Sequenza21/

Last Friday I finally made it down to the new DUMBO location of Galapagos Art Space to see the release party/performance of Mikel Rouse’s haunting new album Gravity Radio. But let’s back up for a moment before we get to Rouse.

DUMBO, for you non-New Yorkers, is one of the myriad New York City neighborhood abbreviations, like SoHo (South of Houston) or Tribeca (triangle below Canal), and it stands for “Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass,” which is to say it’s in Brooklyn in the area just south of the Manhattan Bridge. It was one of the first places in Brooklyn that artists moved to find illegal loft space in the 70s after they got priced out of lower Manhattan. (The name “DUMBO” is actually an interesting piece of failed culture jamming–residents hoped that by coining such an unappealing name they could stave off developers.)

Galapagos Art Space is a mixed-genre performance space which used to be in Williamsburg, but when the rent in Williamsburg got too high they worked out a deal that has landed them in a converted industrial space in DUMBO which they were able to entirely remodel to fit their needs and aesthetic. In front of the stage, suspended a few inches above a shallow black reflecting pool and connected by bridges, is a set of circular seating pods with room for several small tables and chairs each.  A balcony with additional seating rings the room and provides space for the sound booth.  The whole place is done up in red and black and chrome, set against the bare concrete walls of the building.  It’s truly a beautiful space.  Galapagos has a new booker, and I’m told that they are going to be increasing their classical fare–they’re already hosting the New Amsterdam Records concert series Archipelago (the next show in that series will be this Friday at 7:30pm with vocal group Roomful of Teeth and percussion/flute duo Due East.)  To give a sense of how diverse the offerings at Galapagos are, in just the next week they will also be presenting Argentinian music by Emilio Teubal & Fernando Otero, punk/cabaret by Barbez, some sort of music/dance extravaganza called “Out Through Her,”  the Main Squeeze accordion orchestra, a production of Hamlet, a burlesque show, Jenny Rocha and her Painted Ladies (which apparently involves music, dance, physical comedy, and theatre), a variety show, and the American Modern Ensemble.  Perhaps “diverse” is an overstatement, but that programming certainly covers a lot of the territory of the hipster art universe, and that was just one week of shows.

Galapagos Art Space

That programming potpourri brings us nicely back to Mikel Rouse, whose album Gravity Radio may at first glance seem like a straight-up rock record, but which has deep roots in the classical music and theater traditions as well.  Mikel himself is clearly comfortable in the netherworld between pop and classical, moving effortlessly more into one area and then into the other.  In 1978 his band Tirez Tirez opened for the Talking Heads in Kansas City; in New York in the 80s when postminimalism’s highly rhythmically and structurally complex offshoot Totalism was emerging, Rouse was at the center of the movement along with composers like Kyle Gann and Michael Gordon.  In 1984 he wrote a 12-tone piece called Quick Thrust for a rock quartet, which features dizzying polymeters that somehow seem tightly controlled and completely haywire at the same time.  Mikel’s rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic instincts all seem grounded in rock, but he tends to deploy those materials much more like a classical composer than like a popular song writer.

Take “Black Cracker,” which is track three on Gravity Radio.  First, almost all popular music in 4/4 time has four-bar phrases, but for Rouse’s lyric that fourth bar is unnecessary and he leaves it out.  The whole song is perfectly seamless, and yet because every cycle is one bar shorter than you expect the whole thing feels constantly off-kilter.  Then part way through he cuts the tempo of the descending hook “When I’m bored I can’t be bored with you/When I’m blown I can’t be blown in two” by half. After establishing the half-tempo version he brings back the full-tempo version over top of it, making the chorus into a prolation canon.  That half-speed hook then becomes background for the next verse.  Later an ascending scale adds yet another counterpoint to the mixture, and the whole thing fits together like a puzzle.

The danger of emphasizing these elements of complexity, of course, is the risk of sending the message that complexity is inherently virtuous, or that the complexity in this music somehow “elevates” it above other less complex popular music.  Writing in Gramophone, Ken Smith once said that Rouse’s music is evidence that “pop music can sustain serious interest with the right person at the helm”–the implication that most pop music can’t “sustain serious interest” is the kind of thing that tells me the writer doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  The complexity in Gravity Radio is interesting and enjoyable, and connects the music to the classical tradition, but ultimately the music has to stand or fall on its surface qualities, and in this case it stands tall.  I’ll take a well-crafted Britney Spears tune over a tortured post-serialist brain-dump by a composer who cares more about combinatoriality than musicality any day of the week, and while I haven’t asked him I suspect Mikel Rouse would feel the same way.

