Hebrew School

I’m happy to announce that an excerpt of Amanda and David’s live performance last November (which I wrote about here) is part of a really cool experimental music podcast at Sockets. Scroll down the left-hand side of the Sockets site and look for the “third podcast,” or get it on iTunes. Also featured on the podcast are Embers and Extra Life.

Check out some recordings that Amanda and I made on our spiffy new myspace, and befriend us there.

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New Hebrew School demo posted today on the music page.

Their latest release, No Shouts, No Calls, calls to mind the strong suits of the Velvet Underground, Neu!, Stereolab, and the like. Ignore the hype if you’ve read all the encomia associated with this album, particularly its consideration as one of this past year’s best. It simply stands on its own. Interestingly, it’s apparently their first record to be recorded in entirely digital format, a tall order when you’ve been produced by analog purists like Steve Albini. (As a matter of course, Mr. Albini seems to have no qualms about releasing his music in various digital formats, but no matter.)

The record has the paradoxical minimalism of contemporary composers like Steve Reich, who build relatively simply ideas and ostenato phrases into fully orchestrated tides and swells. Here are two youtube videos from No Shouts for your enjoyment. “In Berlin” in particular has been known to frequently shake the walls of Hebrew School.

“To The East”

“In Berlin”

Much thanks to my cousin Erica Cohen-Taub for calling this record to my attention.

above: Emily Hurst, Allyssa Lamb, Taylor Bergren-Chrisman

There’s been a fairly long-running trend in the New York music scene of various admixtures of traditional and “world” musics. Often presented in venues where folks (most of whom happen to be, well, blond) might not otherwise see them, it’s useful to witness what can be done with traditional and modern forms in these contexts. But to be honest, a lot of times I find the phenomena to be reactionary or mockingly fetishistic of the cultures represented– a particularity of a social world bereft of meaning, thirstily knocking on doors, but not venturing too far. Obviously this an issue prevalent in “Jewish music” as well.

So, it was particularly nice this past Friday to go out and see a band that, without affectation or smugness, eschews all these real and imagined boundaries, playing the music they actually love with exuberance and soul, and giving tender care to the material they’re performing. Las Rubias del Norte are deeply and uncompromisingly rooted in the 20th-century music of the Americas, with particular emphasis on Tejano, Columbian, and Cuban music (though they really do span the continents). Yes, Castro may have stepped down, but his cigar still explodes.

Greg Stare, Timothy Quigley, Giancarlo Vulcano

And then there’s the musicianship of these folks as individuals and as a band. The female vocal harmonies are locked in; the rhythm section, with two percussionists and an upright bass player, feels like being inside an atomically accurate mechanical clockwork while on LSD. Meanwhile, Lamb effortlessly switches out on melodica and piano, Hurst on glockenspiel. It all gets you open with the incessant but solid dignity of Conan’s cuatro, and absurdly tasteful and magical harmonies and interweaving lines delivered by Vulcano on electric guitar.

in the shadows with his cuatro (at far right): Olivier Conan

“S/S/S (sorry so shakey)”

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Las Rubias del web

Las Rubias del myspace

on NPR

Every now and then I muster the strength to go through the human- and cyborg-generated friend requests that have accumulated on my myspace page.  It takes way too much time but, however few, the music delights I discover are often worth the tribulations.  Last weekend’s cleaning:

blowin kisses

Broken Electric Records

Urban Barnyard

Marnie Stern

Pussy *

Jewish Legend

niagara falls

Big pagan feast day coming up… everyone enjoy! (I know I will…)

* Actually pointed out to me by friend Taylor Bergren-Chrisman. Check out their friends– endless bands of this ilk… Amazing.

View from my back window on Friday night, Sunset Park, Brooklyn

I lost my camera during Chanukah, so this past weekend was spent in an odd realm of cell phone rectangles.

Friday night, I started out the evening by going to a gallery opening at Flux Factory in Long Island City, Queens where fellow Six Points fellow Andrea Dezsö was showing her work. The show was called New York New York New York and featured a raised map of the city along the entire floor of the gallery. Participating artists created pieces corresponding to the geographical area in which their work was placed. Andrea’s piece depicted Lilith and her son performing at the Lilith Cabaret in Coney Island.

There’s such an astonishing level of intricacy and detail in Andrea’s work, physically and conceptually, that it leaves one feeling delightfully dizzy. I understand that these are a series of animation studies for her fellowship piece, entitled The Demon Bridegroom. (More here.) Sadly, it sounds like Flux’s future is up in the air– I hear their lease is coming to an end. This makes me acutely aware of the passage of time as I had a sound installation in a show there in 2003.

Left: also on display, toy taxis running along a treadmill. Right: view from the back roof of Flux Factory. Queens is a trip…

Later that night, I proceeded to Greenpoint, Brooklyn (not a far distance from Long Island City, but a disproportionately long subway ride) where I got to see Harvest, Abacus, the Curhakestra, and finally Hells Hills.

Top: Abacus. Bottom: The Curhakestra.

Saturday found me up at dawn where I proceeded to morning Sabbath services at… Just kidding. Saturday I broke the Sabbath with White Magic at the newish Music Hall of Williamsburg with old and dear friend Erin Dowding (who once made good on a pledge to read 100 books in a year). The show was excellent (and the Music Hall is a great-sounding venue, if you have not been there yet), but I kept referring to them as the Blake Babies.

Clockwise from top: Juliana Hatfield (Mira Billotte), Evan Dando, and John Strohm.

“L’Shanah HaBa’ah Hi-Res”