Music
Todd P.: A Show for All Ages
By Megan MartinIt’s the middle of summer, and in typically hot Brooklyn fashion, the kids have come out to play. Everyone is gathered behind an industrial lot off the highway, under the overpass and next to a BP gas station. (Those really are the best directions.) We all paid five bucks plus two dollars for PBRs to be here, and we want to hear some good music.
In Conversation
Phil Elverum with Aaron Lake Smith
The singular force behind Mount Eerie and the Microphones never skimps in his efforts or attention to aesthetic detail—Phil Elverum is prolific. Elverum’s newest release, Black Wooden Ceiling Opening, is a foray into dark, heavy music pounded out with the help of Jason Anderson and Kjetil Jenssen of the Spectacle.
Dimensions in Music: A Field Guide to the Mambo World
By Alan LockwoodCelebrations continue in NYC’s Latin music world, though industry downturns have hit hard at Latin’s magic meld of live music and dancers. The Spanish Harlem Orchestra recently played Lincoln Center Out of Doors, while August found percussion maven Bobby Sanabria’s big band at Jazz Standard, and an Arturo O’Farrill combo at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola—both venues without dance floors.
Drive-By Yodel
By Bart PlantengaI don’t know how it happens, but things evolve of their own accord in life, shoved along by one’s own preoccupations and interests.
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Gibbons: The One-Hit Jabberwockies of the Rainforest
By Wilfried Hou Je BekThe gibbon is the most dandified primate roaming the forests of Southeast Asia. The Chinese have long considered it to be the wisest and noblest of all animals, and in the eighteenth century the West took over this sentiment when it proclaimed the gibbon to be the animal closest to us in the great scheme of evolution.
The Next Cut Is The Deepest
By Paula CrossfieldFor the Tindersticks’ seventh album, The Hungry Saw, fresh air could be the biggest influence. After five years of non-activity—with frontman Stuart Staples moving to France and declaring that continuing with the band would amount to nostalgia, and the group responding by going on an extended hiatus—fans wondered if the English band was throwing in the towel.
Hawnay Troof: Toast to Us
By Peter HolslinIf Hawnay Troof was a workout routine and not a hyperactive electronic dance act, Vice Cooler would be its spasmodic Richard Simmons. At the band’s September record release party at the Williamsburg performance space Death By Audio, Cooler set the beats on his Dell laptop to an ear-pummeling volume and gyrated his heart out.
