Bklyn Sounds 4/17/2024—4/23/2024
This Week's Shows Include: Matt Mottel & Friends / Shabaka / 'Sade Night' / Masters at Work / Anthony Braxton & Wolf Eyes / Stefan Ringer / Testu Collective + Qasim Naqvi + Shara Lunon / much more
Starting Friday, I am out of service and out of town for a week-plus. And as per a tradition I initiated early, this means no feature but free listings.
So check out what’s going on in fair Gotham, go to a show you weren;t expecting to attend, and maybe become a paid subscriber. (There’s a couple of Dada Strain things happening in the near future that will make it even more worth your while.)
In the meantime, thank you for reading, listening, following and supporting.
This Week’s Shows:
Keyboardist (quite often, keytarist) Matt Mottel’s history of living and music-making in New York City is long and absolute. (Jesse Rifkin’s great recent interview has some details.) Mottel’s long-running duo Talibam! was a wonderful jazz-rock aside to peak hipster Williamsburg, and Matt has continued to work with an immense variety of players in the improvisation, rhythm, experimental and indie communities. Which is one reason his residency at The Stone this week doesn’t look much like any other in recent memory. Wednesday’s quintet includes local legends Yuko Otomo, Loren Connors and Daniel Carter; Thursday’s large ensemble sprawls from downtown laureates Peter Gordon and Ernie Brooks, to wonderful currents like Aquiles Navarro, Nicole Davis and Dave “Smoota” Smith; Friday’s trio with Cooper-Moore and Jean Carla Rodea promises next-level folk-electronics ingenuity; and best of all is Saturday’s nonet, a program titled “Parents in the Avant Garde: The ensemble performs the graphic scores of their children’s scribbles.” Intention and community doesn’t get better than that. Highest Recommendation! (Wed 4/17—Sat 4/20, 8:30p @ The Stone, New School, Manhattan - $20)
A curio for the literary who believe that Topdog/Underdog is one of the best theater pieces of the 21st century! I had no idea that Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks fronts a rock band, though after seeing this Sula & The Joyful Noise listing, and doing the due diligence, it seems they’ve been at it for a bit. (Here’s a 2018 single/EP, with definite Lucinda Williams vibes.) The bio described her six-piece as “booty-shaking, statement-making and mind-melting music.” One thing’s guaranteed: the lyrics will be interesting. (Thurs 4/18, 8p @ The Francis Kite Club, Manhattan - FREE)
No matter how many times 78 year-old Creative Music godhead Anthony Braxton joins Detroit’s experimental noise devil-head Wolf Eyes for a set — they’ve done it semi-regularly the past two decades — it will never not feel special and weird and push-the-right buttons about what musical collaboration could be like. They’re doing it again, this time in the kinda-formal confines of LPR, and the only guarantee is it’s gonna get loud. (Thurs 4/18, 8p @ Le Poisson Rouge, Manhattan - $25/$30)
John McSwain/Vacations’ Sade Night is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. It’s a party that started at the old Kinfolk 94 (same building as Gabriela for the recent arrivals) whose goal to celebrate Sade Adu (hits, b-sides/remixes, adjacencies) reached moments of hipster-meets-leftfield community often enough that it became a great space to see the excellent weirdos mix with the office-friend normies. (Sade is great like that!) McSwain is now LA-based and NYC Sade Night is a rarity, but a great option for a drink with pals, a slow dance to an old favorite, and a wonder of where it all goes next. (Thurs 4/18, 9:30p @ Black Flamingo, Williamsburg - FREE)
Debut performance by Parachute Quartet: Aquiles Navarro on trumpet, Mara Rosenbloom on EJI keyboard, Evan Crane on bass, and Leonid Galaganov on percussion. Galaganov writes, “We will play a few microtonal compositions made possible with the EJI keyboard, a new instrument that I've been developing for the past 2 years.” I trust these people to make it interesting. (Fri 4/19, 7:30p @ 2B & 2C, Manhattan - $20suggested)
Always honored to be asked to play tunes between great friends and musickers in a DIY-house-show environment. This evening is all about electronics and improvisation. So, should you come, you’ll get sets from Dan and Serena Testu Collective, a solo set from the incomparable Qasim Naqvi, and another from the vocalist/gear-builder/futurist Shara Lunon. And yes, also Dada Strain (DJ). (Fri 4/19, 8p @ Secret location, Crown Heights - $15-$20)
The ambient-techno producer/composer Keith Fullerton Whitman is at Ambient Church where he will be performing music from his all-too-secret classic, the 2002 album Playthroughs, with the help of cellist Kirin McElwain. Heavy environmental, layered digital feedback vibes, as much drone and mean-spirited-but-mellow shoegaze as “ambient.” Maybe more so… (Fri 4/19, 8p @ undisclosed church, Bklyn Heights - $40)
One of those still underappreciated house (-adjacent) DJs whom I shout-out every time he’s in town, all Atlanta’s Stefan Ringer basically needs for sh*t to truly pop off is an all-night-long slot, in a good room, with an engaged crowd. Gabriela will definitely provide both of the former, and potentially the latter. If you’re looking for moderately-sized, deep-concentration club-ass activation, this is a great punt! (Fri 4/19, 10p @ Gabriela, Williamsburg - $10)
If on the other hand, you are OK with a big warehouse in which to get your (potentially magical) house vibes, and you don’t mind doing so alongside about a thousand others, Kerri Chandler is bringing his forever-legend pedigree to Maspeth. (Fri 4/19, 10p @ Knockdown Center, Maspeth - $30) And if you’re willing to short-jump party-hop, the bill downstairs, in Basement’s nook-like Studio room — Analog Soul + Moma Ready + Toribio — is also no-filler. (Fri 4/19, 10:30p @ Basement, Maspeth - $25)
NYC Dancing Past, Present and Future Represent! Though maybe Masters at Work (Louie Vega and Kenny “Dope” Gonzalez) won’t appreciate being relegated to the past, especially as there’s apparently new music with Brian Jackson in the hopper, they did help define dancing in NYC for so many of us over the past 25+ years. So I mean it more as a thank you! Just as Team Love Injection B2B Toribio, who will open the evening as a tag-team, help define it for many of us now — and hopefully, for years to come. MAW advertising as playing a six-hour set. A potentially majik night I am gutted to miss. Highest Recommendation! (Though, fair warning, I don’t know the spot *at all*.) (Sat 4/20, 9p @ 96 Wythe, Williamsburg - $35-$50)
An excellent triple-bill of DIY-space experimentalism: Shara & Lesley Duo is a new electronic-gear-heavy project from two friends (and Bklyn Sounds faves), vocalist Shara Lunon and drummer Lesley Mok. Producer J. Mordechai makes a variety of twisted beats, heavy on glitch, noise and other elements that sound accident-infused. Plus, vocalist Alex Koi and cellist Kirin McElwain. (Mon 4/22, 7:30 @ Trans Pecos, Ridgewood - $10)
One of the “jazz not jazz” figures of the moment, Shabaka’s new post-saxophone album, Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace, really is all that and more, veering from delicate new age structures, to rap vocals, to sprawling synthesizer and electronic rhythm allegories. The gorgeous set I saw a couple of weeks ago in Knoxville featured a quietly intense quintet/sextet whose non-Shabaka focus kept landing on Ganavya Doraiswamy’s South Asian classical vocals. Pretty sure this will be the same band, but knowing all the guests on the record, don’t be suprised if one of those bold-face names makes an appearance. (Tues 4/23, 7p & 9:30p @ National Sawdust, Williamsburg - $40)