Bklyn Sounds: 3/7/2023 - 3/13/2023 + "Brackish"

"Brackish Brooklyn Video Fest (a Tribute to jaimie branch)" / "Rewind & Play" / Tara Aisha Willis & Damon Locks / Black Rave Culture / Ryley Walker, J.R. Bohannon & Ryan Sawyer Trio / Cities Aviv... +

I first learned about the music and arts collective Brackish, from jaimie branch in 2019. I do not know how long she’d been involved with them by that point, but she told me Brackish was producing shows around the corner from my home in Gowanus, so one autumn evening I stood outside St. Lydia’s Dinner Church on Bond Street, listening to a variety of folks make an oddball racket in front of a small but deeply attentive, mixed-gender crowd, many of whom seemed like friends and other performers. Once the “pandemic > lockdown > protests-and-performances” era had kicked off, the Brackish Instagram became one of the places to find out about shows on random Red Hook street corners, in Prospect Park vales, on Greenpoint church steps. It was heartening to see so many of the same artist names in various configurations, making radically different types of music (let’s call it DIY creative music), often augmented by poetry and dance, sometimes even joined by other musicking folks I’d known for a while. Whatever I imagined a local forward-thinking music community to be, here it was in action.

By late 2020, jaimie had told me that she was working on Brackish with the multi-instrumentalist Angela Morris (whose name I now recognized from flyers and outdoor shows), and later with the vocalist Starr Busby. One of the quarantine-era projects Brackish took on was a video festival, which they collaborated on with Chicago’s great Experimental Sound Studio (ESS), a similarly minded DIY community arts and media hub, heavy on creative music vibes. The first video presentation, in December of 2020, was a set of “Quarantine Concerts,” which featured some of Brooklyn and Chicago’s many great improvising talents. The second, in early Spring 2022, was more art-show contributions, slivers of make-it-up-as-you-go chapters of life, homespun devices to keep on keepin’ on — lo-fi films, livestream’d performances from kitchens and empty clubs and bedrooms and parks, voice and dance recitals in rehearsal studios, most adorned with strange personal visual. But these lo-fi broadcasts also quietly demanded the audience follow suit. It’s hard to put into words how much this work relayed a small-scale but sturdy hope that much of social existence at the time simply could not offer. 

For me, this Brackish work — the collaborative, community “we’re alive!!!” work — embodied jaimie branch’s spirit almost as much as her own music, and it made a permanent impfression on Dada Strain. When I finally met Angela Morris and spoke with her at Breezy’s homegoing at Pioneer Works in September, Morris told me a wonderful short anecdote about first meeting jaimie, and how quickly branch took to the job at hand. “She said, ‘I wanna help, what can I do?’” said Morris laughing-crying, as we all were on the night. “But then she came back, and she helped and she worked. Who does that nowadays?”   

And so, it’s no surprise that Thursday’s Third Brackish Video Fest, the first one that will be done not only as a livestream (on ESS), but as a watch party at the 360 Record Shop in Red Hook, will be a benefit for the jaimie branch Foundation. As usual, this year’s program is heavy with music from beloved Brooklyn locals whose gigs I plug here weekly. There’s also a few jaimie branch performances that spotlight her collaborative spirit — with Anteloper drummer Jason Nazary, Fly or Die bassist Jason Ajemian, mutlimedia artist Rose Tang, videographer Kim Alpert, and songwriter/sonic wiz Helado Negro. There will be incredible live documents, like the night from November when Alpert generated an immense visual environment behind Nazary and Lester St. Louis at Bar Laika. There will be special solo moments from Morris, St. Louis and vocalist Fay Victor; and numerous other treats. Weather permitting <knocks on wood> it’s gonna be a great community hang. As it should be.

(Brackish Brooklyn Video Fest III - a Tribute to jaimie branch, Thurs 3/9, 9p @ 360 Record Shop 360 Van Brunt St., Red Hook - $10-20 suggested donation)