Saturday, 23 Jan


Underwater projections reflect the sounds of a warbling Wurlitzer and wide guitar reverb…

Indie duo Christy & Emily—joined by bassist and drummer The Liberal Arts—played Brooklyn’s Issue Project Room last Saturday, making music that was recognizable but new sounding, infectious but unpredictable.  

“Gueen’s Head,” juxtaposed rock ballad style choruses with mysterious rippling murmurs from the Wurlitzer, while “Thunder and Lightning” had a stripped-down, punk rock feel to it.

Christy & Emily played alone for the Debussy-esque “Lover’s Talk,” which seemed to advise the heart broken from fathoms below.  

Before the band launched into the night-sky-like “Superstition,” Emily gave the audience a mini disco ball to pass around during the song.  The last person holding the ball was asked to play “The Christy & Emily Game” of subjective questioning: “Pretend you have a house; where are you more afraid to go, the attic or the basement?”  “I’m not afraid!” was audience member Joe’s initial answer, before being reminded by Emily that only one of two answers was acceptable (he chose the basement).

Christy & Emily’s set ended with the country-tinged “Tigers,” featuring tightly woven vocal harmonies.

 
Look for Christy & Emily back in NYC upon their return from this month’s Austro-Swiss-German tour.

Say hello to Frida Sundemo, indie pop artist from Sweden. 

"Drops" begins by setting an ethereal atmosphere, with glockenspiel and a repeating high piano chord.  The song abruptly drops to earth as the vox enters for the verse, joined by electronic rhythm section and bass, and glock/piano disappear.  The chorus unites ethereal and earthy, as Sundemo's voice becomes breathy, and the glockenspiel and piano return over the lower, rhythmic texture of the verse.  "Drops" ends as it began, the earthy falling suddenly away to leave the music in the clouds.

"I Was Surrounded" is full of cute glottal stops in unexpected places---"I was sur/rounded, I was so fr/ightened"---and the safe way in which the rest of the harmonies play with the ever-present F#, heard in a higher register than is usual for a drone, results in unalloyed charm.

"Ready, Steady, Go" brings to mind a happy montage in a quirky 1960's foreign flick, particularly the lite-jazzy sounding circle of fifths progression, ending with panache on a major seventh chord, heard at the end of the chorus.


Hear these and more at www.myspace.com/fridasundemo

Friday, 6 Nov


Blindfolded and sitting onstage in total darkness, the composer of the last piece on the program started out the evening by playing a soprano saxophone (handed to him by an "anonymous helper") for the first time in his life, in John Cage's 1969 "Sound Anonymously Received."  Watching the performer blindly grope the instrument was suspenseful, almost painful, as he repeatedly heaved great breaths, blowing air through the instrument, which turned to discordant wailing sounds after a few seconds.  A few people in the audience laughed to see him struggling with the sax, while others waited tensely to see what he would produce from the instrument next.  His flush improvisation felt almost like a composed out piece, and served as a kind of foreshadowing for what was to be heard in his own composition later in the program.

Reiko Fueting's  2006 "red wall" for solo guitar followed.  Dan Lippel's expressive performance captured well the cold but lively atmosphere of the piece, and its unpredictable gestures and phrases seemed to be telling a story: though the language the music was speaking sounded unfamiliar, a narrative could be clearly felt. 

Carmel Raz took the stage next for Inhyun Kim's intense, perilous sounding "Seeds disperse in the air to come."  A violin solo at breakneck speed, the piece had a fiddle feel (if the barn were on fire), and brief were the breath-catching moments when the rhythm screamed to a halt for double stopped chords, before the quick pace resumed. 

The night finished with Matthew Hough's viscerally engaging "Irreverant Overtones," for solo bassoon.  Wailing, then grinding overtones preceded silent ghost notes, air being blown into the bassoon and its keys being pressed without any tones coming out.  The piece was a variable alternation between volatile overtones and ghost music sections, all the while so severely sparse as to make the audience self-conscious of their own noise.  Particularly unnerving to watch were bassoonist Annie Lyle's fingers moving rapidly through the toneless ghost sections, the clicking of her bassoon's keys creating sounds like water droplets.  The longest piece on the program, "Irreverant Overtones" hit the audience with all the physical drama of the Cage piece, times ten.


for more info on Music Equals, visit them at musicequals.org.

Brooklyn-based Nutria N.N. offers up a mix of indie rock and Latino folk in this 14-track self-titled album.

Chilean Nutria’s second full-length release runs the gamut of the indie folk genre, from the pure indie rock vibe of “Atenas 399 AC,” to the traditional Latino feel of “Zamba Del Arriero.” 

