Bklyn Sounds 4/9/2025—4/15/2025
This week's events include L'Rain + Armand Hammer + OHYUNG / Nels Cline Consentrik Quartet / more eaze & claire rousay / Tomin duo / 'Public Service' fundraiser / 'Assembly' / much more
THIS WEEK’S SHOWS:
Arts for Art’s Free Dimension Wednesday weekly continues with a night curated by the New York-born and -raised saxophonist Alfredo Colón. For me, the attractions are a pair of duos: Alcove, Colon’s project with Hank Mason on electronics, and the Tomin Duo, wherein the great Bklyn reeds/horns/woodwinds player locks in with Chicago keyboardist (and his “right arm”) Teiana Davis. Also: keyboardist Jonathan Paik’s Trio with guitarist Kai Burns and drummer Max Nguyen. (Wed 4/9, 7p @ Nublu Classic, Manhattan - $20)
Bassist Stephan Crump and an all-star brass+strings+vibraphone sextet perform music from one of my 2024 albums, Crump’s Slow Water. This pastoral body of work was inspired by Erica Gies’ book Water Always Wins and “the movement to redefine how we live with water in an era of rapid change.” Compositions of emergent strategy, the sounds of beauty. Highest Recommendation! (Wed 4/9, 8p @ Roulette, Downtown Bklyn - $25adv/$30)
Talk Show is a new (low-key local all-stars) trio that includes trumpeter Steph Richards (Henry Threadgill, Laurie Anderson), drummer/electronics composer Qasim Naqvi (Dawn of MIDI) and guitarist Brandon Ross (Threadgill again, Harriet Tubman) and promises to “explore resonant frequencies and physics juju.” Also playing the highly lauded vocalist and music academic, Leila Adu. (Thurs 4/10, 8p @ The Owl, Prospect-Lefferts - $15suggested)
Chicago pianist Alexis Lombre’s FourOneOne residency continues in an all-star trio setting, with drummer Terri Lyne Carrington and bassist Endea Owens. (Read more on Lombre’s bonafides, and FourOneOne’s inventive residency program in last week’s write-up.) (Fri 4/11, 7p @ Drom, Manhattan - $15adv/$20) Related: there will a conversation, entitled “Outside the Measure: Intersectionality in Black Jazz Space,” with Alexis and Terri Lyne, on Saturday afternoon. (Sat 4/12, 2p @ CARA, Manhattan - FREE)
A massive gathering of NYC live hardware at a reasonable hour, at the best little private loft space in North Bklyn. Hopefully, Sweater On Polo’s sweaty, all-gear work-outs are already known to you. (If not, what you waiting for?) Eden Aurelius does massive things with ambient-dub and downbeat vibes. Lebanese-American producer Solpara released a nice album on Nicolas Jaar’s Other People label last year. And Päascal is veteran NYC producer/digital imagineer Peter Wiley. DJ support from Gunnar&Luke, Beat Detectives and YRZ. (Fri 8p @ Light & Sound Design Studio, Greenpoint - $20-$30)
The second of the ambitious three-night Picture a Wave series “explor[ing] sound and light” is its best front-to-back bill, with three next-level Bklyn artists, currently at the top of their games. L’Rain is the city’s most in-form experimental rock band, though that tag might be limiting given the breadth of their musical purview and how emotionally on-point Taja Cheek’s songwriting is. Armand Hammer are my favorite MCs currently working in the city (and cornerstone to the whole Backwoodz project). And OHYUNG, who just dropped the crucial You Are Always On My Mind, is at that very-2025 intersection of making melodic downbeat tracks that sound like pop, as well as avant-garde, machines+synths experiments. Highest Recommendation! (Fri 4/11, 8:30p @ 99 Scott, Bushwick - $34)
Mister Saturday Night/Mister Sunday co-founder Justin Carter has been having a fine time slowly moving out of the safety zone of Nowadays, helming the Planetarium nights and increasingly doing solo DJ sets. Justin’s selections go deep, and run the gamut for rhythmic weirdness factors, which makes him a good bet as someone to helm a Musicland all-nighter. (Fri 4/11, 11p @ Musicland, Bushwick - $35 w/RSVP)
Another excellent group of underground rhythm merchants at LSD early Saturday! aka-Sol is Sol León, an NYC-residing Ecuadoran producer, whose modular techno 12” on Bliss Point has been a steady fave through early 2025. The Korean multidisciplinary artist Nema Hän is León’s partner in DJ SYNCLAIRE, and together they’re “adept in weaving disparate sonic elements into poetic, psychedelic tapestries.” Resident Fuge is “back from carnaval in Bahia [to] set the vibe for the night.” (Sat 4/12, 6p @ Light & Sound Design Studio, Greenpoint - $25-$35)
A top top bill of electronics, improvisation and experimentalism. Trumpet player Sarah Belle Reid is in a duet with modular synthesist and conguero Gladstone Deluxe, whose multi-directional music I am becoming a little obsessed with. The mighty ambient-techno producer Russell E.L. Butler is playing a live hardware set. PixelTongue is a multimedia duo of producer Christian Quiñones and vocalist Charlotte Mundy. And Tó Ara features Mira MIra and Mobey Lola Irizarry, mixing synths, hand-drums, and anti-colonialist manifestos. (Sat 4/12, 7p @ Trans-Pecos, Ridgewood - $15adv/$20)
