Bklyn Sounds 1/3/2025—1/7/2025
This Week's Show Include: 'New Ear Festival' / 'DCB Day: Celebrating the Music of David Berman' / hellotones “El Hijo de PueblaYork” / Liz Pelly / F.S.G. / 'Synthicide 11th anniversary' / much more
Apologies for the mercilessly late publish. The post-holiday to-do list has been a doozy, and there is already a lot more in-store.
Note the discount links for New Ear Festival tickets below. Please consider upgrading your subscription for perks such as this, as they will not always be available for all.
Thank you for reading, listening and supporting.
This Week’s Events:
Great, three-layer, DIY improvised community music show at the Record Shop. Trio One features saxophonists Jeremy Viner and Tim Berne dueling in front of drummer Kate Gentile. Trio Two features saxophonists Matt Nelson and Nathaniel Morgan dueling in front of drummer Jason Nazary. And who knows what the multi-instrumentalist duo of Cleek Schrey and the shop’s Kevin Murray will do. (Fri 1/3, 7:30p @ 360 Record Shop, Red Hook - $10-$15)
Celebrating its 11th anniversary, Synthicide is that rare dance-party that has become an aesthetic definition—part old-school EBM, part dark Italo and synth-pop, part industrial metal, “often with an emphasis on the 1980s”—reinforced by Synthicide creating its own events and finding global artists to fit their vision. All praise to its doyenne, Andi Harriman. For this anniversary party at the neighborhood techno club, they got Andi’s Romance B2B partner, Eli Escobar to get involved, and an unannounced special guest. This will be rammed and great! (Fri 1/3, 10p @ Bossa Nova Civic Club, Bushwick - $TK)
Now in its tenth year, Fridman Gallery’s New Ear Festival feels like it is only getting better, updating Downtown’s cross-discipline art-music aesthetic. The programming digs deep into the local community, bringing legends into a small-room spotlight (this year, it’s Friday headliner AACM firebrand Henry Threadgill), elevating worthy contemporaries onto the podium (Sunday headliner, electronic composer Ash Fure), and understanding the power of local faves with broad purviews (appearances by members of Irreversible Entanglements, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and TV on the Radio, all dissociating and flying in unique directions). There’s also great young, tech-savvy experimentalists like Shara Lunon, medium. and Kamari Carter, a 3D sound system, and a room for four-channel projections. An unswerving vision of the future that just may stick with you. Highest Recommendation! (Fri 1/3 - Sun 1/5, 7:30p @ Fridman Gallery, Bowery - $20-$40 per night, $65-$80 festival pass // Dada Strain readers, use the following discount links for $5 off nightly tickets, Night One, Night Two, Night Three)
Blue Note vibraphonist Joel Ross is spending the weekend at Seeds, a studio on Vanderbilt Avenue that occasionally hosts shows, where he’s playing two sets a night with a bunch of talented friends. Among those appearing with Ross are trumpeter Laura Bibbs, flute player Joe Melnicove, tenor saxophonists Ohad Talmor and Neta Ranaan, pianist David Virelles, bassist Nick Joz, and drummers Eric McPherson, Kayvon Gordon and Caleb Michel. Check the listings for each night’s line-up. (Fri 1/3 - Sun 1/5, 8p $ 9:30p @ Seeds, Prospect Heights - $TK)
It feels good to know that at least once a year, you can go somewhere and hear the songs that David Berman wrote for his Silver Jews records, and that one magnificent Purple Mountains album ring out, that people will sing along, and, likely, cry. I believe this is the third DCBday: Celebrating the Music of David Berman program, and slowly but surely, there are more famous people getting involved: the actor Michael Shannon, members of Jersey lit-punks Titus Andronicus and Torres are all scheduled, among others. But honestly, the stars are the songs—maybe even the individual lines—which have their own poignancy, carrying DCB’s spirit-hand towards an immortality I am pretty sure he did not dream of. Highest Recommendation. (Sat 1/4, 7p @ Bowery Ballroom, Manhattan - $25)
