this week in music

THE NEW SCHOOL ARTS FESTIVAL: NOIR

Guy Maddin’s HAUNTINGS will be shown as part of the New School’s noir festival

Theresa Lang Student and Community Center (and other venues)
Arnhold Hall, 55 West 13th St.
Admission: free
www.newschool.edu/artsfestival/noir

Dark, shadowy tales filled with double crosses, murder, heated sexuality, creepy corners and alleyways, mysterious characters, flippant dialogue, shootouts, and dangerous women — there’s nothing like a good noir story. The inaugural New School Arts Festival continues this week, using the institution’s resources for a thorough cultural examination of the theme of the noir genre in film, theater, literature, music, and art. All events are free but require advance reservations via the above website. Today at 6:00, author and professor James Naremore will deliver the keynote address, followed by a screening of the Coen brothers’ 1984 neonoir classic, Blood Simple, introduced by cultural writer Kim Morgan and Hirshon Festival Director-in-Residence Guy Maddin. Blood Simple star Frances McDormand will participate in a special conversation with Cecilia Rubino following a screening of the Coens’ Fargo on Friday at 2:00, with the reservation line opening today at noon. On Tuesday at 4:00, the 1913-14 silent crime serial Fantômas will be shown, followed by a panel discussion with Geoffrey O’Brien, Howard Rodman, Luc Sante, and David White; at 6:00, Molly Haskell will deliver a paper on the femme fatale that lies at the center of the noir genre, followed by a discussion with Morgan, Susie Linfield, and Laura Frost, moderated by Bill Goldstein; and at 8:00, Robet Polito, Mary Gaitskill, and Robert Pinsky will read poetry accompanied by live improvised jazz from Ben Allison, Frank Kimbrough, and Rudy Royston in the program “Noir — Poetry, Fiction and Jazz.” On Wednesday at 4:00, Eugene Lang College students and alumni will present John Webster’s 1612 play The White Devil; blues expert Michael Gray will discuss the life and career of Blind Willie McTell at 6:30; and Maddin will screen Hauntings, his short reimaginings of lost films by major directors, then take part in a talk with Polito. On Thursday night from 6:30 to 11:30, “Noir Now” will include creative writing students reading their winning noir-inspired work, video excerpts from composer Paul Moravec and librettist Terry Teachout’s noir opera The Letter, poetry reading by Frank Bidart, and Greil Marcus and Todd Haynes discussing Haynes’s fine miniseries adaptation of James M. Cain’s Mildred Pierce, currently being shown on HBO. On Friday at 11:00 am, New School students have curated an excellent noir double feature at the IFC Center, consisting of Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950) and David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001), and the festivities conclude that night at 8:00 with the Dorothy H. Hirshon Film Festival: Original Script Reading Event, featuring multimedia excerpts from students finishing up their Screenwriting Certificates, followed by a public reception.

UNSOUND FESTIVAL 2011

The Skull Defekts are headlining a special Unsound Festival show at Littlefield on April 6

Goethe-Institut, Wyoming Building (and other venues)
5 East Third St. between Bowery & Second Ave.
April 1-10, free – $30
www.unsound.pl/en
www.goethe.de

After a successful debut last year, the Unsound Festival is back with an amazing lineup of concerts, lectures, discussions, and film presentations that explore the past, present, and future of electronic music. Focusing primarily on European performers, the festival begins tonight at 8:00 with “Collaborations 1” ($12) at the Issue Project Room, with HATI + Z’ev, Anna Zaradny, MERCE, Dawid Szcsesny, and Aki Onda. Tomorrow at 5:00 at the Goethe-Institut, the BFI DVD project MisinforMation will screen for free, consisting of clips of public-information shorts rescored by Mordant Music. On April 3, sound artist Stephen Vitiello will give a free talk at 1:00 at the festival’s home base, the Goethe-Institut, about his High Line installation, “A Bell for Every Minute,” in addition to other of his public projects. On April 5 at the Walter Reade Theater, Clay Gold, Demdike Stare, Felix Kubin, Peter Kutin, Raime, and Rob Eggers collaborate on the five-channel horror-sound program Cinema for the Ear ($12). Among the many other participants in the festival are Deaf Center, Henryk Gorecki, Alan Howarth, Harald Grosskopf, Emeralds, Carlos Giffoni, C. Spencer Yeh, Robert Piotrowicz, Marcus Schmickler, COH, Instant Coffee, Lustmord, and Void ov Voices. There are plenty of other special events; below are some of our favorites.