Duane Harriott is one of the great New York musickers of the past three decades, influential as a record store clerk (he did a lot of the electronic/dance music buying at Other Music), radio DJ (WFMU’s Duane Train show), and party producer (as one-third of the mighty Negroclash). Harriott’s solo DJ gigs are rarer now, but Saturday night in the neighborhood hits the spot just right! (Sat 4/12, 9p @ Sisters, Fulton Street - FREE)
You know summer is not far off if DJs Toribio and Mickey Perez, and the Karlala Sound System, are making Public Service noises again. Public Service is, of course, the roving, Bklyn-parks summer jam that over the past few years has established itself as the best way to spend a hot afternoon dancing with friends. Once again, the producers are throwing a pre-season fundraiser party to pay for all the upcoming summertime activities. This is one of the city’s great DIY dance-music series. Please give what you can. Highest Recommendation! (Sun 4/13, 4p @ El Puente Community Center, Williamsburg - $20suggested)
No Floor, the third (or is it fourth?) collaboration between the mighty multi-instrumentalists/sound investigators, claire rousay & more ease, is another contemporary marker of American noise ambiance. The two ex-Texans have always had one hand on the nation’s sonic roots, and another buried in its inherent absurdism, dual hallmarks of great American experimentalists from Charles Ives to Gene and Dean Ween. If this, their widest release (thanks to Thrill Jockey) seems a little less laugh-tracky and more sweeping, maybe it’s because the times call for a morose music full of fading light. Tonight’s performance celebrates No Floor. Highest Recommendation! (Sun 4/13, 8p @ Roulette, Downtown Bklyn - $25adv/$30)
Excellent oddball triple-bill of noisy local instrumentalists at the relocated Baker Falls (now in the former Rockwood Music Hall space). Animal, Surrender! is the duo of bassist Peter Kerlin and drummer Gary Smith, making ambient psychedelia. Earthen Sea is the solo ,dub-informed work of Jacob Long (of reunited harDCore heroes, Black Eyes). And guitarist Alan Licht is the mayor of LES noise. (Sun 4/13, 7p @ Baker Falls, Manhattan - $10)
Nels Cline’s Consentrik Quartet is the veteran guitarist’s latest attempt at gathering left-of-center improvisers to conjure music both jazz-heads and progressive-rock folks could lose themselves in. Par for a musician who’s been equally comfortable playing Julius Hemphill’s music and Jeff Tweedy’s. Here, playing alongside three contemporary-NYC greats—saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, bassist Chris Lightcap and drummer Tom Rainey—the music shifts from spiritual Americana soundscapes, to swinging jazz-dance, heady pulse forever intact. Highest Recommendation! (Mon 4/14, 7:30p @ Le Poisson Rouge, Manhattan - $25-$35)
Normally, a free duet gig featuring Miles Okazaki and Bill Frisell, two of the great guitarists in contemporary jazz, feels like a no-brainer. But heading up to Columbia University for cultural programming in April 2025 is a difficult proposition. No doubt, the music will be great — potentially (hopefully!) even contemplative of what is happening on campus and in the country — but how would you feel? Would you go? Just leaving it here… (Tues 4/15, 6p @ Miller Theatre, Columbia University - FREE)
Massive line-up for the return of the Lester St. Louis and Luke Stewart-curated new music monthly, Assembly. There’s the arch conceptualist Mobey Lola Irizarry, cornerstone of the trans salsa band Las Marquitas, one-half of electronic rhythms and political poetry duo Tó Ara, and central to the performance art piece Dendarry Bakery. (That’s just the projects I’ve seen.) The mighty Amirtha Kidambi and Stewart are performing in a duo. And then there’s a trio featuring St. Louis, Ava Mendoza and a special guest. Your DJ selector for the night is Wendy Eisenberg. Community vibes strong with this one. (Tues 4/15, 8p @ Sisters, Fulton Street - $15-$20)
MORE RECOMMENDED EVENTS:
Val Jeanty: Resonant Ritual (Wed 4/9, 8p @ Issue Project Room, Downtown Bklyn - FREE) - solo drums performance by the “Electro-Vodou” sound-chemist
Ben Shirken with Madeline Stepien + Dorothy Carlos (Thurs 4/10, 7p @ Intercom, Ridgewood - $15) - 29 Speedway co-founder Shirken (aka Ex Wiish) is celebrating the release of a new album HD Reliquary, with help from sound-artist/electronics composer Stepien and cellist Carlos’ the evening doubles as the opening of the art show Divagation with Pavel Milyakov and MIZU.
