this week in music

SONGS FOR PEOPLE I WILL NEVER SEE AGAIN

Lucy Foley will debut her new multimedia show May 24 at apexart (photo by Lucy Foley)

apexart
291 Church St.
Thursday, May 24, free, 6:30
212-431-5270
www.apexart.org

New York–based Irish singer and photographer Lucy Foley will be presenting her latest multimedia work, Songs for People I Will Never See Again, on Thursday night at 6:30 at apexart on Church St. The free performance will consist of live music and stories by Foley, with Ross Bonadonna on guitar and laptops, Gavin Smith on accordion, synths, and steel drum, Andy Mattina on bass, and Tom Pope on drums, accompanied by projected images. The tales are inspired by real-life unique individuals she has come upon, “people frozen in the moment of their appearance and of their disappearance,” Foley explains on her website. The show will consist of new songs as well as new arrangements of all the tracks from her 2010 debut album, Copenhagen, on which she also collaborated with Bonadonna. “Your life sprang a leak and out I flew / Along came a song and moved into your home with her / So we went out into the street / And we all fell apart together,” Foley sings on the record’s “Kiss You Free.” Foley will also be playing next month at Freddy’s Bloomsday Party on June 16 for Katie Welty’s art opening, along with the Highland Shatners, Plastic Beast, ScriptBreaker, and Cancion Franklin.

A GREAT NIGHT IN HARLEM

The eleventh annual Great Night in Harlem takes place May 17 at the Apollo with another all-star lineup

Apollo Theater
253 West 125th St.
Thursday, May 17, $55-$1500, 7:00
212-245-3999 ext10
jazzfoundation.org
www.apollotheater.org

On August 12, 1958, fifty-seven jazz musicians and singers posed for what became an iconic photograph taken by Art Kane for Esquire. Among the legends gathered in front of 17 East 126th St. were Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Marian McPartland, Milt Hinton, Maxine Sullivan, Lester Young, Charles Mingus, and Thelonius Monk. For the last ten years, that austere occasion has been honored at the annual Great Night in Harlem concert, a gala fundraiser for the Jazz Foundation of America’s Jazz Musicians Emergency Fund, which is dedicated to helping older jazz and blues musicians in crisis. The eleventh annual Great Night in Harlem takes place May 17 at the Apollo Theater with another fabulous all-star lineup produced by Hal Willner, with live performances by Macy Gray. Dr. John, Randy Weston, Bono, Bettye LaVette, Paquito D’Rivera, George Wein, the Rebirth Brass Band, the Treme Brass Band, David Johansen, Stanley Jordan, Sweet Georgia Brown, Essie Mae, John D. Holeman, Lakecia Benjamin, Grace Kelly, Bill Saxton, Steven Bernstein, Curtis Fowlkes, Don Byron, James Carter, Craig Handy, Victor Lewis, Geri Allen, Mark Whitfield, Art Baron, Jerry Dodgien, Kenny Davis, Ambrose Akinmusire, Frank Greene, Ray Anderson, and many others. In addition, Darrell Hammond will provide the comic relief; don’t be surprised if he turns in a “Bill Clinton at the Apollo” routine. This year’s gala, which seeks to raise $1.6 million, is presenting the Dr. Billy Taylor Humanitarian Award to Claude Nobs, one of the founders of the Montreux Jazz Festival.

VIDEO OF THE DAY — KISHI BASHI: “BRIGHT WHITES”

After collaborating with such artists as of Montreal, Regina Spektor, Jupiter One, and Sondre Lerche, K Ishibashi steps out into the forefront on the orchestral solo project 151a (Joyful Noise, April 2012). Better known as Kishi Bashi, the violinist, composer, and singer has become a one-man band, playing and producing all of the record, a wide-ranging collection of nine songs that cross genre boundaries. On such tracks as “Intro / Pathos, Pathos,” “Manchester,” “Chester’s Burst over the Hamptons,” and “I Am the Antichrist to You,” Kishi Bashi melds classical music, African rhythm, electronic noise, Britpop, ambient soundscapes, progressive folk, and other elements to create his multilayered mini-epics. The Seattle-born Kishi Bashi, who was raised on the East Coast and is based in New York City, will be at (le) poisson rouge on May 16 with the Barr Brothers.

VIDEO OF THE DAY ― VIOLENS: “ALL NIGHT LOW”

On its new album, True (Slumberland, May 15, 2012), Brooklyn-based trio Violens takes a major leap forward from its 2010 full-length debut, Amoral. Featuring multi-instrumentalist Jorge Elbrecht, Iddo Arad on synths and guitar, and Myles Matheny on bass, with Will Berman adding drums, Violens creates soaring, harmonic ’80s-style pop that recalls Depeche Mode, Spandau Ballet, and New Order on such songs as “Totally True,” “Der Microarc,” and “Melting,” then turning more aggressive on the propulsive “Lavender” and “All Night Low.” Violens will be holding an album release party on May 16 at (le) poisson rouge with Kuroma and the New Lines.