Gospel of the Skull: On Sunday night at 8:00 at Littlefield ($10), the Skull Defekts will premiere songs from its latest disc, Peer Amid (Thrill Jockey). If you’re going to call yourself the Skull Defekts, you better play loud, crazy-ass music. Fortunately, this Swedish experimental rock group does just that on such songs as “No More Always,” “In Majestic Drag,” and “Fragrant Nimbus,” with Henrik Rylander, Joachim Nordwall, Jean-Louis Huhta, and Daniel Fagerstroem joined by Lungfish vocalist Daniel Higgs, who brings a whole new dimension to the group. Also on the bill is Thrill Jockey labelmate Zomes, the solo project of Lungfish guitarist Asa Osborne, who are touring behind their 2011 record Earth Grid, which was made on a cassette tape, and Polish-born German electronic percussion specialist Paul Wirkus.

Legendary electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick will make two heavily anticipated appearances at the Unsound Festival

Unsound Labs: Nosferatu, Symphony of Fear: On April 4 at 7:30 ($15), BAMcinématek will screen F. W. Murnau’s classic 1922 horror film, Nosferatu, accompanied by a live score performed by acoustic doom creator Svarte Greiner and Wirkus.

Music for Solaris: On April 6 at 8:00 at Alice Tully Hall ($20-$25), the Unsound Festival New York Opening, held in conjunction with the Krakow festival Sacrum Profanum, celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 novel, Solaris — famously turned into films in 1971 by Andrei Tarkovsky and 2002 by Steven Soderbergh — with a specially commissioned score by Ben Frost and Daniel Bjarnason performed by Sinfonietta Cracovia and with film manipulations by Brian Eno and Nick Robertson. Sinfonietta Cracovia will also play works by Steve Reich and Krzysztof Penderecki.

Morton Subotnick: American electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick will take part in a pair of very cool events at the Unsound Festival. On April 7 at 7:30 (free), he will present “Modular Dreams” at the David Rubenstein Atrium, revisiting his 1967 debut record, the seminal Silver Apples of the Moon, with video supplied by Lillevan. (Atom™ is also on the bill.) On April 8 at 6:00 ($15), Subotnick will give the lecture and demonstration “The Transistor, the Tape Recorder, and the Credit Card: The Technological Big Bang” at the Greenwich House Music School, focusing on his groundbreaking work with the Buchla voltage-controlled modular synthesizer.

TAYLOR KUFFNER: TROMPONGAN GEDE / ANSAMBEL GENDER WAYANG

Zemi17’s GamelaTrons bring meditative music to Chelsea (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

FACING EAST
Sundaram Tagore Gallery
547 West 27th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through April 2, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-677-4520
www.sundaramtagore.com
www.zemi17.net
gamelatron slideshow

Since March 4, the northern edge of the Chelsea art district has been alive with the sound of an unusual kind of music, and this is the last week to be drawn in by its meditative mystery and magic. The rhythmic chiming is coming from both inside and outside the Sundaram Tagore Gallery on West 27th St., part of the “Facing East” group show focusing on works by contemporary artists from Japan, Korea, Vietnam, India, and Uzbekistan. Interspersed among such paintings as Hiroshi Senju’s “Waterfall” and Natvar Bhavsar’s “Truptya” is a pair of site-specific audiovisual installations by American artist, composer, and musician Aaron Taylor Kuffner, aka Zemi17, who spent several years in Indonesia studying traditional Balinese and Javanese music. In the back room is “Ansambel Gender Wayang,” what Kuffner refers to as “the world’s first fully robotic Gamelan Orchestra,” with a quartet of percussive GamelaTrons, as well as a sharp-toothed turtle, performing a series of computerized scores that allow visitors to watch the various hammers banging up and down. Meanwhile, “Trompongan Gede,” consisting of dozens of gongs, bells, hammers, mallets, and lights placed throughout the rest of the gallery, play numerous compositions that can be both cacophonous and soothing, restful and energizing. “The reactions vary widely,” Kuffner told twi-ny. “Some people are surprised or even frightened; others are elated and seem to turn into curious children just after hearing a couple gongs ring out.” The show continues through April 2.

Developed with the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (LEMUR), the GamelaTrons come with a spacey sci-fi back story that you don’t need to know about to enjoy the sounds, but in case you’re curious, here’s how Zemi17 describes it: “In the not too distant future, after massive climate change has transformed the earth and made human life as we know it impossible, our descendants — an ethereal synthesis of our human consciousness and highly advanced robot technology — discover a set of bronze percussive instruments buried in the earth. The sounds from striking these gongs and bells awaken memories and dreams from an era long past. These future beings develop a simple set of networked mechanical mallets that mimic the movements of the human musicians they have seen in their dreams. The songs this robot orchestra plays tell joyful, sad, bittersweet, wise, and wondering stories from the time of the human race’s great transformation.”