Mogwai (Thurs 4/10, 7:30p @ Brooklyn Steel, East W’burg - $$$) - the great Scottish post-rock emo-noise plunderers return to NYC.
Interpretations: Anthony Davis, Earl Howard, Gerry Hemingway, Kyle Motl (Thurs 4/10, 8p @ Roulette, Downtown Bklyn - $20) - 35th season of Roulette’s new compositions and improvisations series, kicks off with the renewing of a long partnership between Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Davis and saxophonist/synth player Howard leading a quartet.
Ende Tymes 15 (Thurs 4/10, 8p @ Pioneer Works, Red Hook + Fri 4/11, 8p & Sat 4/12, 6p @ TV Eye, Ridgewood - $25-$30 per night) - the “Festival of Noise and Sonic Liberation” marks its 15th anniversary with an opening program in Red Hook, and two evenings in Ridgewood, all of them loud and extreme.
Jason Moran: Ellington in Focus (Fri 4/11, 8p @ Apollo Theater, Uptown - $$$$) - the mighty pianist tackles the Duke’s songbook in the historic Harlem theatre.
Tape Hiss (Fri 4/11, 7:30p @ Ki-Smith Gallery, Manhattan - $20) - a multi-generational crew of Downtown all-stars and lifers tackle the great NYC songbook.
Outline: Explosions In The Sky + múm + Mabe Fratti ++ (Sat 4/12, 6p @ Knockdown Center, Maspeth - $$$$) - the second Outline festival bill includes re-emergence from the platinum post-rock emo group that made their name on the Friday Night Lights score, and Iceland’s magnificent ambient glitch-pop quartet, plus the Guatemalan avant-garde vocalist/cellist Fratti.
HxH listening party (Sat 4/12, 8p @ Public Records Upstairs, Gowanus - FREE) - with Stark Phenomena, Chris Williams and Lester St. Louis have made a wonderful warm ambient album, come listen to it on a monster hi-fi.
SHAKE!: Monk-One x DJ Prestige feat. Saucy Lady (Sat 4/12, 10p @ Friends & Lovers, Crown Heights - $5 w/RSVP before 11p/$10) -
Dan Bell (Sun 4/13, 3p @ Public Records, Gowanus - $20) - Sunday afternoon in the Atrium with, among others, Bell, a second-wave-of-Detroit-techno minimalist whose morning/afternoon sets bang hard!
Tati Au Miel + Centennial Gardens (Sun 4/13, 7p @ Trans-Pecos, Ridgewood - $12-$18 NOTAFLOF) - record release show for Montreal digital-hardcore assassin’s deluxe edition, also features the massive duo of Dreamcrusher and King Vision Ultra. Earplugs recommended.
Sweet World (Mon 4/14, 8:30p @ Lowlands, Gowanus - $uggested) - the magnificent trio of Kenny Warren (trumpet/composer), Christopher Hoffman (cello) and Nathan Ellman-Bell (drums) plays romantic jazz music that’s not usually my bag, but in thai case…
Michael Foster, Sandy Ewen, Eli Wallace & Lisa Cameron ++ (Mon 4/14, 7:30p @ 360 Record Shop, Red Hook - $uggested) - DIY improvised quartet, featuring drummer Cameron (visiting from ATX), plus the hardcore locals, saxophonist Foster, electric guitarist Ewen and pianist Wallace.
Dance Clarinets Jazz Orchestra Play the Music of Oliver Lake, James "Jabbo" Ware and Julius Hemphill + special guest OLIVER LAKE reading his poetry (Tues 4/15, 7:30p @ Greenwich House Music School, Manhattan - $TK) - part of an excellent, three-part Black Composers Upsouth, the orchestra consists of 12 bass clarinets and a piano