Bklyn Sounds 7/3/2024—7/9/2024
This Week's Shows include Sister Nancy / Deon Jamar + LadyMonix / Camila Nebbia & Marta Sanchez / Ezra Collective / 'Universal Lessons' / Lesley Mok / 'Fourth World' / Rogê / and much more
I’m out of town so the paywall stays down. More to come. Have a great long weekend.
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This Week’s Shows:
Bklyn rooftop disco-rock double-bill to kick-off the long weekend: The ladies of 79.5, Kate Mattison and Lola Adanna, retain their class, last year’s self-titled LP remains on the turntable, and, as expected, continues to age well via its precise songwriting. Scotch Mist is a trio whose vibe veers towards the Balearic psyche-pop if you possess one set of ears, or towards filter-happy yacht-rock if you hear differently. The forever-rocksteady Miss Hap will be on the 1s and 2s throughout. (Wed 7/3, 7p @ Elsewhere Rooftop, Bushwick - $20)
A Sweater on Polo live hardware set at the local techno corner bar, to kick off the long weekend? Yes please. Seriously, I can’t recommend young Mali Mase’s deep, live, largely improvised treks enough. Bonus: top-notch local techno upstart Devoye is billed as playing an “electro set.” Also spinning: Rob Seurat, Jenny G and Zarni. (Wed 7/3, 8p @ Bossa Nova Civic Club, Bushwick - FREE before 11p/$10)
Lesley Mok’s greatness is beginning to spill out of simplistic confines. Widely and globally admired as a sinuous drummer—with pianist Myra Melford’s Fire and Water Quintet, and with their solo 2023 album, The Living Collection, winning the German Jazz award for “International Debut Album of the Year”—Mok has also been mixing rhythm with electronics locally and intimately (playing as the duo Scratch, with Shara Lunon; and in the trio Passenger/Vehicle). Their holiday-shortened residency at The Stone includes a little of each: Wednesday debuts an exciting trio, alongside two other electronics-minded improvisers, cellist Lester St. Louis and keyboardist Craig Taborn. Friday sees a gig by History Dog, Mok’s quartet with vocalist Lunon, trumpeter Chris Ryan Williams and bassist Luke Stewart. Then Saturday, a lush octet performs music from Mok’s Collection. (Wed 7/3, Fri 7/5—Sat 7/6, 8:30p @ The Stone, New School, Manhattan - $20)
Camila Nebbia is an Argentine tenor saxophonist and free improviser who lives in Berlin, whose practice finds her veering from wild solo textures and electronic excursions, to melodic lines structured with odd wonders. Nebbia’s around NYC for the better part of July, playing in a few interesting groupings featuring like-minded compadres. Notably, on July 4th, there’s a duo gig with pianist Marta Sanchez whose own tradition-minded attack is often augmented by outward-bound flights. (Thurs 7/4, 8p @ Barbés, Park Slope - $20suggested). Monday, Camila joins a potentially great quintet, with pianist Santiago Leibson, bassist Kenneth Jimenez, CDMX-based flutist Camilo Angeles, and Red Hook’s drumming/musicking cornerstone, Kevin Murray. (Mon 7/8, 8p @ 360 Record Shop, Red Hook - $10-$20suggested)
Philly-born Bklynite Planet B (aka DJ Bruce) has become a ubiquitous presence on the NYC decks the past 5-6 years, playing deep soulful dance music—though I first stumbled upon B’s name through his occasional label, Bumpin’ Somethin’, whose initial release was the excellent debut by the mighty Malik Hendricks, a great touchstone for B’s own sound. In the last year, he’s stepped up his appearances, and Bruce is now among the residents at Jupiter Disco. Tonight features special guest Veblen Defect (fka Sophia MA). (Thurs 7/4, 6p @ Jupiter Disco, Bushwick - $8-$10)