DISTANT WORLDS: MUSIC FROM FINAL FANTASY

Final Fantasy multimedia concert experience comes to BAM April 1-2 (Final Fantasy XIV © 2010 Square Enix Co., Ltd. Final Fantasy is a registered trademark of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. All material used under license.)

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Peter Jay Sharp Building
230 Lafayette Ave.
Friday, April 1, and Saturday April 2, $65-$175, 8:00
718-636-4100
www.ffdistantworlds.com
www.bam.org

Final Fantasy began as a role-playing video game in 1987 and has since expanded into manga, movies, television, and much more, emerging as an international phenomemon with a legion of dedicated fans. In addition to its amazing imagery using cutting-edge technology, Final Fantasy features symphonic scores composed by Nobuo Uematsu, who began making the music for the series shortly after accidentally bumping into creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. On April 1-2, Uematsu and conductor Arnie Roth will present “Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy” at BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House, performed by the Distant Worlds Philharmonic Orchestra, the Riverside Choral Society, and various soloists, accompanied by a screen showing memorable images and videos from the games. The April 1 program includes FF VII: Prelude, FFVIII: Liberi Fatali, FFXI: Memoro de la Stono — Distant Worlds, FF VII: J-E-N-O-V-A, FF VIII: Fisherman’s Horizon, the American premiere of FF XIV: Answers, FFX: To Zanarkand, FFVI: Terra’s Theme, FFXII: Kiss Me Goodbye, FFV: Clash on the Big Bridge, FFVII: Opening — Bombing Mission, and FFVIII: Don’t Be Afraid, while April 2 consists of FF VII: Aerith’s Theme, FF V: Dear Friends, FF IX: Vamo’ alla Flamenco, FF VI: Opera “Maria and Draco,” FF IX: A Place to Call Home — Melodies of Life, FFX: To Zanarkand, FFVI: Terra’s Theme, FFXII: Kiss Me Goodbye, FFV: Clash on the Big Bridge, FFVII: Opening — Bombing Mission, and FFVIII: Don’t Be Afraid. “Distant Worlds” has been touring the world, delivering its multimedia concert experience to fans who can’t get enough of Final Fantasy and its depiction of the ultimate battle between good and evil. Tickets start at $65, but if you splurge for the $175 package you get to meet Uematsu and Roth and attend an autograph and photo session. (If you use code 13999, you’ll save $10 on all tickets.)

YOKO ONO & FRIENDS: TO JAPAN WITH LOVE

Yoko Ono and a new version of the Plastic Ono Band will play a Japan benefit March 29 at (le) poisson rouge with Patti Smith and Cibo Matto

(le) poisson rouge
158 Bleecker St.
Tuesday, March 29, $100, 10:30
212-228-4854
www.imaginepeace.com
www.myspace.com/officialyokoono

In December 1970, Yoko Ono released Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, which teamed the Japanese-born avant-garde performer with such friends as John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Klaus Voormann, and Ornette Coleman, among others. In the fall of 2009, Ono celebrated the record’s upcoming fortieth anniversary with a new Plastic Ono Band album, Between My Head and the Sky, which included such songs as “I’m Alive,” “I’m Going Away Smiling,” “Moving Mountains,” “Healing,” and “Memory of Footsteps.” Those titles now seem prophetic as she and the band, consisting of Sean Ono Lennon, Antony, Yuka Honda, Michael Leonhart, Shimmy Hirotaka Shimizu, and Yuko Araki, will play a Japan benefit Tuesday night at (le) poisson rouge. (Ono has also donated her husband’s “Imagine” to the iTunes album Songs for Japan, benefiting the Japan Red Cross.) The bill also features Patti Smith playing with bassist Tony Shanahan and a set by Cibo Matto. Tickets are $100 for a rare chance to see these three great bands together while helping raise much-needed funds,

TWI-NY TALK: KIDS OF 88

Kids of 88 will be playing their sweaty, sexy electro-pop at Piano’s on March 28 (photo by Kyle Dean Reinford)

Piano’s
158 Ludlow St.
Monday, March 28, $8-$10, 9:00
212-505-3733
www.myspace.com/kidsof88
www.pianosnyc.com

