Welcome To Dada Strain, 21st of July
'Dada Strain presents Bklyn Sounds Live' featuring Anteloper, Conclave and Malik Hendricks on Fri. August 6th + new work
First off, I want to thank you for subscribing to Dada Strain, and, potentially, for reading. You could have signed up for any content feed in the world, but you’re here with me, and I appreciate it. This is the (long-awaited) fifth of the monthly communiques updating subscribers on what is going with Dada Strain. These regular notes serve two purposes: Logistically, they’re written to inform you about Dada Strain’s gradual development beyond the single-viewpoint Substack that it began as; a reminder that it aspires to be a continuously growing project born in quarantine but created to serve the Next Times, which will require more than occasional newsletters in your inbox. These notes are also periodic attempts to simultaneously explain and evaluate Dada Strain’s purpose and values by speaking them into being; doing so by confronting the machinations shaping society around us, invoking its world-changing and world-building aspects, while clearly identifying and pivoting away from its failures, intentionally dreaming up an alternative way of working and being. Dada Strain is a multi-disciplinary voice built on rhythm, improvisation, and community futures; whose ideas engage the evolution of history and myth with clear and cohesive principles, hoping to reflect and forthrightly engage the world through words, sounds, images and magical powers.
Apologies for the lack of communications over the last few months. The period has held a lot of sadness for me, surrounding the declining health of multiple loved ones, and it has been hard to carve out a time for a written, future-forward perspective here. But make no mistake: Dada Strain’s mission to create music-focused communications and stories, constructed on the ethical-community principles of rhythm, improvisation and coalition-building, has been steaming ahead, adding converts from coast to coast, in local neighborhoods, and overseas.
I have returned primarily because there is a concert to announce: the inaugural show of Dada Strain presents Bklyn Sounds Live, at Littlefield, Gowanus, Brooklyn on Friday, August 6th. The concert series is an extension of “Bklyn Sounds,” a weekly column that spotlights local music events, artists, performance spaces and initiatives, which I began publishing in early June in a local magazine called Bklyner. The Bklyn Sounds Live shows will feature a bill of (duh!) Brooklyn-based artists performing in an intimate club environment — a night of listening, dancing, and the fostering of broader community among artists and audiences from different “scenes.” The first show’s performers are:
Anteloper, a multi-instrumentalist duo of jaimie branch and Jason Nazary, creating rhythmic freeform music from trumpet, drums, percussion and electronics.
Conclave, a project helmed by singer/multi-instrumentalist Cesar Toribio and a rotating cast of musicians (including his sister Sharin, bassist Olu Odubiro, and trumpeter Greg Paulus), focused on Nuyorican soul music, full of house, jazz and Afro-Carribean rhythms.
Malik Hendricks, a producer/DJ making deep, jazzy, housy, long-form dance music within the Black club tradition.
If you live in the New York area, have vaccinated (the venue will only let you in with proof of vacc), and have begun emerging from a lost year, I would love to see you. Get Tickets to Bklyn Sounds Live Here. (They’re just $10 for an incredible evening of music.)
You can read the Bklyn Sounds columns Here. (And if you are a Brooklyn resident, I kindly ask that you subscribe to the Bklyner., which is a crucial local news source in a town whose big media has stopped covering important neighborhood happenings, cultural and otherwise.)
I would also like to spotlight a couple of other recent pieces I have produced:
An epic interview with Damon Locks, organizer of Chicago’s mighty Black Monument Ensemble, whose newest album, NOW, is among the year’s indispensable recordings.
A profile of Bill Coleman, longtime musicker/DJ/writer and one of the most interesting persons in New York clubland, who recently produced the compilation Red Hot + Free.
Thank you for reading.