this week in music

FIVE POINTS: TAKE DANCE + PULSE — PART II

Merce Cunningham Dance Studios
55 Bethune St.
December 15-16 at 9:00, December 17 at 8:00, $20
800-838-3006
www.merce.org

As the Merce Cunningham Dance Company prepares for its farewell performances December 29-31 at the Park Avenue Armory, the troupe’s studios on Bethune St. will also be closing up shop. One of the last shows to take place there will be Five Points, in which TAKE Dance and the Pulse music collective pay tribute to Cunningham’s revolutionary synesthetic style by presenting five new works set to original post-classical jazz compositions. Touch and sound, science and art combine in unique ways in pieces by choreographer Takehiro Ueyama and composer Melissa Dunphy (“Summer Collection 2012”), Kile Hotchkiss and Pulse founder Joseph C. Phillips, Jr. (“The Substance of Things Unseen”), Milan Misko and Jamie Begian (“From Over Here”), Jill Echo and JC Sanford (“Views from the Inside”), and Kristen Arnold and Joshua Shneider (“unclearly departed”). The works will be performed by dancers Brynt Beitman, John Eirich, Jillian Hervey, Gina Ianni, Clinton Edward Martin, Sarah Mettin, Nana Tsuda Misko, Lynda Senisi, Kristi Tornga, Marie Zvosec, Misko, Hotchkiss, and Arnold and musicians Hannah Levinson (viola), Jacob Garchik (accordion, laptop, trombone), Ana Milosavljevic (violin/Viper), Chris Reza (woodwinds), Mariel Roberts (cello). Tickets must be reserved in advance; there will be no sales at the door.

GILDING THE LONELY: AN EVENING OF CABARET

Raquel Cion will be gilding the lonely in one-woman cabaret show at Dixon Place this week

The Lounge at Dixon Place
161A Chrystie St. between Rivington & Delancey Sts.
December 14-16, $5
212-219-0736
www.dixonplace.org

Last year sexy chanteuse Raquel Cion performed the one-woman show Pour Vous at Dixon Place in the guise of her alter ego, Cou-Cou Bijoux, who is also a member of the Magnetic Cabaret. Cion is now back at Dixon Place to present Gilding the Lonely, an evening of original cabaret directed by Luke Harlan, with musical direction by Matthew Leonard and percussion by Bill Gerstel. Cion, a powerful, engaging performer who exerts high energy and a burning sexuality, will be wearing what should be daring costumes by David Quinn in what she promises to be “three nights of glitter-ball performance, wry humor, open-hearted pathos, passion, and lots of singing. I’m going to face down that wall of loneliness through song.” Indeed, it’s impossible to be lonely when Cion is around, so if you’re in need of a little extra love this holiday season, you’re sure to find plenty of it at Dixon Place this week.

POPGUN AND NEW AMSTERDAM PRESENT LAUREL HALO, FORMA, CORPS EXQUIS, LORNA DUNE

Glasslands Gallery
289 Kent Ave.
Tuesday, December 13, $10, 8:30
www.newamsterdampresents.com
www.glasslands.blogspot.com

Cosmic avant-pop, chamber music, and cutting-edge electronic soundscapes will take center stage on December 13 at Glasslands as a collection of local composers gather for a night of twenty-first-century orchestrations. Presented by PopGun and New Amsterdam Records, the evening includes performances by Lorna Dune, FORMA (George Bennett, Sophie Lam, and Mark Dwinell), Laurel Halo, and Daniel Wohl, who will be teaming up with TRANSIT for the multimedia Corps Exquis, inspired by the Surrealists’ artistic parlor game Exquisite Corpse.

THE BIRTHDAY MASSACRE / DIR EN GREY

The Birthday Massacre will have the audience on pins and needles at Irving Plaza

Irving Plaza
17 Irving Pl. at East 15th St.
Monday, December 12, $41.50 – $63.50 ($29.50 – $51.50 without fees), 7:00
www.thebirthdaymassacre.com
www.irvingplaza.com

Touring behind their first album in three years, Dum Spiro Spero (the End, August 2011), Japanese heavyweights Dir En Grey arrive in New York City on Monday night to headline Irving Plaza, but you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you don’t get there early to catch the opening act, Toronto goth rockers the Birthday Massacre — and not only to get the biggest bang for your buck, since the relatively high ticket prices reach up to $63.50 for VIP access. On such discs as 2004’s Violet, 2007’s Walking with Strangers, and last year’s Pins and Needles, Chibi, Rainbow, M. Falcore, Rhim, O.E., and Owen play it hard and loud. Their latest EP, Imaginary Monsters (Metropolis, August 2011), features three new tracks, the soaring power ballads “Burn Away,” “Forever,” and “Left Behind,” along with five remixes of older tunes: Tweaker’s “Control,” Kevvy Mental & Dave Ogilvie’s “Pale,” Skold’s “Pins and Needles,” and Combichrist’s and Assemblage 23’s dueling versions of “Shallow Grave.” As we’ve said before, TBM know how to rock out live; just don’t be put off by the gothic metal makeup, black costumes, black hair, tattoos, and demonic signage. At heart, they’re just a bunch of pussycats. Well, maybe.

