Odds & Ends | Bklyn Sounds 4/3/2024—4/9/2024

The closing of a loft / Total solar eclipse & Laraaji / Important reads + Shows: Hudson Mohawke / Max Roach at 100 / Patricia Brennan / Marshall Trammell / The Cavemen / Mickey Perez's BeBop Poru / +

A few things floating around my brain and The Inbox this week, not enough for a longer piece, but important enough for a digest of lede Bklyn Sounds items. (This will probably happen more often in the future as I keep figuring out how to best use this space when there is not a “feature” worth writing.) 

Good Bye Light & Sound Design Loft

It was with a heavy heart that I read a note a few weeks ago about the closing of the Light & Sound Design (LSD) loft space in Greenpoint. I believe it held its final event this past weekend. I first learned of it as the location of the great Last Saturday Dance parties, then began hearing more and more live music there, basking in its wonderful Klipsch sound system, its heady programming (one crystal-clear version of rhythm-improvisation-community), enjoying its adult-DIY attitude towards hosting events. Last summer Dada Strain became one of the curators of its deep listening series, Present Sounds, producing shows by HxH, Kalia Vandever and Warp Duo, and Peter Zummo: Different Birds. 

Most of all, I enjoyed how much the folks at the loft — KG, Benji and Vincent — cared about the events they were creating and curating, always looking to make these experience fuller and more present, conscious of New York’s cultural history, and of how their project fit into the continuum, how it contributed to the notion of what the city’s culture is and could be. No one I knew who stepped foot in there had any other reaction but, “I want to come back.” (Each artist I booked there, did just that.) Every trip to LSD, you’d spot improvements to the space, physical and technological, hear new sounds, leave with new ideas. It was a place of possibility, and we were cooking up plans that will, unfortunately, need to find new homes.

In his closing missive, KG said that plans were afoot, but left it wide open. For New Yorkers who read Bklyn Sounds as the guide to the city’s DIY musicking culture its written to be, I suggest subscribing to the LSD newsletter and keeping up with KG and the Light & Sound Design team. I smell them as a future part of the solution, or involved in helping develop one - whatever that may be. Subscribe HERE. 

Thank you LSD!         

Totality 2024 with LARAAJI - A Community Eclipse Experience 

I was already sad not to be able to make it into the pathline of totality for Monday’s solar eclipse, when I began a dialogue with Matt Whyte. Matt’s a local musician and creator/host of Sing For Science, a podcast where musicians talk to scientists about science as it connects to their most music. Matt and I have friends in common and he is a Dada Strain subscriber, so he thought I’d be interested in knowing about a special musical event he was producing for the solar eclipse (along the pathline), and that I might be interested in inviting Dada Strain readers to it. He was right. 

Totality 2024 - A Community Eclipse Experience will take place on Monday, April 8th between noon and 8p at The G Lodge in Hannibal, NY, a village in Oswego County, 10 miles south of Lake Ontario, 35 miles northwest of Syracuse, and directly in the pathline of the total solar eclipse. The musical aspect of the show is a performance by Laraaji, solo renditions of his pieces “Sun Piano” and “Moon Piano.” And in the spirit of Sing For Science, Laraaji will also be in conversation about the eclipse, astronomy and music with Cornell University astrophysicist, Dr. Nikole Lewis. Other aspects of the day-long program include healing and wellness workshops, drumming seminars, and the chance to share in the eclipse with a full consort of like-minded freaks. Tickets are $30 (a recommended price, there is a NOTAFLOF option), but Matt has also offered Dada Strain readers a 20% discount code at online checkout, using the discount code DADA20.  If you are an Upstate New York subscriber, it might be a fun one.  

Dada Reads

For those who interested in another feed (God Bless You!), I’ve been using Dada Strain’s Substack Notes function to post reading and listening recommendations, all material related to the rhythm-improvisation-community outlook of this project. (No BS!) A couple of timely pieces I wanted to alert you to here and now:

• Abram Mamet, “Rhizome DC Announces Plans To Purchase a Building, Launches Community Financing Push” (Capital Bop 3/28/2024) - Not Bklyn-related, but directly impactful on how DIY music spaces can sustain. If you are not familiar with Washington DC’s Rhizome, it is a fantastic art-house/venue, and a key part of the city’s culture. Their buying a permanent spot would be a win for the national musicking community — and, of course, for DC.

• Zoë Beery, “How Much Fentanyl Is Actually in NYC’s Club Drugs?” (Hell Gate 4/1/2024) - An important read about both opioid epidemic, and drug panic. (Subscribe to Hell Gate, they do good sh*t.)

This Week’s Shows:

A collaborative program subtitled “Weaving Strands of Sound from Addis to Chicago,” that might answer the equation of AACM x Ethiopiques. The evening features an expanded version of cellist Tomeka Reid and double bassist Silvia Bolognesi’s Hear in Now group (bonus all-stars: violinist yuniya edi kwon and drummer Chad Taylor), in musical conversation with Qwanqwa, a supergroup of Ethiopian experimentalists. This could get great. (Wed 4/3, 8p @ Roulette, Downtown Bklyn - $25/$30)

DANCE! The Joyce Thater’s week-long contribution to the national Max Roach at 100 celebration. The trio of dance pieces set to the legendary drummer’s recordings include choreographer Ronald K. Brown and Arcell Cabuag applying the 1961 album Percussion Bitter Sweet to a work for Havana-based Malpaso Dance Company and Brown’s own EVIDENCE, A Dance Company. The streetdance storytelling troupe, Rennie Harris Puremovement, adapts “In The Dream/It’s Time,” a recording that mixes Roach’s music with the words of Martin Luther King Jr. And tap dancer Ayodele Casel performs to a series of duets between Roach and pianist Cecil Taylor. The program opens with Max Roach Live: Video Art by video artist Kit Fitzgerald, with footage from her decade-long collaboration with Roach, highlighting Roach's influence across artistic disciplines. Good tickets seem to still be available for all remaining performances. (Wed 4/3—Sun 4/7 various times @ Joyce Theater, Manhattan - $27-$82) 

The Brent Cordero & Peter Kerlin Group released my favorite local psyche-jazz record of 2023, and each time I play it out, people wanna know what it is. Thursday, the regular quartet, also featuring the inimitable Ryan Sawyer on drums and Dave “Smoota” Smith on trombone, will be augmented by Rob Smith on more percussion. It’s part of an excellently jammie Dot Dash-produced line-up, with space-drone savants Kahoutek, Philly chooglers Heavenly Bodies, and Names Divine, a new trio featuring Kendraplex, Carl Aagesen and Kalina Malyszko. (Thurs 4/4, 8p @ Hart Bar, Bushwick - $12/$15) 

Another excellent kinda-experimental but kinda-just-left-of-center bill of hard-playing and improvising smarties: Black Lazarus is a new “field folk” project uniting two great young talents, the vocalist Kyle Kidd and the guitarist Smith Taylor. They’re joined by a pair of next-level-player/thinker duos: bassoonist Joy Guidry playing with drummer Marshall Trammell, and violinist/electronics player Scott Li with the multi-instrumental composer Myles Ortiz Green. (Thurs 4/4, 8p @ Bar Sundown, Ridgewood - $12/$15) 

A great Thursday night dance that’s not Romance? With St. Vitus still closed, Andi Harriman’s Synthicide industrial-Italo-EBM textures visit the local neighborhood techno club, with the mighty Mike Servito as deep-space-acid wingman. File under: if Friday can start a little later… (Thurs 4/4, 11p @ Bossa Nova Civic Club, Bushwick - Free before 11p/$10)