UPSTATE: Universal Lessons is a dance-music weekender put together by some of my favorite people, musicians and musicking entities in Brooklyn, Barbie and Paul Love Injection, and Brandon and Craig musclecars, with deep involvement from Cesar Toribio. All are names you’ve seen in this column over and over — not because they’re all people I’m very friendly with (full disclosure: I am), but because of the quality of their individual and collective work, and how it informs Dada Strain’s social and communal intentions. Last summer, when I finally attended Universal Lessons, which takes place in a stand-alone building bar with a solid soundsystem, adjacent to an upstate bed-and breakfast, I experienced some of the most fun-meets-meaningful all-night dancing and DJing I’ve engaged in a while. Some of it was on me. Most of it was on them, and the people who gathered. Universal Lessons also features daytime pool DJs, many of whom you’ve also seen listed here, and a very chill but focused vibe, contemplative of how to take this energy forward. For this listing, Highest Recommendation almost doesn’t seem enough. (Thurs 7/4—Sat 7/6, noon til ??? @ Glen Falls House, Round Top, NY - $20-$100suggested)
Though not even a year old, Ridgewood’s Dada Cafe is growing an interesting improvised-electronic-whatever music community around it. Dada Orchestr, conducted by On Ka'a Davis, a guitarist who’s played with the likes of the Arkestra, Butch Morris, Donald Ayler and William Parker, is the occasional community band, and has previously included keyboardist Jason Lindner, drummer Mohamed Kubbara and board-man Kevin Ramsey in its steed. (Fri 7/5, 9p @ Dada Bar, Ridgewood - $TK)
This is an exceptional, four-strong bill of queer femme selectors—DJ Haram, Bergsonist, battygyal and 8ULENTINA—pushing experimental noise, boom-bap, Middle Eastern and bashment soundsystem culture, alongside theory and globalized political points of view. The party is called Sillage, a word I had to look up; it’s French for “wake,” as in the wake of a ship in the water. In the perfume world, it refers to the scent trail that a perfume leaves behind as it evaporates. Incredible name and prompt for an event. (Fri 7/5, 10p @ Mood Ring, Bushwick - FREE with RSVP before 11p/$11)
Fourth World is an annual day/night-long, rave-style warehouse jam that smashes together hardcore techno/dance music, with artists from various experimental music wings. But, really, it’s just a wonderful, extreme art-happening with loud, pummeling music, a queer-heavy and radical community energy, that’s been going for a decade, and is dedicated to a non-commercial way of presenting culture and society. Highest Recommendation but definitely scroll down and read the manifesto to understand what you’re getting into. (Sat 7/6, 3p @ East Williamsburg Rave Corridor, Bklyn - $50-$90)
Situation Dance is a party started by insanely gifted London drummer Femi Koleoso (Ezra Collective) to create a dancefloor based on Black London’s great diaspora sounds: “Salsa | Fela Kuti Meets Afrobeats | Soca | UK Funky | UK Garage | Dancehall | Lovers Rock” (in the words of the poster). Tonight’s Situation Dance #5 coincides with Koleoso’s band’s appearance in NYC, so this feels a treat, but also an unknown. Certainly, the venue’s perfect for it! Also spinning Khalil. (Sat 7/6, 10p @ Friends & Lovers, Crown Heights - $5-$10)
As a DJ, Detroit’s Deon Jamar is one of the best of that city’s next-generation selectors, a pace-setter and recognizer of moments; in the handful of times I’ve had the pleasure to hear him go long, it’s been, by turns, relaxed and intense, filled with recognition and discovery. As a producer, Jamar recently dropped one of my favorite albums of the year, the dub-house-heavy Altars. Pretty much all the same can also be said of LadyMonix (Monica Frizner), whose house DJing style may outwardly be a bit more straightforward, but whose control and power of a dancefloor is a wonder; and whose recent recorded collab with Waajeed as House of Hits, is a monster. At Public Records, they’re surrounded by a killer crew of Detroit and Bklyn DJs: Jamar with Thomas Xu and Shawn Dub in the Sound Room; and LadyMonix with Cosmo in the Atrium. Kels, of the Det>Bklyn Maneater Dance party, plays upstairs. Highest Recommendation! (Sat 7/6, 11p @ Public Records, Gowanus - $20-$30)
