Bklyn Sounds 3/20/24—3/26/24

This Week's Shows: DJ Tara's 'UpBeat' / Nicole Mitchell residency / Kim Gordon's mini-festival / Ches Smith's Laugh Ash / Toribio + Photay + Shigeto / Kokoroko / 'Fiorucci made me hardcore' / more

Last week, I didn’t publish Bklyn Sounds for the first time since November of 2022. My apologies. The past month has found a good number of spinning Dada plates crash to the floor, as it’s become clear to me that even successful, long-term multi-tasking finds its limits. Balancing health (mental, physical, your own, your family’s, the world’s) with professional duties and bonus creative aspirations is all well and good, but what happens when the balance gets thrown off a bit, whether by hubris or by accident? 

On the very positive side, some of the plates “stuck the landing” just fine, and some of you were there to witness it. So a major thank you to everyone who came out to last Wednesday’s concert that Dada Strain co-presented with Mississippi Records at St. Mark’s Church on the Bowery that featured Thomas Feng performing the music of Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, a record release evening by sinonó, and a special set by Laraaji. It was a very special beyond-sold-out evening, and the confirmations keep coming. (I’ll have some photos up on Dada Strain IG over the next couple of days.)

And there’s much more in store, both in terms of additional events, and other developments in musicking. So I will need to figure out how to continue balancing all the things that I want to do here at Dada Strain and with Bklyn Sounds, because, well…I am excited with what is being built, and by the fact that folks keep signing up. (Remember that your paid subscription frees up some of that multi-tasking energy, so give if you can. But also, I am also thankful just to have you here.)

Tomorrow, I am on my way out of town, to Big Ears in Knoxville — and as is tradition, weeks that I am out-of-town the listings are free. So read the below and go see some live music. And if you happen to be at Big Ears, and cross my path, please say hello.

Thank you for reading, listening, following and supporting.

This Week’s Shows:             

Drummer Ches Smith’s new Laugh Ash band is an extraordinary contraption. Its brand new album, one of the year’s best, is an organic mix of large ensemble playing and electronic rhythm, a jazz-adjacent narrative that’s also as far away from traditional jazz-song storytelling as will allow. The sheer all-star line-up of of folks playing alongside Smith — Shara Lunon (voice, processing), Anna Webber (flute), Oscar Noriega (clarinets), James Brandon Lewis (tenor saxophone), Nate Wooley (trumpet), Jennifer Choi, Kyle Armbrust, Michael Nicolas (strings), Shahzad Ismaily (bass, keyboards) — should be enough to stir an interest. But their unified expansiveness is really why you should run, not walk towards this music. Highest Recommendation. (Wed 3/20, 8p @ Roulette, Downtown Bklyn - $25/$30)

London’s Afrobeat-is-jazz queens and kings, Kokoroko, finally arrive in the U.S. a full four years after they were initially scheduled to. (How has it been that long since lockdown?) Over the prolonged absence, the octet led by trombonist Sheila Maurice-Gray and saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi have become stars in the UK, with one excellent album, plus numerous singles, EPs and remixes garnering awards and critical praise. Long-awaited is not hyperbole. (Wed 3/20, 8p & 10:45p @ Le Poisson Rouge, Manhattan - $22/$25)

Being away this weekend makes me indescribably bummed to miss Nicole Mitchell’s residency at The Stone. As flute fever grips the nation, listening to Mitchell play the instrument in various circumstances — she is a canny, deep improviser (a one-time chairwoman of the AACM); can play straight-ahead and funk; and beyond comfortable amidst electronic or abstract rhythm ideals — is a joyful highmark of woodwind craft. Her incredible supporting cast this week includes local legends (Pheeroan Aklaff, Cooper Moore) and great young performers (vocalist Anais Maviel, pianist Samuel Boateng). And on Friday, she’s in a trio with the city’s great free-swinging bass'n drum section, Luke Stewart and Tcheser Holmes. Please go in my stead. (Wed 3/20 - Sat 3/23, 8:30p @ The Stone, New School, Manhattan - $20)

BOOK TALK: Published in late 2023, Black Punk Now is an anthology of writing and visuals edited by James Spooner, the filmmaker behind the scene-defining Afro-Punk, and the novelist Chris L. Terry. The evening’s reading and discussion will include both editors, as well as Black Rock Coalition founder and Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid, one of New York’s great punk standard-bearers and DIY-musickers Honeychild Coleman, and the author Marian Stovall. (Thurs 3/21, 6:30p @ Center For Fiction, Downtown Bklyn - FREE with registration)