Best buds Jordan Arts and Sam McCarthy have been making music together since they were twelve years old, banging pots and pans and listening to Hendrix. The Auckland duo known as Kids of 88 — vocalist McCarthy and programmer and keyboardist Arts were both born in 1988 — burst onto the scene a few years back with the sexy, steamy electro-pop hits “My House” and “Just a Little Bit” and have gone on to make remixes for Cobra Starship and Ke$ha, even going out on the road with the latter on a recent brief European tour. On such big-sounding dance-club songs as “Downtown,” “Sugarpills,” and “Just a Little Bit,” they sing about slutty sex, getting unprofessional, and, well, just having a damn good time. Upon returning from their highly praised shows at SXSW, Arts and McCarthy, who will be playing Piano’s at 9:00 on March 28 on a bill with Cassette Kids, K. Flay, Bo Bruce, and the Lopez, answered questions about Austin, their friendship, and ’80s theme songs.

twi-ny: You’ve just finished several gigs at SXSW, where the raves keep pouring in. What was the overall experience like? Did you get to see other bands play as well, or were you too busy with your own shows and press?

Sam McCarthy: The overall SXSW experience was festively turbulent. We had been tipped off about how crazy things can potentially become, so we were well prepared when it came to maneuvering our way about the town, meaning we could focus on what we were there to do and have an amazing time doing it! Unfortunately we only managed to capture a few other bands. Surfer Blood on the Tuesday night was great, If only we could have caught the amazing Gayngs, then we would have been set for life.

Jordan Arts: South by South Swag was what Theophilus London called it when he took the stage for the MTV Garage showcase, which we were also playing at. To be on the bill with the likes of him and Friendly Fires and Matt & Kim was awesome, so that was a highlight for me. It was a bit of a whirlwind experience but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

twi-ny: The two of you have been making music together now for more than half your lives. Do you ever get sick of seeing each other, or are you more like kindred spirits, meant to be together?

JA: I think kindred spirits is a nice way to look at it. We are more often than not on the same wavelength, which doesn’t always happen with everybody. To be experiencing parts of the world we’d never had imagined we would be in together can only mean that we’ll be reminiscing about the past when we’re sixty years old!

SM: We have moments where we can clash, but they are always positive disagreements, whether that results in an idea that neither of us would have conjured up or it keeps the other on their toes; however, most of the time it’s a happy band-ship. We’re both Aquarian, so even if we wanted to tiff it’d be forced.

twi-ny: On your website, you describe your music as “a cross between a late ’80s police drama intro theme and a sophisticated super hussy.” What is your favorite late ’80s police drama intro theme, and who is your favorite sophisticated super hussy?

SM: Beverly Hills Cop is up there. I also think a disco rework of the America’s Most Wanted song could be pretty epic. Top bird? Daryl Hannah in a pant suit is a sight for sore eyes; I could have easily bitten off a bit of Sharon Stone in her heyday also.

JA: Although bending the rules a bit, my favorite theme would probably be the Beverly Hills Cop intro or maybe the amazing Knight Rider theme. As hussies go, I think Lisa [Kelly LeBrock] from Weird Science takes the cake. She’s oh so sexy, but the fact that she can do out-of-this-world things makes her very sophisticated!

CONCERT TO BENEFIT JAPAN EARTHQUAKE RELIEF

Experimental composer and musician John Zorn is curating two exciting benefits for the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund at the Abrons Art Center

Abrons Arts Center, Henry Street Settlement
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
Friday, April 8, $35-$50, 6:30 & 9:30
212-352-3101
www.henrystreet.org

Jon Zorn, whose Masada Marathon takes place March 30 at New York City Opera, is one of the leading figures participating in benefits for the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund. On April 9, he’ll be playing in the 1:00 gala block ($100) with Philip Glass, Hal Willner, Lou Reed, and Laurie Anderson at Japan Society’s twelve-hour Concert for Japan. And the night before, he’s curating two programs at the Abrons Art Center ($35-$50). At 6:30, Zorn will be playing in a duo with Ikue Mori along with Thurston Moore, Elliott Sharp, the Alhambra Trio with Rob Burger, Erik Friedlander, Lizz Wright & Aya Nishina, Milford Graves, Jamie Saft and New Zion Trio, Gyan Riley, Matthew Shipp, the Masada String Trio, Ned Rothenberg, Mark Feldman & Sylvie Courvoisier, Miya Masaoka, and Jack Quartet. That incredible lineup will be followed at 9:30 by a show featuring Norah Jones, Jessie Harris, Vinicius Cantuaria, Buke and Gass, JG Thirlwell’s Manorexia, Elysian Fields, and Sex Mob. “The tragedy and devastation is really overwhelming,” Zorn said in a statement. “I’ve always felt a strong personal connection to Japan, and I’m just glad to be able to do my part to help. It should be an amazing night.”