history without being stuck in it. They sound like themselves.

Lifeguard’s “Crate” is the standout. It is six minutes long, recorded live, and works in a piece of the Stone Roses’ “I Wanna Be Adored” without making a big deal out of it. It builds and shifts in a way that keeps you locked in the whole time, and it is one of the better tracks any Chicago band has put out in recent years. Dwaal Troupe’s “En Utero,” which features Lifeguard and Sharp Pins guitarist Kai Slater, is the most intense thing on the record, all static and forward momentum. On the quieter end, Amaya Peña’s “Song for Avi” brings in Ecuadorian folk influences that sound like nothing else here, and that makes it one of the most memorable tracks on the whole thing along with Free Range’s “Lost and Found.”. P. Noid’s “Go Somewhere Else” is a quick power-pop shot that has a Noise Addict vibe and is worth replaying immediately. It is worth noting that P. Noid’s Jack Abbott and Saskia Lethin also released a strong record this year with their other project Bungee Jumpers, which tells you something about the depth of talent in this scene. Horsegirl kicks off Side A with “Sea Life Sandwich Boy,” an early 2021 7″ track that quickly shows why this scene started buzzing.

The lyrics on Red Xerox are not really where these songs live or die, but that is not a knock against them. Most of the tracks are more interested in feel and texture than in saying something quotable, and that approach fits the music well. When words do show up clearly, they carry the kind of blunt honesty you expect from people writing songs in their early twenties. The scene’s overall attitude, as described by Kai Slater of Lifeguard in the liner notes, is about community, dancing, and doing things on your own terms. That comes through in the music more than in any single lyric, which I think is the right call. Current Union TM’s “Dukkha Coca” barely uses words at all, relying on texture and screams to make its point, and it is one of the more memorable tracks on the record because of it.

Red Xerox: Chicago Youth Beat 2020-2025 is the kind of compilation that actually justifies the format. It makes a scene feel real, urgent, and worth digging into. Sure, the lo-fi production could test some listeners’ patience, and a few tracks hit harder than others, but that is the nature of any collection this wide-ranging. What matters is that almost everything here feels alive. Context only strengthens it: Horsegirl, Lifeguard, and Sharp Pins all dropped records last year that reached well beyond Chicago. Friko has a sophomore album arriving in April that is already building momentum. Bungee Jumpers are carving out their own following, and Joe Glass of Sharp Pins released the excellent Snakewards earlier this year on Hallogallo. This is not a scene coasting on a good run. It is still accelerating. Red Xerox captures where it all began and makes a strong case for paying close attention to what comes next.