If it sounds like I’m avoiding telling you what Gravity Radio is, exactly, the truth is I’m not sure what to call it.  It’s part song-cycle, part concept album, part theater piece.   It’s a series of thematically and musically related, country-inflected, infectiously memorable rock songs of ambiguous but evocative lyrical content, connected by interludes of spoken recitation of news headlines and fragments of lyrics from the songs delivered in an astonishing newscaster-kunst voice by Veanne Cox.  It has something to do with superconductors and gravity waves.  It’s abstract and catchy and deep.  It’s 52 minutes and 14 seconds long.

The beauty of the internet is that I can just tell you to go here to listen to portions of it and read Mikel Rouse’s description and the lyrics.

The performance at Galapagos was a stripped down version with just guitar,  string quartet (members of ACME), Mikel singing, Veanne reciting, and some background sound effects.   It worked well even in that format, and the absence of drums and other rock elements showcased how deeply integrated the string arrangements are into the composition.  The band fought a little against the acoustics of the space, which had a tendency to muddy up the sound, but overall the performance was tight and intense.  Rouse modestly sat among the ensemble rather than standing front and center like a rock frontman.  The headlines in the news recitations were updated with recent news, as they will be for each leg of the international tour that begins in January.

Gravity Radio ends with one last set of news reports from which I draw one final observation: Almost any statement is improved by the addition of the phrase “Chuck Norris wins.”

Hilary Hahn doesn’t need much introduction; as one of the leading violinists today, many of you have any number of her recordings or have been lucky enough to catch her in concert.

Usually we put our stars up on some pedestal, always with that remove of the stage between us. But Hilary herself has a different idea of what a star should be up to in between wowing folks at those concerts. She happens to love to talk to people, especially other musicians, and is genuinely interested in what makes them tick. And she loves to share what she hears with us, often using her own trusty laptop to record her interviews. As she says: “Through interviewing, I find out things about people which would never come up in casual conversation: how they work, what their creative processes are, how they view their artistic output, what they value in their professions, and so on. To me, those topics are fascinating.”

Hilary was especially interested in doing a whole series of interviews with contemporary composers; since that’s what s21’s all about we thought “why not hook up?” So here’s the deal: each month Hilary will be visiting with a different composer, posting the interview to her YouTube channel.  We’ll let you know as soon as each goes up, give you the first part here and guide you to the place to view the rest. We’re really happy to work with Hilary, and to bring a bit of “real people” to the sometimes too-serious perception of our “art”.

First up, Hilary paid a visit to Judd Greenstein, a composer who’s not only been getting a lot of acclaim for his music, but is also one of the founding forces behind the exciting, young and extremely buzz-worthy New Amsterdam recording label. Hilary and Judd discuss self-presenting, artist-driven labels and the indie classical scene:

For the rest just head on over to Hilary’s YouTube channel.

Continuing a theme: earlier this week I mentioned a gig by composer Matt McBane’s “not-quite-neo-alt-rock-chamber-folk-etc” ensemble Build. The pattern continues this Sunday at The Stone in NYC (corner of 2nd street and Ave. C, $10), when two more “NQNARCFE” groups show us what they’ve got (is this the true wave of classical music’s future? — composers and performers each with their own group playing clubs? To try both sides of the pie, since our own side’s filling is getting decidedly skimpy?).

At 10pm Victoire takes the stage: “Brooklyn-based band founded by composer Missy Mazzoli (keyboards and compositions, with Olivia De Prato and Andie Springer, violins, Eileen Mack, clarinet, Lorna Krier, keyboards and Eleonore Oppenheim, double bass) has been dubbed an ‘all-star, all-female quintet’ by Time Out New York. This quirky ensemble combines strings, clarinets, keyboards and lo-fi electronics (including samples of sewing machines and answering machine tapes) to create their ‘minimalist, post-rock bliss’.”  Their EP has been getting a great reception, and chances are good that you’re going to hear about them far into the future.

Opening the night at 8pm, Odeya Nini stamps her own group with a rather different vibe. As Odeya tells me herself, “...my current work is a bit different – I guess its just a piling up of more experiences, mind tumbles and turns. My music could be categorized as indie chamber / electronic / folk — or simple music for folks to focus and indulge in what they might perceive as cohesive or opaque.”

