It takes a little more than eighty seconds, but then pow, there it is, hitting you right in the gut and winding into your brain: Crystal-clear lyrics following heavy guitars on “Long Term Exit Strategy,” the opening track on Kinski’s first album in six years, Cosy Moments (Kill Rock Stars, April 2, 2013). “Can I lay my head on your girlfriend? / Nothing’ll happen / Nothing’ll come of it / I just feel out of it / I just need someone to lie on,” Chris Martin drones over a thumping backbeat. The Seattle psych-punk space rockers, who began their career in the late ’90s concentrating on instrumentals, incorporated lyrics on their last full-length, the 2007 Sub Pop release Down Below It’s Chaos, and they have several word-laden tracks on Cosy Moments, which is often more explosive than actually cozy. Singer-guitarist Martin, bassist Lucy Atkinson, guitarist Matthew Reid-Schwartz, and drummer Barrett Wilke sound better than ever, romping through interstellar freakouts, raucous interludes, high-pitched feedback, and Crazy Horse-like noodling on such songs as “Throw It Up,” “Riff DAD,” “A Little Ticker Tape Never Hurt Anybody,” and “Counterpointer.” One of the reasons it took so long between albums was that the band road-tested a collection of new songs that Martin ended up tossing in the trash and instead started over, which seems to have turned out to be the right decision. The record concludes with “Let Me Take You Through My Thought Process,” but don’t expect to learn any of Martin’s secrets in those eighty-one seconds. Cosy Moments (you can stream the album here) is a furious, propulsive sonic blast from a group that finds itself firmly in the zone as it continues to grow. Kinski will be at Cake Shop on April 11 with Man Forever and Jowe Head and at Death by Audio on April 19 with Ancient Sky and Landing, a pair of small places that better be ready for what’s coming their way.
this week in music
FIRST SATURDAY — “WORKT BY HAND”: HIDDEN LABOR AND HISTORICAL QUILTS
Elizabeth Welsh, “Medallion Quilt,” cotton, circa 1830 (Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Roebling Society)
Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, April 6, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org
The Brooklyn Museum celebrates the recent opening of “‘Workt by Hand’: Hidden Labor and Historical Quilts,” which examines the craft and culture behind approximately three dozen masterpieces from the collection, at the April free First Saturday program. There will be live performances by Jessy Carolina & the Hot Mess, Adia Whitaker and Ase Dance Theater Collective, Jesse Elliott (These United States) and friends, and Brooklyn Ballet, which will present Quilt with violinist Gil Morgenstern. Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art curator Catherine Morris will give a talk on “‘Workt by Hand,’” Robyn Love will share her knitting project “SpinCycle,” there will be a screening of Barbara Hammer and Gina Carducci’s Generations, followed by a Q&A with Carducci, a felt collage workshop, a book club discussion with Bernice McFadden about her latest novel, Gathering of Waters, and a zine-making cookbook workshop with Brooklyn Zine Fest and Malaka Gharib and Claire O’Neil of The Runcible Spoon. In addition, the galleries will remain open late so visitors can check out “LaToya Ruby Frazier: A Haunted Capital,” “Käthe Kollwitz: Prints from the ‘War’ and ‘Death’ Portfolios,” “Fine Lines: American Drawings from the Brooklyn Museum,” “Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui,” “Raw/Cooked: Marela Zacarias,” “Aesthetic Ambitions: Edward Lycett and Brooklyn’s Faience Manufacturing Company,” and more.