The opening track, “Volver Al Futuro,” distinguishes itself with a spooky Halloween mood, complete with the brief appearance of a theremin. Compare this with the heartbreakingly pretty waltzing of the eleventh track, “Deten El Invierno,” or the retro synths and gloomy harmonic progressions of the post-punk fifth track, “El Mendigo.”

Acting as a common thread within all the diverse individuality of each of these tracks is Nutria’s genuine-sounding, smoky voice, appealing to his listener for ears to hear. 

Catch Nutria N.N. live Dec. 5th at Zebulon.


[check out kleineKultur's live review of Nutria N.N. here]

Saturday, 25 Sept


Austrian composer Peter Ablinger (who currently resides in Berlin) came to Bushwick's Cafe Orwell for a night featuring a selection of his works, followed by a short interview, presented by new music organization Music =.

The performance began with 6-18 (excerpted from 1-127): 13 short pieces for electric guitar and amplified sound, played in quick succession.  Each piece was characterized by: quiet simplicity, interrupted by highly complex loudness, with a return to simplicity at the end.  The loudness comprised amplified, pre-recorded samples of city noise and lightning fast guitar gestures; the loud sections, as well as the simpler solo guitar sections, differed slightly in length piece to piece.  Thus it was impossible to predict when or how long one's ears were to be barraged with the loud sections; only that they would occur somewhere in the middle.  The guitarist's performance was compelling, as he executed the abrupt virtuosic gestures with apparent ease.
Weiss/Weisslich ("White/White-ish") 17c: A clock radio tuned to white noise, shut off at the entrance of an extended snare drum roll.
Ohne Titel ("Without Title") 1-10: Performed by electric guitar and vibraphone (the instrumentation is up to the performers).  A sparse, quiet, rarely more than monophonic piece.  Here again there were many short pieces in quick succession, though this time creating a string of delicate gestures, performed with tender care by The Silent Book.  A particularly nice moment occurred when the guitar and vibes struck the same high note together, both instruments letting the note ring and fade.

[The following is paraphrased from my notes; I invite Mr. Ablinger to correct me in the comments section if I've misrepresented his answers in any way.]
Q and A session with the audience, hosted by Matthew Hough and Ian Antonio: 
Q: What is the significance of noise in your music? 
A: White noise is the acoustical version of everything, a totality of sounds like white light, like a blank page, to be tweaked perceptually, or not. Consider a monochrome painting---the closest equivalent in music is white noise.  The experience of white noise: we as listeners have no reference point within white noise, which is emptier than silence.
Q: Regarding 6-18 (1-127), were you thinking about the listener when you composed this piece? 
A: Yes.  The perceptual problem with noise is that it creates anxiety about one's inability to extract information; "our brains are damned" by this compulsion to extract information.  In [Ablinger's] pieces for large ensembles, once you get over the "materiality" of the noise, you start to hear figures that aren't in any one instrument, like "illusions" you see when staring for a prolonged time at a white wall.  Likewise, with 6-18 (1-127), behind each short piece and as they go by a new layer starts to emerge, which is the reason for the multiple repetitions of a similar gesture.
Q: Do you have an ideal listener in mind when you compose? 
A: No.  It is impossible to perceive [Ablinger's] pieces in only one way.  Your experience is part of the creation of the piece. "Like a dance between the composer and performer and listener."  Depending on the piece, one or the other does more leading, or it may be equally divided sometimes.
Q: Why allow the performer to choose which succession of numbers to play in 1-127? 
A: The performer should never play all 128 pieces in one performance; flexibility for the performer is part of the reason for letting each decide how many to play.  

Saturday, 5 Sept


Tinged red and blue by colorful light-bulbs and sitting on the floor around the stage area, the audience at Music ='s benefit party were taken unawares as the performance began unannounced, with a French love song for two voices by medieval composer Guillaume de Machaut.  Jumping forward approximately 500 years, this was followed by a nimble bassoon solo from 1969 by American composer Vincent Persichetti. 
Moving ahead another 40 years, two works written this year were next on the program. 
Matthew Hough made his listeners "uncomfortable, but in a cool way" (according to one audience member) with his candid work for spoken word and alto flute, entitled "You Should All Be Shot."  The flutist, breathing into her instrument and clacking its keys, performed a silent piece while the composer read aloud five reminiscences culled from his time living in Harlem (the title of the piece was once shouted at him while walking along a street in the neighborhood).  The result was humorous, moving, and disturbing, the autobiographical element rendering the experience intensely personal.
Next up was a piece for violin and cello by David Utzinger. The two instruments' graceful musical lines engaged in intimate conversation, creating finely hued music in three movements.
The performance ended with an improvisation for three electric guitars, bassoon, and alto flute, aptly titled "Madness."


check out Music = New Sound at Cafe Orwell in Bushwick this Friday, Sept. 25th.  