WHITE HILLS / PONTIAK

Pontiak will be at Littlefield with Thrill Jockey labelmates White Hills, previewing songs from their upcoming discs (photo by Lino Brunetti)

Littlefield
622 Degraw St.
Saturday, December 10, $10-$12, 10:00
www.littlefieldnyc.com
www.thrilljockey.com

One of our favorite labels, Chicago’s Thrill Jockey, is offering a little taste of things to come with a great double bill Saturday night at Littlefield in Brooklyn, with local natives White Hills and Virginia’s Pontiak highlighting songs from their upcoming records. In just the last couple of years, space-rock pioneers White Hills — guitarist Dave W. and bassist Ego Sensation — have released such far-out head trips as H-p1, Heads on Fire, the eponymous White Hills, and the twelve-inch Stolen Stars Left for No One (which features the amazing “Drift Away” and is currently back in stock in a very limited quantity). Wearing intergalactic costumes and electric face paint, White Hills take off for dimensions unknown in their live shows, captured on the Christmas release Live at Roadburn 2011. At Littlefield, they’ll be previewing songs from their March 2012 record, Frying on This Rock, which promises to be another energetic and unpredictable sojourn, with such tracks as “Pads of Light,” “Robot Stomp,” and “Song of Everything.” They’ll be joined by labelmates Pontiak, who will be giving concertgoers an advance look at their amazing new disc, Echo Ono, which Thrill Jockey will be releasing on February 21. Recorded by brothers Van, Lain, and Jennings Carney at their farm studio, Echo Ono is a sonic concept album in which the band seeks to capture texture and color, incorporating classic amps and instrumentation. From the explosive psychedelic opening of “Lions of Least” to the ass-kicking finale, the guitar-and-drums freak-out “Panoptica,” Pontiak takes the band to a whole new level. The middle of the record gets more melodic, as soaring harmonies and acoustic guitars lift the back-to-back duo of “The Expanding Sky” and “Silver Shadow,” while “Royal Colors” includes a massive guitar jam. Along the way, the brothers Carney give nods to Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead, and even Ozzie. Make sure you’re ready for one loud, crazy, psychedelic night. (And if that’s not enough Thrill Jockey for you, Arbouretum will be at Union Pool on Saturday night as well, touring behind their 2011 disc, The Gathering.)

SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS: THE NIGHT

New York duo's concept album will be released in February, but you can download first track now

New York indie duo School of Seven Bells made quite a splash with last year’s Disconnect from Desire, the follow-up to their 2006 debut, Alpinisms, and they’re looking to ring even louder with their next disc, Ghostory (Vagrant Records/Ghostly Inernational, February 28, 2012). A concept album about a young girl and her ghosts, the record includes such tracks as “Love Play,” “Reappear,” “Scavenger,” and “White Wind.” Guitarist-producer Benjamin Curtis and vocalist Alejandra Deheza have just released the album opener, “The Night,” a portent of good things to come. You can download the song for free here; keep watching twi-ny for more information about Ghostory and a School of Seven Bells tour as it becomes available.

GAGA’S HOLIDAY WORKSHOP

Lady Gaga has taken over Barneys New York this holiday season (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Barneys New York
660 Madison Ave. at 61st St.
Through January 1, free
212-826-8900
www.barneys.com
www.gagasworkshop.com

Lady Gaga is determined to be part of your holiday season one way or another, whether you want her to be or not, and we can’t say that that’s necessarily a bad thing. Grand Central has just published the deluxe fifty-dollar hardcover Lady Gaga x Terry Richardson, a behind-the-scenes photography book in which the famed lensman follows around the former Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta from August 2010 to February 2011, while Interscope has just released Born This Way — the Remix, with Zedd, Goldfrapp, Foster the People, Metronomy, and others putting their own spin on the songs from the original disc, which has topped the five-million mark in sales. And now the native New Yorker has taken over Barneys with a collection of Gaga Goodies that can be found on the fifth floor of the shopping mecca, in a space designed by her Royal Gaga-ness with Nicola Formichetti and the art collective assume vivid astro focus, featuring special-edition designer cosmetics, toys, jewelry, candy, apparel, and other accessories, with twenty-five percent of all sales going to the Born This Way Foundation, which believes in “empowering youth” and “inspiring bravery.” She has also designed several of Barneys windows, filling them with the futuristic, streamlined Gagamachine, the inviting ice-blue Crystal Cave, and the Victorian-era Gaga’s Boudoir, along with the short musical film “Constellation.” On “You and I” from Born This Way, LG sings, “This time I’m not leaving without you”; this month it will be hard for holiday shoppers to leave without at least a little bit of Gaga.