The excellent Make Jazz Trill Again podcast presents a lovely double-bill of experimental Afro-funk, spiritual and political improvisation. Lady Moon & The Eclipse is a bicoastal vocal trio (“Lady” Ngonda Badila, backed by Ntangou and Nkoula Badila) paired with a rhythm-heavy quartet, on a transcendent quest full of great songs that push souls and brains towards dancefloor-powered change. The other act is trumpeter Chris Williams’ Neighbors of Fire quartet, made up of Bklyn’s heaviest players, vocalist-keyboardist Amirtha Kidambi, bassist Luke Stewart and drummer Jason Nazary.  (Thurs 3/21, 7p @ The Sultan Room, Bushwick - $20)

While I know it’s got cult devotees, I personally find Ambient Church a hit-and-miss experience — the hits coming when extraordinary talents work the visuals or provide the music, not overly precious but with just enough purpose to the aesthetic endeavor. South Korean family band Tengger, a drone-heavy kosmische psychedelic trio whose melodic progressions aren’t all that far away from ambient-pop, fits the bill perfectly. Mutating trails in an ornate spiritual environment seems the perfect juxtaposition. (Fri 3/22, 8p @ undisclosed church in Chelsea, Manhattan - $40)

After getting too big for the wonderful basement at Black Flamingo, Toribio’s Bring Dat Ass bacchanal begins a new adventure at H0LO in Ridgewood. Long may it shake. For opening night, Cesar is bringing in brother Photay from upstate, and brother Shigeto from Detroit. All three are great drummers and electronic percussionists on top of being excellent DJs, maybe there will be some bonus beats on top of the sweat. (Fri 3/22, 10p @ H0LO, Ridgewood - $25-$30)

This new Kim Gordon album, The Collective, is…ooooweee. Try ageism-ing this, MFers. Heavy noise-informed writing, abstract and muted trap beats, a casual insight into popular culture and art that’s been unforgiving and laser-focused since at least 1985. And for the NYC stop of the album tour, Kim is essentially throwing a one-night festival with an incredible bill: supported by Kelsey Lu + L’Rain + Bill Nace & Circuits des Yeux Duo, as well as Full Size + Matt Krefting (whom I am not familiar with). Experimental music (non-) crossover dreams! (Sat 3/23, 7p @ Knockdown Center, Maspeth - $45) 

As I have written on occasion, DJ Tara is one of my favorite musickers in Bklyn, not just a great DJ of the song-oriented house-R&B-global-beats side, but somebody with a great barometer for the city’s nightlife, especially what’s good and what’s needed. In addition to her excellent monthly Sunday morning show on The Lot, Tara has been producing a more dance-oriented broadcast for Soho Radio called Upbeat, and has been looking to transform its vibe into a Black Bklyn dance-party closer to her home enclave in Central BK. Anything on Rogers Ave. is the site of the launch, a cozy (but not small) backroom with lots of flavor. The music and mixing is guaranteed. (Sat 3/23, 9p @ Anything, Prospect-Lefferts - FREE)

Closing out this weekend’s Nowadays Nonstop are the mighty homeys, Brandon and Craig musclecars, who are, for my money, the most consistent purveyors of the deep, jazzy, global house journeys that Bklyn’s seen the past few years. They anchor the non-stop party, taking over at 6p and going til…? These are two DJs who make open-ended seem like a whole other story — maybe more than one. So strap in. (Sun 3/24, 6p @ Nowadays, Ridgewood - $20-22.50 (after noon prices))  

FILM: The local multi-disciplinary arts magazine Triple Canopy is curating a fourth edition of its Standard Deviations film series at BAM, filled with lotsa great work of the archival, largely unseen and art-film varieties. The title of Tuesday’s program, “Work It: Video Art on Club Culture,” should be self-explanatory: three recent pieces at the intersection of raving, electronic music and society — Tony Cokes’ SM BNGRZ 1, 2, and 3, Aleksandra Domanovic’s 19:30, and Total Refusal’s Club Stahlbad — followed by one stone-cold classic, Mark Leckey’s Fiorucci made me hardcore, which you can find on YouTube of course, but I can guarantee seeing it in a crowd will be way more fun. (Tues 3/26, 7p @ BAM Cinemas, Downtown Bklyn - $16)

The great folks from Brooklyn Maqam return to their Sisters monthly for a special hang: an evening on which Sami Abu Shumays sings the songs of Umm Kulthum, the legendary “Voice of Egypt.” Shumays is a world-renowned violinist of Arabic music, who wrote the book on the subject, Inside Arabic Music: Arabic Maqam Performance and Theory in the 20th Century. He calls Kulthum “my idol,” which makes sense as she possessed one of the century’s great and most influential voices, not just in the Arab world, but around the globe. Abu promises “several of her long songs in their entirety — ‘Sirt il-Hubb’ and ‘Huwa Sahih il-Hawa Ghallab’ — along with a few other short songs.” A rare treat, followed by the Maqam community’s regular Arabic music jam. (Tues 3/26, 8p @ Sisters, Clinton Hill - $20)