Founded in June 2010 the Undead Jazzfest is new kind of festival, bringing together an incredible array of artists from the new jazz and improvised music community currently exploding in New York City. With no headliners, affordable tickets, unorthodox venues and no drink minimums, the Undead Jazzfest aims to shake the public perception of what jazz can be today, celebrating the incredible music being made in a setting that is inviting to both the veterans and curious new fans.

Encompassing eleven venues over its four days (6/23 - 6/26), the Undead Jazzfest will feature appearances from more than 50 bands including names like Marc Ribot, Elliott Sharp, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Mountains and many others. The full list of participating bands is below. Four day passes are on sale for $45 until 4/28. The price increases to $50 after.

Undead Jazzfest is also responsible for curating another show outside of said festival, this one going down at Central Park Summerstage on June 11th with Medeski Martin & Wood, Josh Roseman's King Froopy All Stars and Jim Black's AlasNoAxis. It's one of many free 2011 Summerstage shows that have been announced.

AND, Undead Jazz presents a show at Le Poisson Rouge tonight (4/25) with Orchestre National de Jazz with Daniel Yvinec and John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble with special guests Theo Bleckmann , Kate McGarry and Uri Caine. Undead Jazz also presents Todd Sickafoose's Tiny Resistors and Mary Halvorson Trio at the same venue on May 18th.

Full Undead Jazzfest 2011 lineup below.

Continue reading "Undead Jazzfest 2011 lineup announced, tix on sale now, and other related shows too"

Shahzad Ismaily @ LPR in 2008 (more by Ryan Muir)

today in NYC
* Paul Dianno @ BB King's
* Slavic Soul Party @ Barbes
* Shahzad Ismaily @ The Stone
* Joan La Barbara @ The Stone
* Devin Therriault @ Mercury Lounge
* As Tall As Lions @ Highline Ballroom
* Jonathan Batiste, Michael T. @ Brooklyn Bowl
* Lost Boy, Gross Relations, Quilty, Telenovelas @ Pianos
* Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, Cat Martino @ the Rock Shop
* Bottle Up And Go, Ego Puppets, Shark?, Libel @ Glasslands
* Bastard Lovechild of Rock n Roll, Peanut Butter Lovecicle @ Cameo Gallery
* Kelli Scarr of Moonraker, The Grand Concourse, Sneaky Legend @ Zebulon
* Josh Preston, Cuddle Magic, Kevn Kinney, Anton Fier, Andy Hess, Tony Scherr, Jim Campilongo @ The Living Room
* @Neako, Stunnaman (of the Pack), Trouble Andrew, Curtains, Fortunate Ones, Skotch Davis, Maluca, J.Y., Young Thrilla @ Mercury Lounge

Sam Prekop has a new video for "The Silhouettes." Check it out below...

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Tuesday?"

words by Rachel Kowal

On Friday and Saturday night, singer Sam Amidon has hosted a series of sold-out shows at The Kitchen, an arts space in Manhattan that boasts an impressive Board of Directors that includes the likes of Philip Glass, Nico Muhly and Bryce Dessner to name a few.

With its austere, DIY theatre vibe, the setting was a bit unconventional, but then again, so was the performance. Much more than simply an evening of folk songs, ballads, and hymns, Amidon projected random video clips and odd, hand-drawn cartoons onto the large screen lining the back wall.

There were two clusters of instruments and laptops on stage - one for Amidon and the other for one of his regular collaborators, Shahzad Ismaily. Due to Amidon's mesmerizing presence, it's easy to overlook Ismaily on percussion, but only because his contribution is effortlessly subtle and effective.

Amidon began his multimedia show with a series of video clips, including one of himself in a rowboat, narrating the tragic tale of "a young child of indiscriminate gender, wearing a green raincoat who ran away from home at the age of 10." With such a vivid and candid performer like Amidon, it's often hard to tell if it's all an act or if he's a bit crazy, but that's part of the appeal.

As was quickly evidenced by both his home videos and his live performance, Amidon can hardly contain his odd stories and asides. With Amidon, it's about the journey - however winding or disjointed it may be. And with a fair amount of sing-a-longs thrown in to keep the audience engaged, it's hard not to feel that we're all weary travelers on the same odyssey.

Of course, the bulk of Amidon's show comprised songs from his last two albums, but he also played a quick succession of short folk songs. And yes, besides the more conventional aspects of the performance, he displayed everything from 'liturgical dancing' and chaotic vocal exercises to a book review (Peter Biskind's "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood" - apparently terrible), a conversation between a piece of broccoli and a jar of maple syrup (naturally, about love and depression), and an R. Kelly cover ("Relief").