BELLA GAIA

Art and science converge in multimedia BELLA GAIA

BEAUTIFUL EARTH: A POETIC VISION OF EARTH FROM SPACE
Eyebeam Art & Technology Center
540 West 21st St. between 10th & 11th Aves.
May 15-16, $25-$30, 8:00
www.bellagaia.com
eyebeam.org

Composer, director, and violinist Kenji Williams has been touring the world with Bella Gaia: A Poetic Vision of Earth from Space an immersive multimedia exploration of the planet as seen by astronauts. Produced in association with NASA, Bella Gaia, which translates as “Beautiful Earth,” features an eight-piece ensemble performing live in front of a large-screen backdrop showing views of Earth, with Deep Singh on tabla, vocals, and percussion, Yumi Kurosawa on koto, Lety Ellaggar on nay and sax, Kristin Hoffmann on vocals and keyboards, and Williams on violin and laptop, with dance by Irina Akulenko, Lale Sayoko, and Kaeshi Chai. Bella Gaia comes to Eyebeam Art & Technology Center for two shows on May 15 and 16 at 8:00, taking viewers on a fantastical and environmental journey across land, sea, and sky, a “living atlas” that travels from the Amazon to the Arctic, revealing natural beauty and man-made wonders as the Anthropocene continues. “Bella Gaia shows you how humans and nature are connected, and how art and science are connected,” Williams explains. “Itʼs an exploration of the relationship between human civilization and our ecosystem.”

VIDEO OF THE DAY ― MAN FOREVER: “SURFACE PATTERNS”

Brooklyn-based experimental drummer and composer John Colpitts, also known as Kid Millions, has played percussion with such groups as Oneida and the Boredoms. Next week he is set to release his second album as Man Forever, Pansophical Cataract (Thrill Jockey, May 15, 2012). Inspired by Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, the album consists of two long tracks built around propulsive drum rolls that sound as if they are about to introduce something that never quite arrives. But both the thirty-minute “Surface Patterns” and the forty-minute “UR Eternity” are filled with little surprises as they unfold, electric instruments or bass adding bits of drone, mystery, and nuance here and there. It’s like an audio version of Michael Snow’s avant-garde classic Wavelength, in which a camera makes its way slowly across an apartment, oblivious to anything that happens in the room as it approaches the wall ― and then beyond. For the “Surface Patterns” video, Colpitts recruited a group of musicians who have played with Man Forever, including Sarah Richardson, Richard Hoffman, Brad Truax, Shahin Motia, Leah McManigle, and Brian Chase; on May 15, Richardson, Hoffman, Motia, and Chase, along with James McNew, Bryan Devendorf, Ryan Sawyer, Greg Fox, and Oran Canfield, will join Kid Millions for an album release party at (le) poisson rouge, with the Colin Langenus Orchestra and Nymph opening the show. Man Forever then heads out across the country before returning for performances June 29 at Issue Project Room and July 11 at the Stone.

SUNDAY SESSIONS: TARYN SIMON

Taryn Simon examines her new photography installation at MoMA and will discuss it on May 13 at MoMA PS1 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

A LIVING MAN DEAD AND OTHER CHAPTERS I-XVIII
MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Ave. at 46th Ave.
Sunday, May 14, $10, 12 noon – 6:00
718-784-2084
www.ps1.org

As it prepares for its summer Warm Up series, MoMA PS1’s final Sunday Sessions program will be held on May 13. In addition to your last chance to see the exhibitions “Darren Bader: Images” and “Kraftwerk ― Retrospective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8,” both of which close on Monday, legendary DJ Afrika Bambaataa will pay tribute to the German electronic music pioneers from 3:00 to 6:00 in the Performance Dome. Also at 3:00, artbook @ moma ps1 will host the book discussion group “A Short Course on Resistance.” Food will be available from Long Island City favorites M. Wells, and the exhibitions “Lara Favaretto: Just Knocked Out,” “Max Brand: no solid footing ― (trained) duck fighting a crow,” “Rania Stephan,” and “Frances Stark: My Best Thing” will also be open. We’re most looking forward to the 2:00 conversation between native New York artist Taryn Simon and MoMA PS1 associate curator Jenny Schlenzka on the occasion of the publication of Simon’s A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters, I-XVIII, the catalog to the exhibition currently on view in MoMA’s photography wing. Native New Yorker Simon, whose “Contraband” filled the Lever House lobby in late 2010 with thousands of photos of items that were confiscated at JFK International Airport, has now turned her attention on bloodlines, cataloging families from around the world, organizing them in very specific order, accompanied by photos of documents and other paraphernalia relating to their story. Nine of the chapters can be seen at MoMA, including the Indian Yadav clan, which is fighting to regain land they lost when Shivdutt Yadav was wrongly listed as being deceased; the Ondijos of Kenya, where HIV/AIDS doctor Joseph Nyamwanda Jura Ondijo has nine wives, thirty-two children, and sixty-three grandchildren; the sadly small Mehićs and Nukićs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, victims of genocide; the Chinese family of Su Qijian, declared by China’s State Council Information Office as the best representative of multigenerational Chinese bloodlines; and a large group of children living in a Ukrainian orphanage. Simon also spends one chapter depicting dozens of Australian rabbits used for experimentation that ultimately died during the tests or were later euthanized. A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters, which continues at MoMA through September 3, is a fascinating, involving collection of photographs of life and death, of science and politics, of the known and the unknown, intricately organized and arranged to create a complex, compelling visual narrative.