Bushwick’s young hedonist institution House of Yes is celebrating its ninth birthday with a fun, mostly-local two-day line-up of great DJs. But for the piece de resistance, they went and got one of house music’s most weirdly wonderful creators, Baltimore’s man in Sheffield, Maurice Fulton, whose twisted musical turns and big moves might just be perfect for HoY. (Sat 1/4, 10p @ House of Yes, Bushwick - $20-$30)
Pretty sure that this marks the first time that the excellent DJ hellotones (“El Hijo de PueblaYork”), whose parties at Mi Sabor Cafe were my Bklyn cumbia godsend for a few years, has graduated to the big room at Elsewhere. And he’s got a massive line-up of hybrid cumbia-club DJs supporting him, including Sonido Kumbala, Turbo Sonidero, DJ Chihuahua, Sonidera Blues, and the MC Mextape as hype-man. Homegrown cumbia taking over a big room in Bklyn fully warms the cockles, prolly my favorite beat in existence. (Sat 1/4, 11p @ Elsewhere, Bushwick - $25-$45)
The only reason that the Chicago-born and -raised DJ/producer and Jack pioneer Traxx (born Melvin Oliphant III) doesn’t have the high dance-music profile of his many contemporaries is that he doesn’t play the game. Traxx music may be one of the great links that blurs the lines between house and techno, but only those who venture into the dark basements, warehouse spaces and secluded woods know enough. Which is why it’s so pretty spectacular that he’s playing Nowadays, all night long, on a Saturday night. Highest Recommendation! (Sat 1/4, 10p @ Nowadays, Ridgewood - $10-$25)
Uncivilized aka UNCIV the band is the (often) Red Hook-based guitarist “Unicvilized Tom” Csatari’s loose collection of players (their term is “syndication entity”) who create an outre, lo-fi psychedelic jazz. UNCIV’s reach is long and deep. Which is one reason Tom can put together an Uncivilsation Festival No.2 in a Ditmas Park storefront. Uncivilized will play, as will the reeds and tuba duo of Ben Stapp & Sam Newsome, and a solo keys set by Scree’s Ryan El-Sohl. (Sun 1/5, 7p @ Brooklyn Artery., Kensington - $TK)
Underground Spiritual Game is a baritone saxophone-bass-drums trio named after a classic Fela track, whose original compositions and minimalistic interpretations draw inspiration from the sounds of Ethiopia and Morocco, while weaving in elements of afrobeat, highlife and free jazz. They’ve got a 7”, “Above Ground”/”Notes,” that’s pretty damn good. (Mon 1/6, 6:30p & 7:30p @ Ornithology, Broadway & Myrtle - $TK)
The occasional Monday night residency that trumpeter Eric Biondo’s Beyondo Band, a soul-jazz sometimes-octet, has at Lowlands in Gowanus has become one of my favorite neighborhood music vibes. The band smokes, and Biondo’s got great tunes for days, while also constantly bringing in new charts. Low-key and wonderful! (Mon 1/6, 8:30p @ Lowlands, Gowanus - $10suggested)
TALK: Hopefully, Liz Pelly’s new book Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist has already hit your radar. I think it is a massive work of journalism but also of the kind of advocacy on behalf of the emotional value of music that Dada Strain tries to espouse. I’ve got more on the meaning of that value, and on Mood Machine, to come. For now, go hear Pelly speak at the launch of her book, moderated Max Alper (aka La Meme Young). I checked Friday morning, and RSVPs were still open. (Tues 1/7, 7:30p @ St. Joseph’s University, Clinton Hill - FREE with RSVP)
I had no idea who the visual artist Flannery Silva was when I started researching the unknown-to-me acts booked for Union Pool’s great annual “Free Tuesday in January” shows. But Tinker Bell’s Cough, Silva’s debut full-length as F.G.S. is an absolute wonder: autotuned indie-rock country-pop full of softcore trash aesthetics, Liz Phair-meets-Chappell-Roan (via Judy Tenuta) feminist details, caringly detached Berman poesy, and hooks galore. Also: Marlon Dubois and Patch. (Tues 1/7, 7:30p @ Union Pool, Williamsburg - FREE)