It may not have been the most coherent experience, but Sam Amidon's grab bag performances never cease to entertain and enliven.

--

Both Sam Amidon and Shahzad Ismaily also play in Thomas Bartlett's Doveman, so maybe they'll be there in March when Doveman goes on a very short tour with Nadia Sirota in March. That very short tour includes two shows in Minneapolis and that one taking place at Merkin Concert Hall on March 9th with Owen Pallett.

Nadia Sirota and Sam Amidon, along with The National's Bryce Dessner and Bishi, will also participate in Tell The Way at St. Ann's Warehouse on February 10th, 11th and 12th...

Tell The Way is a newly commissioned collaborative work created for the Brooklyn Youth Chorus (Dianne Berkun, Artistic Director) by the ubiquitous Nico Muhly. Loosely based on medieval and colonial English travel narratives, the work draws from American folk sources, prayers for the Royal Navy, early colonial diaries, Mandeville, Herodotus and Marco Polo. Nico Muhly's music is propulsive travel-music, but at the heart of Tell The Way are three meditative collaborations between Muhly and Bishi, Muhly and Bryce Dessner and Muhly and Sam Amidon. An ensemble of strings, percussion, piano, and flute augment the voices of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Bryce's guitar, Sam's banjo and fiddle, and Bishi's sitar.

Tickets for all three shows are on sale.

All tour dates and Sam's Kitchen setlist, below...

Continue reading "Sam Amidon played the Kitchen (review & setlist), playing Nico Muhly's 'Tell The Way' @ St. Ann's Warehouse (dates)"

by Rachel Kowal

DOWNLOAD: Sam Amidon - "Cabin in the Corner" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Sam Amidon - Walking on Sunshine (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Sam Amidon - Relief (R. Kelly cover) (MP3)

Sam Amidon in a museum in the past

I made it to the Mercury Lounge just in time to catch the tail end of Partyface, the mysterious opener and Sam Amidon's self-proclaimed "favorite band." The only Partyface easily search-able on Myspace appears to be a death metal band from Massachusetts, but don't let that, or the wild energy invoked by the artist's chosen name, fool you. With just a guy on drums (Shazad Ismaily) and a girl on guitar, the Partyface present at last Wednesday night's show definitely falls more under the classification of singer-songwriter.

It's also tempting to call Sam Amidon a singer-songwriter, but that label proves to be somewhat problematic for a few reasons. Most obviously, Amidon doesn't really write his own songs - at least not in the conventional sense. Amidon's catalog consists almost entirely of traditional folk songs and an odd assortment of cover songs. Despite the lack of 'original' material, however, Amdion re-imagines and rearranges the songs he chooses so that by the time he's done with them, each one is born anew.

Vivid, often tragic stories animate Amidon's songs. The Mercury Lounge show featured a trip through the mountains, a blood-stained shirt, a fair damsel waiting for her lover to return from battle, and a girl with rosy-red lips. But Sam Amidon's songs are not the only things with a strong narrative appeal. His banter consists almost entirely of strange, outlandish stories that for the most part seem wholly unconnected to his music. (For example, he talks about an article in the Economist that he was reading on the train from London to Paris, which allegedly concerned a 'vegetarian homicidal robot' that forages for fruit and veggies and then burns them when it finds them.) Then, without missing a beat, he launches into his next song, making me wonder how he could possibly have trouble writing songs from scratch. Like a curious little kid, he seems to find stories in everything. Even his instruments have a story or two to tell. During one song, he preceded every banjo solo with the lightening fast quip, "What do you say, banjo?"

It isn't often that a band's percussion contributes much to a song in a thematic sense, but Shahzad Ismaily, Amidon's partner on stage, is capable of working magic. If he falls into the background at all, it is only because his percussive style compliments Amidon's music so well. Near the end of "I See the Sign," for instance, Amidon sang about dark clouds and Ismaily created a low rumble on the drums that sounded just like thunder rolling in from the distance.

Folk ballads and cover songs aside, Amidon also sets himself apart from the flock of other acoustic singer-songwriters due to his erratic and unpredictable delivery. One moment, he's singing about a wayward son straight out of the Old Testament, and another he's doing a mad interpretive dance (or a 'liturgical dance' in his words). First, he's like a medieval troubadour, delivering romantic lyrics with his warm, well-weathered voice. Then, he announces mid-song that we're going to take a 'journey' together, and he launches into a madcap freestyle that bore an uncanny resemblance to a train in desperate need of repair.

