by Andrew Frisicano

Speaking of Nico Muhly, he just played a Wordless Music show at Columbia's Miller Theatre on September 9th. There he performed with '802 Tour,' a round-robin style stage show with frequent collaborators Sam Amidon and Thomas Bartlett...

Mr. Bartlett's piano-driven ballads, including some from a forthcoming CD, "The Conformist," had a shadowy, confessional intimacy that was accentuated by his tremulous, nearly whispered crooning. In sharp contrast, Mr. Amidon affected a ragged backwoods yelp for traditional shape-note songs and other folksy material.

Mr. Muhly's appealing instrumental compositions drew on Philip Glass's harmonic stasis and the rhythmic vitality of Stravinsky and Ligeti, mixed with a flair for electronic counterpoint that was all Mr. Muhly's own. Yuki Numata, a terrific violinist from the ACME group, brought out an ardent romanticism in "Honest Music," for violin and electronics....

Where genres had been gently mixed during the concert, in an encore medley they were mangled outright. Mr. Muhly waxed rhapsodic at the piano in Mariah Carey's "My All"; Mr. Bartlett offered a limpid rendition of Neil Young's "Only Love Can Break Your Heart"; and Mr. Amidon turned R. Kelly's "Relief" into a suitably crooked hootenanny singalong. [NY Times]

Barlett's new Doveman CD, The Conformist, which features Muhly and Sam Amidon prominently, will be out October 20th on the Brassland label. Also featured on the disc are the National's Matt Berninger, Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Bryan Devendorf, a string section, and additional guest spots by Martha Wainwright and Norah Jones.

Doveman will be playing fall-winter dates (not announced yet), and unless they are solo shows, those will probably come after the Sam Amidon/Nico Muhly European tour (also with Ben Frost and Valgeir Sigurðsson) that runs October 24th to November 12th. The Eurotrip is less than a week after Muhly appears at the New Yorker Festival to discuss "Radical Opera" with Rufus Wainwright in a talk moderated by Alex Ross.

Martha & Rufus Wainwright recently played with their father at Highline Ballroom, and will both appear in an upcoming show at Carnegie Hall. Rufus also has another benefit show coming up in NYC soon.

The National (members) can be found at BAM at the of October with a member of the Pixies who just announced a 4th NYC show to happen in November.

The new Doveman track that National frontman Matt Berninger sings on, is streaming at Pitchfork.

Doveman album art above. Tracklist and some interesting videos, below...

Continue reading "Doveman's new album The Conformist w/ The National, Nico Muhly, Sam Amidon, Martha Wainwright & Norah Jones"

DOWNLOAD: Do Make Say Think - Other Truths album sampler (MP3)

photos by Chris La Putt

Do Make Say Think

The term "wordless" was perhaps misleading, because the Broken Social Scene founding member's [Happiness] Project was rooted in language, words, and conversation. A year ago, [Charles] Spearin began inviting neighbors from his downtown Toronto neighborhood over for a series of casual interviews in which he asked them questions about happiness and its meaning.

Listening to the recordings, Spearin noticed the musicality of his subjects' voices, as well as their varied and diverse responses. He set about trying to create melodies from the responses, and enlisted his musical friends to help, ultimately arranging the melodies as songs.

[On September 10th], Spearin and other musicians (including some members of DMST) performed these songs, along with the interviews that inspired them. Beginning with bare musical imitations of the voices, the melodies grew and developed into full-fledged songs, featuring repeated sound clips from the interviews. The use of the recordings, a sort of motif in post-rock music, was developed in a truly inspired way.

Following the performance of the Happiness Project, Spearin rejoined Do Make Say Think for a set in which they performed songs from their older albums, as well as new songs from the forthcoming album Other Truths.

During this second half of the evening, the volume went way up, as did the banter, swearing, and on-stage beer drinking. The band's signature distorted guitars, spacey electronic effects, and loud bass was a major shift from the comparatively subdued Happiness Project.

Though the set was at times repetitive, it was more often powerful, intense, and surprising. The songs built up beautifully, and the audience members, restricted by their seats, bobbed their heads in satisfied unison. [Columbia Spectator]

Thursday's show (described above) was just one of the four recent "Wordless Music" shows that happened at Miller Theatre. Destroyer, Grouper, and Doveman were among those who played the other three.