Odeya “received her BFA in vocal performance from the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music where she studied voice with Theo Bleckmann and composition with Kirk Nurock and Gerry Hemingway. Today her work is characterized by skillful experimentation, integrating improvisation, acoustic composition and electro-acoustic sounds to create thought provoking works of art.”

She’ll be working with her own group of sidekicks : Alex Hills (piano), James Ilgenfritz (bass), Jake Wise (clarinet), Katie Young (bassoon), Elena Moon Park (violin) and Curtis Stewart (violin). This is one of Odeya’s last gigs in NYC before she relocates out West for grad school composition study.

Fresh on the heels of their excellent BoaC Marathon appearance, composer Matt McBane’s alt-avant chamber-whatever group Build is doing a collaborative concert with another twisted sister, Former-Aussie songstress Greta Gertler. It’s all going down Tuesday, June 23, 2009, 7:00pm at Joe’s Pub (425 Lafayette Street, NYC); tickets are $15.

In addition to performing separately, Greta and Build will join forces in premiering new string arrangements by McBane, for songs from Greta’s forthcoming album “The Universal Thump”.  The idea for this collaboration was inspired by Matt and Greta discovering that they were both listed on The Deli Magazine’s NYC Top 20 Orchestral Pop chart. With the knowledge that they were in fact supposedly working in the same genre, and sharing friends and sometime roommates, Greta and Matt decided fate was telling them to get together and do something, and so here it is.

I think this is going to be a decidedly lovely show, well worth catching.

For those of you keeping track, this week’s episode is the second of three highlighting violists. Last week, Elizabeth Weisser; this week, Nadia Sirota. Nadia has some good advice for musicians: it may sound obvious, but that thing that makes you unique is the thing that makes you special. Not only is this good advice for performers but it’s good for composers to remember as well. The more we can embrace our “craziness”, the more comfortable we can be with ourselves. Musicians on the podcast talk a lot about working and collaborating with composers, but Nadia actually has some suggestions for making these relationships work in mutually respectful ways. Nadia also has a new CD, first things first, which will be released on New Amsterdam Records on Tuesday, May 19 (Steve had a nice pre-release-party-post last week).

Looking ahead, the week of May 31 will feature violist John Pickford Richards, and during the month of June I’ll be talking with pianist Seda Röder and conductor/composer Brad Lubman.

May 31 also happens to be the annual Bang on a Can Marathon in New York City– are there any musicians you would like me to try and track down for an interview? I will also be in Chicago in early June – is there anyone in the second-city I should be in touch with? If you have suggestions please email them to:

podcast@jamesholt.net

And for those of you new to the show, you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes by clicking here, point your blog-readers here, or find it on InstantEncore by clicking here.

You can only keep a secret society secret so long, and with our old S21 pal Darcy James Argue’s new CD release that time has come.  Infernal Machines is out now on New Amsterdam Records, and to celebrate the kick-off DJA’s Secret Society will be performing the music from the CD Friday at Galapagos Arts Space (16 Main St. @ Water St., Brooklyn / Door – 9pm, Show – 10pm, $10).

Troy Collins advance-reviewed it at AllAboutJazz.com:

Drawing inspiration from classic stalwarts like the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra as well as pioneering post-rock bands like Explosions In The Sky and Tortoise, Argue tastefully incorporates electric guitars, Fender Rhodes and electric bass into traditional big band instrumentation, extending the innovations of such visionaries as Don Ellis, Gil Evans and George Russell [....] Straddling the pastoral opulence of Maria Schneider’s Orchestra and the visceral brio of Adam Lane’s Full Throttle Orchestra and Satoko Fujii’s various big bands, Argue has succeeded at creating a magnificent chimera. His harmonically rich blend of contrapuntal horn voicings, atmospheric electronic textures and post-minimalist rhythms surpass the early fusion experiments of his predecessors, yielding a fully integrated sound world as current as it is timeless.

If you want to get primed and pumped beforehand, New Amsterdam is letting you stream the whole CD online. The musical cast is stellar, the pieces are grand, the recording immaculate. Way to go Darcy; here’s to many more words like those above, now and in all the Machines to come.

Almost everyone in and around the New Amsterdam Records scene has been written up by us. Many are good and long-time visitors, contributors and pals of S21. But screw that; the real reason we follow this crew is that they’re an awesome bunch of composers and performers, with a fresh, open and energetic approach to this whole art-music thingy-ma-jingy. They’re proving it again this May, with… Aww, just let the poster tell you:

Makes a nice prelude to the BOAC “oldsters” Marathon, dontcha think?