SCOTLAND WEEK 2013
David Eustace’s captivating “Highland Heart” exhibit will be on view at Hudson Studios April 5-7 (© David Eustace)
SCOTLAND WEEK / TARTAN WEEK
Multiple venues
Through April 21
www.scotland.org
www.scotlandshop.com
The sixth annual Scotland Week, also known as Tartan Week, kicks into high gear this weekend, celebrating Scottish art and culture with a diverse group of events taking place all over the city. On Friday, former minesweeper and prison guard David Eustace will unveil a new collection of photographs, “Highland Heart,” stunning black-and-white images of the Western Islands, at Hudson Studios in Chelsea. On Saturday morning at 8:00, some ten thousand people are expected to take part in the 10K Scotland Run in Central Park, followed by the Kirkin o’ the Tartan and Pre-Parade Brunch at the Church of Our Saviour and the Tartan Day Parade, which will make its way up Sixth Ave. from Forty-Fifth to Fifty-Fifth Sts. with bagpipers, Scottish clans, music groups, Scottish terriers, and more. On Saturday night, the Caledonia Collective at Webster Hall will consist of Stanley Odd, Rachel Sermanni with Louis Abbott of Admiral Fallow, and Breabach. Stanley Odd will also share a bill with the View Saturday night at the Knitting Factory and Sunday night at Bowery Ballroom. On April 7, Alan Cumming begins a three-month Broadway run starring as the title character in the one-man National Theatre of Scotland production of Macbeth, set in a mental ward. On April 8, Scottish fashion will be on display at “From Scotland with Love: The Scottish Lion Meets the Asian Dragon,” a cocktail party and fashion show at Stage 48. On April 9, Ian Gow, curator of the National Trust for Scotland, will receive the Great Scot Award at the black-tie “Celebration of Scotland’s Treasures” dinner at the Metropolitan Club. On April 12, Ken Loach’s Cannes Jury Prize winner The Angels’ Share opens at Lincoln Plaza and the Landmark Sunshine. And on April 14, the Scottish Ensemble, a string orchestra highlighted by trumpeter Alison Balsom, will perform at Town Hall with a program that includes the U.S. premiere of James MacMillan’s “Seraph.” A h-uile la sona dhuibh ’s gun la idir dona dhuibh!
VIDEO OF THE DAY: “UNDREAM A YEAR” BY VALLEYS
“There is no hiding now or ever / There’s no escape for us, it seems,” Matilda (Tillie) Perks sings on “Hounds,” one of ten tracks on the “debut” album by Montreal-based lo-fi dream-pop shoegazers Valleys. Formerly a trio that released the 2009 LP Sometimes Water Kills People, the 2010 EP Stoner, and the 2011 tour EP River Phoenix, Valleys is now firmly a duo, with Perks on vocals, guitar, keyboards, and sequencer and Marc St Louis on vocals, guitar, keyboards, and drums. (Pascal Oliver is no longer part of the group.) Valleys is escaping from their former incarnation, reintroducing themselves on their new record, Are You Going to Stand There and Talk Weird All Night? (Kanine, April 30, 2012), wiping away the past and starting again with a fresh, though still ethereal, sound. Valleys deals with loss and recovery on the disc, which features such songs as “Absolutely Everything All the Time,” “Living Normal,” “Exing Everything,” and “John, Meet Me at the Precipice.” Are You Going to Stand There and Talk Weird All Night? basks in a mysterious, otherworldly glow, created with the help of coproducer Alec Dippie, aka Orson Presence from the Monochrome Set, as tunes weave in and out of emotional highs and lows, with plenty of droning feedback throughout. Valleys will be at Glasslands on April 4 with Fol Chen and Softspot.
TICKET AND DRINKS GIVEAWAY: WHITEHORSE AT HILL COUNTRY LIVE
Whitehorse — consisting of married couple Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland — will be at Hill Country on April 4
Hill Country
30 West 26th St.
Thursday, April 4, $10-$12, 9:30
212-255-4544
www.music.hillcountryny.com
www.whitehorsemusic.ca
Many married couples live by the maxim that they should never go to bed angry with each other; Canadian musicians Melissa McClelland and Luke Doucet expand that to include never going onstage mad. After first developing successful individual careers, animal activist McClelland and marathon runner Doucet teamed up professionally in 2011 to form the duo Whitehorse. Their second full-length Six Shooter disc, The Fate of the World Depends on This Kiss, was released in the U.S. in January, followed quickly by the live covers EP The Road to Massey Hall. Combining elements of (North) Americana roots rock, acoustic folk, pop, and blues, on The Fate of the World Whitehorse employs sweet harmonies, and some killer guitar solos, on such songs as the hot and steamy “Achilles’ Desire,” the beautiful “Mismatched Eyes (Boat Song),” the jaunty “Peterbilt Coalmine,” and the rocking “Out Like a Lion.” Meanwhile, the EP features unique takes on Neil Young’s “Winterlong,” Blue Rodeo’s “Dark Angel,” Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind,” Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” Ron Sexsmith’s “Strawberry Blonde,” and Antoine Gérin-Lajoie’s 1842 “Un Canadien errant.”