Amidon concluded his short but compelling set, sans encore, with a mini-medley of "Climbing High Mountains" and a cover of the charmingly naive and unrealistically optimistic R. Kelly song "Relief," which posits (among other things) that the war is over. Not many people could pull off covers by artists as far-ranging as R. Kelly, Katrina and the Waves, and Tears for Fears, but Sam Amidon seems to transform the songs and make them fully his own.

Sam will next tell stories on July 7th at Tony Shafrazi Gallery in NYC. More details on that free show along with the Mercury Lounge setlist and two of his story videos, below....

Continue reading "Sam Amidon played Mercury Lounge, playing a free show "

by Andrew Frisicano

Laurie w/ the dogs in Australia (more by Roberta W.B.)

Some in the audience howled with glee, others stood on trembling legs and a few drooled in delight as famed performance artist Laurie Anderson debuted her original "Music for Dogs" composition outside the Sydney Opera House on Saturday [June 5th].

Hundreds of dogs and their owners bounced around as Anderson entertained them with 20 minutes of thumping beats, whale calls, whistles and a few high-pitched electronic sounds imperceptible to human ears.

"Let's hear it from the medium dogs!" Anderson called out from the stage, as a few dogs yipped in return. "You can do better than that -- come on mediums! Whoo! WHOOOOOO!"

The concert was originally billed as a performance for dogs' ears only, and was going to be largely limited to electronic noises played at a frequency too high for human ears. But Anderson changed things up when she decided she wanted people to have some fun, too.

"We didn't want to do something that humans couldn't hear," she said. "We brought the octaves down into our hearing range so we could all have the experience." [AP]

Laurie Anderson, queen of this year's Mermaid Parade, performed her piece "Music for Dogs" at Sydney's Opera House on June 5th accompanied by Eyvind Kang, Skúli Sverrisson, and Colin Stetson. The event was part of the two-week Vivid Live Festival, which is being curated by Laurie and Lou Reed (king of this year's Mermaid Parade).

Laurie Anderson will be performing her new work Delusion this fall at BAM as part of the Next Wave Festival. That show will go on tour as well.

Before then, Laurie's new record, Homeland, comes out June 22nd on Nonesuch. It's streaming in full at NPR (up till the release date) - check it out. She'll play songs from that album on a very short tour this July. Stops include on-air sets at World Cafe Live and Late Show with David Letterman, and a Tuesday, July 13th show at (Le) Poisson Rouge. Tickets are on sale.

The album has some alright guests (including Laurie's male alter-ego Fenway Bergamot)...

On Homeland, Anderson is joined by a diversity of collaborators, from the Tuvan throat singers and igil players of Chirgilchin to New York experimental jazz and rock players including Rob Burger (keyboards), Omar Hakim (drums), Kieran Hebden of Four Tet (keyboards), Shahzad Ismaily (percussion) Eyvind Kang (viola), Peter Scherer (keyboards), Skuli Sverrisson (bass), Ben Witman (percussion and drums) and John Zorn (saxophone). Antony Hegarty contributes additional vocals.

Beyond those projects, "Anderson is also preparing a major retrospective of her visual work that will open in Sao Paolo in August 2010 and a book of her stories that will be published in 2011."

Videos from the "Music for Dogs" performance and tour dates are below...

Continue reading "new Laurie Anderson album stream + July tour dates "

by Alex Lewis

Sam Amidon @ Big Ears Fest (more by Andrew Frisicano)

Sam Amidon sung the very first note at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville on Friday. Overshadowed on the festival's bill by the likes of famed rock bands (The National, Vampire Weekend) and legendary composers (Terry Riley), many of the badge-wearing festival attendees didn't know what to expect when the tall, flannel-wearing Vermont-native's strange voice filled the Knoxville Museum of Art. But they were soon won over.

In retrospect he was perfect for the role. As a musician who has illuminated elements of Americana, past and present, through his re-imaginings of traditional Appalachian songs Amidon has become a vital member of the contemporary folk community. In the spirit of Big Ears, his music relies on collaboration. Along with Thomas Bartlett (also known as Doveman) and composer Nico Muhly he is a member of the 802 tour, whose performances are beautiful syntheses of three varied musical minds. Amidon had three scheduled performances at the festival. I caught up with him backstage at the Bijou Theater.

--

How did you end up at Big Ears?