Do Make Say Think and The Happiness Project hit Europe this fall, then return to North America for a series of shows in late November and December. Joining on the tour will be Years, a project of DMST guitarist Ohad Benchetrit. All three play November 28th at Music Hall of Williamsburg and November 29th at Bowery Ballroom. Tickets (finally) go on AmEx presale Wednesday, September 16th at noon. General sale starts Friday, September 18th at noon.

DMST's new record Other Truths is set to come out October 20th on Constellation. A preview of that record is posted above. Artwork and tracklist are below with the rest of the pictures from the Miller Theatre show...

Continue reading "Do Make Say Think & Charles Spearin's 'The Happiness Project' played Miller Theatre (pics) ++ MP3 & more dates..."

802 Tour...

Wordless Music's four-night run at Columbia University's Miller Theatre (2960 Broadway at 116th Street) starts tonight (9/9) with a one-off show from the "802 Tour," a collaboration between Nico Muhly, Sam Amidon and Doveman (Thomas Bartlett).

That's followed by Do Make Say Think and Charles Spearin's "The Happiness Project" on September 10th (the same lineup that will tour together in November), Tim Hecker, Grouper and Julianna Barwick on September 11th (Grouper is also playing ATP NY), and the final night with Dan Bejar (Destroyer), Loscil and JACK Quartet on Saturday, September 12th. Tickets are still on sale for all events.

We also have two pairs of tickets to give away to each show. Full details are below.

Wordless Music's fall series continues after Saturday with shows from Deerhoof, No Age, múm, Mount Eerie, Broadcast & Atlas Sound, Why? and more.

Do Make Say Think's new album, Other Truths, will be released on October 20th via Constellation Records.

More on the "802 Tour" show with video, below...

Continue reading "Wordless events kick off @ the Miller Theatre TONIGHT -- win tix to Doveman, Destroyer & Do Make Say Think "

DOWNLOAD: Lou Reed - Perfect Day (Carillon April 30th, 2009) (MP3)

Lou Reed & his Metal Machine (more by Lori Baily)

"Lou Reed's (b. 1942) music written for the Velvet Underground propelled him to rock stardom. His Metal Machine Music, a distorted sound wall of guitar feedback, has been called the precursor to punk. Critical rejection at its first release in 1975 led to a cult-like interest. Ulrich Krieger has accomplished a feat once deemed impossible by transcribing and arranging Metal Machine Music for classical instruments"...

Mark your calendar because that program, "Fireworks Ensemble playing Metal Machine Music", is coming to Columbia's Miller Theatre on Friday, February 5, 2010. Tickets are on sale now.

Ulrich Krieger was 1/3 of the Metal Machine Trio that played the Gramercy Theatre in April. (The others on stage were Sarth Calhoun, Reed himself and special guest John Zorn.) That trio has dates later this year in Europe, which are posted below.

This weekend, Reed is at Lollapalooza in Chicago, where he'll play a "songs" set (if you recall, the Metal Machine shows advertised themselves as "No Songs No Vocals" to curb any suspicion about the program).

Reed recently collaborated with Barenaked Ladies instrumentalist Kevin Hearn on a "song about overfishing the oceans stands out like a sore sea-hugger."

Kevin Hearn and Thin Buckle's Havana Winter, released on [July 28th] from Hearn's indie label Celery Music, is nakedly invested in...natural subjects. "Coma," which features Reed on backing vocals and guitar, was inspired by Charles Clover's The End of the Line, an alarming documentary about fishing, technology and extinction. Reed and Hearn use that as a point of departure to also criticize urban sprawl.

Reed plays screeching guitar on three [of the record's] tunes ("Coma," "In The Shade," "H.I.T.S."), while his wife, performance artist Laurie Anderson adds electric violin on "Reeling."

Listen to "Coma" at Wired.

Another track, posted above, is a version of Reed's "Perfect Day," originally released on 1972's Transformer, being played on the Riverside Church carillon (a huge mass of bells and the largest of its kind in the world) last April. Why you ask? Here's the description of the event...

Continue reading "Lou Reed - Metal Machine Music & ensemble show in NYC (tix), Lollapalooza (this weekend), Barenaked Ladies & more"