The summer holiday weekend versions of Tiki Disco, the long-running steam-rolling dance party courtesy of Eli Escobar, DJ Lloyd and Andy Pry, always hits a little bit differently. There’s more people, both knowing and unknowing, which makes for a chaotic energy that’s about partying that’s not necessarily dancing. It’s interesting: if Fourth World continually tries to radically reimagine what large scale social dance can be, Tiki Disco is a reassurance that the traditional form is plenty inclusive, and renegade notions aren’t always required. On any given day, I think both ideas are true. (Sun 7/7, 2p @ Ruins at Knockdown Center, Maspeth - FREE before 5p/$TK)
Now the popular face of the UK’s jazz-beat scene, Ezra Collective, drummer/bandleader Femi Koleoso, bassist TJ Koleoso, keyboardist Joe Armon-Jones, trumpeter Ife Ogunjobi, and tenor saxophonist James Mollison, return to NYC as Mercury Prize winners, with their biggest album, Dance, No One’s Watching, on the horizon. But also with something to prove. After the success of Yussef Dayes’ Black Classical Music and the flurry of his sold-out shows here (including a rammed Summerstage a couple of weeks ago), it really does feel like the London sound’s moment simply needs another participant. Will it be Ezra? Opening is Celeste and Da Chick DJ spinning before/between/after. (Sun 7/7, 6p @ Rumsey Playfield, Central Park - FREE)
25 years in, Federation Sound is one of New York’s longest running and most respected reggae concerns, so big that at one point Rihanna hired its co-founder, Max Glazer, as her DJ/musical director. Hence its Silver Jubilee, in a Coney Island amphitheater, features an astonishing cross-generational cast of Jamaican singing talent: Sister Nancy, Tanto Metro & Devonte, Tifa, Mr. Lexx, Red Fox & Screechy Dan and more. A must for some of you - many more of you if Sunday is beach weather. (Sun 7/7, 5p @ Coney Island Amphitheater, Coney Island - FREE)
The main reason this gig of three relatively unknown artists caught my eye is Smith Taylor, a solo project by blues/soul-tinged guitarist and recent arrival from Cleveland, Braxton Marbury, who is also one-half of the wonderful Black Lazarus, with the incredible vocalist Kyle Kidd. In Black Lazarus performances, Taylor’s playing splits the difference between deep blues tradition and artful airyness. Here we find out what he’s like on his own? The rest of the bill is curious as well: Butterfly Alchemy is a new electronic band of noted score composer, producer and vocalist Anjali Rose; and Midi Neutron is melodic electronics from Tokyo-transplant, Rikitaro Suzuki. (Sun 7/7, 7:30p @ C’Mon Everybody, Bed-Stuy - $12)
Back in Rio, 49 year-old singer-guitarist Rogê is a popular samba/Música Popular Brasileira practitioner with Latin Grammy nominations, grooves and tunes galore. He’s spending a lot of time in the States at the moment—in Los Angeles, where he recorded the exquisite samba-funk album, Curyman—and over the weekend you can catch him at Lincoln Center as part of Brasil Summerfest. But Monday he’s playing in the intimate confines of Barbés, which feels like a pretty special gig. (Mon 7/8, 7p @ Barbés, Park Slope - $20suggested)
Tuesday, Ian Douglas-Moore and David Watson’s improvised music kinda-monthly, Striped Light, features an incredible trio whose collaboration doesn’t feel a surprise but is nevertheless new: Folk Music consists of trumpeter Nate Wooley, and drummers Ches Smith and Chris Corsano, all responsible for mountains of difficult, innovative improvised music, full of atonality and electronics. Based on their reputations as makers and collaborators alone, this should be worthwhile. Also performing: the flutist/poet Michelle Yom, and electro-acoustic improviser Daniel Malinsky. (Tues 7/9, 8p @ DM for location, near Queensboro Plaza - $15)
It seems to have been a minute since the great violinist Charlie Burnham, a not-so-secret link between bluegrass and Delta blues, and Ornette Coleman’s Harmolodics, has played a solo set at the great Red Hook bar, Sunny’s, whose backroom I associate him deeply with. Burnham’s an at-times forgotten New York treasure, who ties those various American musics in a way that is completely his own. If you’ve never been, you should go. (Tues 7/9, 8p @ Sunny’s, Red Hook - $20suggested)