Music
Highly Selective Listings
Brooklyn Rail Highly Selective Music Events
A thoughtful, discerning, and carefully compiled list of the most notable, promising and unique musical events for the months of December and January in New York City.
CONSIDER THE CRITIC
Dispatch from the CMJ Music Marathon
By Allyson Polsky McCabe
With five days and nights of nonstop performances, the 34-year old CMJ Music Marathon touts itself as “one of the world’s foremost platforms for discovering new music.” But with over 1,400 shows to choose from, it’s easy to succumb to fatigue, followed by ennui.
The Code from Beneath Drives the Lines
By Marshall YarbroughBill Seaman and John Supko celebrated the release of their new album s_traits with an event on October 29 at Pioneer Works in Red Hook. The evening’s performance paired four musicians from Wet Ink Ensemble with bearings_traits, an improvising software program designed by Supko, and visuals of generative images programmed by Seaman.
The Beautiful Weirdness of Javier Cohen
By Geoffrey ClarfieldTango has become so popular around the world that there is an ongoing tango club maintained by Turkish music and dance students in faraway Istanbul.
George Clinton
By Kurt Gottschalk“Funk is its own reward,” George Clinton announced in an authoritative baritone on the opening track to his album The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein. It was a promise of fulfillment through music, immediately followed by a foreboding request: “May I frighten you?”
Outtakes
By Steve DalachinskyFriday night. Last set. Four young couples, apparently in love, line the walls of the Cornelia Street Café. They are infatuated and intoxicated by themselves and the music. I am intoxicated (yet again) on two gins provided me by the staff. The music, despite my state, is major. Tony Malaby’s Tamarindo, with Michael Formanek on bass and Nasheet Waits on drums. I’ve mentioned Tony in these pages before but can only reiterate that he is one of those rare beings, one who continues to take risks and grow on his instruments: tenor and soprano saxophone.
Anthems in the Afternoon
By Andrea GordilloMigguel Anggelo is a performer who is difficult to box into a specific genre, a dynamic and operatic singer who combines several different means of expression—music, theater, storytelling, and dance. Venezuelan-born and Brooklyn-based, he credits much of his drive to Latin heritage and culture.
10 LISTENS REVIEW: Philip White's Documents
By Michael DurekChristmas on Jupiter. The year 3000. Philip White’s Documents album is not your average noise music. Much of today’s noise music is akin to punk music of the 1970s, bringing to mind Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols—who is said to have played with his electric bass unplugged because he had so little musical skill.