Friday, 4 Sept


Playing to a chill audience sat on slouchy, bed-like couches, Owen Lake and the Tragic Loves gave their first full-band performance at Monkeytown last Friday.  As country music covers with an electro spin spun out into the room, colorful, hexagonal shapes were projected onto screens on all four walls, Owen's stiffness in his mustard yellow suit and slicked back hair adding old school country charm.  
Tight vocal harmonies and retro synth patches adorned country classics like "Holding on to Nothin'" and "I Wish It Had Been a Dream," the latter of which featured harmonizing between Owen Lake and guitarist Tommy Byrd, electronic drum sounds, and lots of space between the low, boomy bass and the high pedal steel guitar.
Other highlights: "Walk Softly," with its minor key, dance club feel and impressive steel guitar soloing.
"Pardon Me, I've Got Someone to Kill," a Cocteau Twins-esque opening, the vox and steel guitar expressing the country spirit within a dream pop setting.
"Long Black Veil," electronica inspired beat, rousing electric guitar solo; followed by an upbeat solo from Tommy Byrd, called "Mr. Fool."
"Let's Get Together" Owen and Penny Hunt duet, hip-hop sounding keyboard lick.

[check out kleineKultur's first review of, and interview with, Owen Lake here.]

The sparse, reverberant texture of “Buddy Casey” starts off this year’s gritty, Cimmerian five song EP, Map and a Marker, from Brooklyn duo The Courtesy Tier.  A fissure of light penetrates the dark sound of "Buddy Casey" during the bridge, which attempts to usher in a new, major-sounding key, but this attempt is quelled by the return of the original key.

“Cold” quickens the pace with a complex guitar lick and dexterously performed off-kilter drum beat.  The vehement “Set Things Right” and blues-drone infused “Friend” follow.  Map and a Marker ends on a plaintive note with the bashed-up ballad “While I’m Gone.”

[check out kleineKultur's live review of The Courtesy Tier here.]

Sun, 28 June


Playing as loud as humanly possible, Loadbang roared into their set with Silhouette by Matthew Hough, a piece that has been of late the group's signature opener.  A few seconds of this shocking cacophony, then an abrupt halt and split second of silence follow, after which the music returns, with a dramatic drop in volume, the baritone intoning a poem.  In a text-setting that is partly tongue-in-cheek, the baritone sings a brief and tranquil solo, extending words over several notes (as in the first syllable of the phrase "swatting flies").  The instruments return---equally tranquil and with a touch of melancholy---for the end of the poem, which takes a more serious turn in its final line, "...there was a garden, there exists one in each of us, a longing, still vibrating."  At this the voice falls silent and the instruments sustain sky-high notes, hovering so closely to each other that one feels the beating of sound waves against the ear.  

Next on the program was Story by John Cage, in which the text of a poem by Gertrude Stein is broken apart and repeated, spoken simultaneously by all four members of the group in a kind of rap.  This was followed by a free improvisation, a regular feature of Loadbang's performances.  Before their last piece, trumpeter Andy Kozar added "I should mention that Matt Hough, the composer of the first piece---who just walked in---is here," at which the audience laughed and clapped (Hough's piece was encored at the end of the concert).  Loadbang ended their set with an adept performance of the minimalist-esque "Waiting for the Man" by David Lang, based on the song by Lou Reed.

Sun, 21 June


Appearing from afar, singers Jeffrey Gavett and Megan Schubert entered the outdoor pavilion in Sakura Park with solemn faces and matching black, vaguely-religious outfits.  Participating in the Make Music New York! festival, the two sat cross-legged and facing each other to perform "Am Himmel wandre Ich..." ("In the sky I am walking..."), a partially theatrical work for two unaccompanied voices by German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. 

Beyond the skilled use of voices in song and other various sounds, the performance featured Native American poetry, the strewing of flower petals, and a brief period of rapturous dancing (passionately performed by Gavett).  The chirping birds, as well as the rain that began to pour halfway through the concert, felt as if they were part of the piece's orchestration. 

At the end of the performance, the two singers---still singing---got up and walked off through the rain, and could be heard continuing to sing a block after they disappeared from sight.