Category: Experimental
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Sermon of Sound: An Evening with Laraaji + Saapato
It’s Saturday night, and the pews are full at the Ridgewood Presbyterian Church in Queens, redubbed the Stone Circle Theater. The pulpit consists of two tables covered in electronic knobs, keypads, and percussion instruments. Projected behind the pulpit, a screensaver traces a river’s path through an autumn forest canyon, inadvertently making the life-size Jesus figure Read more
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Live Soundtrack Cinema: JG Thirwell @ The Nitehawk
The house lights dimmed and so did the clinking of glasses and silverware. Ushers scurried across Brooklyn’s Nitehawk Cinema to collect more kitchen and bar orders as King Kong and Godzilla warned the crowd to silence their phones on a homemade reel. Half-hidden behind a rack of keyboards and mixing pads in the corner near Read more
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Cosmic Music: The Celestial Songs of Alice Coltrane at Carnegie Hall
The harp has the power to unite opposites. It’s large enough to dwarf its player, yet it produces a gentle twinkle. Players pluck a rapid succession of notes by running their hands across the strings, yet the effect is soothing to the ear. You can find one in the hands of angels in religious iconography, Read more
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Cairns: Soundwalking with the Dead
The Green-Wood Cemetery is not just a traditional home for the dead, but a vibrant living space to connect with nature and culture. Local musician Gelsey Bell offers visitors a guided immersion in Brooklyn’s oldest and largest necropolis through her soundwalk Cairns, available for download on Bandcamp. Beneath light, angelic singing, I was ushered into Read more
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75 Dollar Bill & BASIC @ The Sultan Room, Brooklyn, 12/4/24
I found myself on a recent evening amongst a ragged assembly of bespectacled geeks in a place called The Sultan Room. The centerpiece was a sunken ovular dancefloor with a backdrop of angular light panels evoking the futuristic situation room of a 70s sci-fi. The Sultan Room is entered through a sidedoor of the Turk’s Read more