TICKET/DRINKS GIVEAWAY: On April 4 at 9:30, Whitehorse will be playing Hill Country Live, the barbecue joint on West 26th St. that also showcases roots rock, Americana, honky-tonk, and folk, and twi-ny has a pair of tickets to give away — and each ticket comes with a free drink as well. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and all-time-favorite Canadian musician to contest@twi-ny.com by Monday, April 1, at 5:00 to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; one winner will be selected at random.
VIDEO OF THE DAY: “I WANT MY MOJO BACK” BY SCOTT H. BIRAM
“I want my mojo back,” Scott H. Biram declares on his most recent record, fall 2011’s Bad Ingredients, but he sounds like he never lost it. Also known as the Dirty Old One Man Band, Biram is like an East Texas drifter on the album, with no place in this hard, cold world — sleeping underground or in the back of a car, only feeling alive when out on the open road. “Now I’m flyin’ ’cross the desert / slowly blowin’ out of my mind / I’m getting’ tired of seekin’ answers / that’ll only let me down / I been drinkin’ since forever / but I just can’t put it down / And I never felt nothin’ / like a warm safe place / ’til I hit that open road,” he howls on “Open Road,” one of thirteen tracks on the Bloodshot disc. Using old microphones, a 1959 Gibson, and an amplified left foot providing percussion, the Austin-based Biram makes his way through bluesy hillbilly punk raising his own kind of hell on such songs as “Born in Jail,” “Black Creek Risin’,” and “Killed a Chicken Last Night.” On “Broke Ass” he declares, “Well, I like makin’ money, honey / but I sure don’t like to work / when I could be down here just sinnin’ / wipin’ beer stains on my shirt.” No, Biram, who even plays his own gospel choir on “I Want My Mojo Back” (but doesn’t play the sax on the song, leaving that to the record’s only guest, Walter Daniels), has never lost his “motherfuckin’ mojo hand,” and he’ll be provin’ it on Thursday night when he plays Target Free Thursdays at the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center. (And don’t be fooled by Lincoln Center’s web address for the event, which uses the name “birman” instead of “biram.”)
VIDEO OF THE DAY: “NEVER DON’T STAY” BY KEVIN BOWE
Minneapolis native Kevin Bowe decided to become a musician after seeing one of the Replacements’ earliest gigs, blown away by the beautiful reckless abandon of the legendary Minnesota band. Years later Bowe, who wrote songs, produced, and/or played with Leiber and Stoller, Etta James, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Jonny Lang, Alison Scott, Leo Kottke, Peter Case, John Mayall, the Proclaimers, Robben Ford, the Meat Puppets, and Freedy Johnston, got to become a Replacement, joining Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson on a four-track covers EP recorded this past September to help raise funds for former ’Mats guitarist Slim Dunlop, who suffered a stroke in February 2012. Now Bowe is back with his longtime band, the Okemah Prophets, on tour with their new disc, Natchez Trace, the follow-up to 2003’s Angels on the Freeway (Crosses on the Road) and 1999’s Restoration. The sixteen-song disc, made with Prophets Pete Anderson on drums and Steve Price on bass, along with contributions from Westerberg, Johnston, Chuck Prophet, Scarlet Rivera, Tim O’Regan, and Nels Cline, is a collection of countrified indie rock, pop, and blues, with such highlights as the rollicking “In Too Deep” and “Devil’s Garden,” the driving “Haven’t You Heard,” the horn-heavy “Everybody Lies,” the foot-stompin’ “Waitin’ for the Wheel” and “Just Restless,” and the Westerbergian “Never Don’t Stay” and “Gutters of Paradise.” (You can check out all the songs and more here.) Kevin Bowe + the Okemah Prophets will be at Rockwood Music Hall on March 26 at 7:00 (free), preceded by Jonathan Powell and followed by Caitlin Canty, and at the Rock Shop in Brooklyn on March 27 ($10) with Dear Comrade and A Is for Atom.