Sam: It was through the 802 Tour. We [Nico Muhly, Thomas Bartlett, Nadia Sirota, and I] had done a tour about two summers ago and it was a total blast. So we are always looking to do, not necessarily another tour, but some more shows because we love playing together. While we're all pretty busy, it's usually hard to find a time. But this weekend worked out. Another factor was Bryce [Dessner], someone who we all encounter in different capacities and there are so many people here who we know and play with. For instance, Thomas plays keyboards with The National. There were just so many wonderful musicians so we were totally happy to come play.

continued below...

Continue reading "an interview with Sam Amidon (at Big Ears)"

Steely Dan's Donald Fagen will be joining Levon Helm at Terminal 5 on Thursday. It's also a chance to see Okkervil River who are opening for the show. Tickets are still on sale.

Okkervill River's Will Sheff (recently seen covering Fleetwood Mac) contributed to the new Norah Jones album.

Puss n Boots (aka Sasha Dobson, Catherine Popper, and Norah Jones (not Avril Lavigne as listed on Mercury Lounge's website) are opening for Doveman and friends at Mercury Lounge on January 12th. Tickets are still on sale. As previously mentioned, Doveman band member Sam Amidon opens that show too.

Tickets are also now on sale for the two "Doveman + Peter Pears : An Evening With Thomas Bartlett and Nico Muhly" shows at The Kitchen.

Norah Jones, Sam Amidon, Nico Muhly, and members of the National are among those who contributed to the new Doveman album.

Doveman, Sam Amidon and Nico Muhly are playing this year's Big Ears Fest which is curated by a member of the National.

Sam Amidon was reportedly "backed by Doveman, Beth Orton, Final Fantasy + Shazad Ismaily" at Rockwood Music Hall the other night.

Final Fantasy is not called Final Fantasy any more. Tickets are still on sale for the Owen Pallett show happening at Bowery Ballroom on January 18th.

Beth Orton and Shazad (who also plays in Doveman) both contribute to Sam's forthcoming album.

Beth Orton has some shows coming up of her own too. Video of Sam and Beth performing together in London, below...

Continue reading "Donald Fagen, Levon Helm, Puss n Boots, Norah Jones, Doveman, Sam Amidon, Beth Orton, etc (dates, tix & stuff)"

Sam Amidon @ LPR in June (more by Fresh Bread)

Solo artist & Doveman band member Sam Amidon's new record I See The Sign will be out in March on Bedroom Community and features contributions from Beth Orton, Shahzad Ismaily, Nico Muhly, and Valgeir Sigurdsson. Its first song "How Come the Blood" is up as a free download and streaming at MySpace.

Sam has a bunch of shows coming up, two of which are in NYC for now. He plays Rockwood Music Hall tonight (1/4), and then he opens (and probably plays as part of the "friends") at the Doveman & Friends show at Mercury Lounge on January 12th.

Beth Orton has shows coming up in NYC (and LA) this month too. Sam's new album cover art, some videos and all dates below...

Continue reading "Sam Amidon playing shows (dates), releasing new album featuring Beth Orton & others (MP3)"

Black Cobra @ The Charleston on November 18th (more by Chloe Rice)

tonight in NYC
* Hannibul Buress @ Pianos
* Whiplash @ UCB Theatre
* Darmstadt: In C @ Galapagos
* Sloan, Magenta Lane @ Maxwell's
* Rev. Vince Anderson @ Union Pool
* Diane Birch, Jaymay @ City Winery
* Nar, War Cubs, Hank & Cupcakes @ Zebulon
* Les Paul Guitar Tribute w/ Mike Stern @ Iridium
* Antibalas @ Winter's Eve Festival at Lincoln Square
* Father Figures, Jason Anderson, Partyface @ Cake Shop
* Pelican, Black Cobra, Disappearer @ Highline Ballroom
* Brian Setzer Orchestra, Imeida May @ Hammerstein Ballroom
* John Hollenbeck plays Hollenbeck + Meredith Monk @ (Le) Poisson Rouge
* Kidrockers w/ Right on Dynamite @ Winter's Eve Festival at Lincoln Square
* The Gay Blades, Fake Problems, The Weight, Gabriel The Marine @ Mercury Lounge
* Small Beast w/ Bee & Flower, And the Wireman, Paul Wallfisch, Pharmacy and Gardens @ The Delancey

Hopefully you had a good Thanksgiving weekend. This week is kind of slow (or maybe not), but there's still plenty to see.

The Pelican show happening at Highline Ballroom tonight was originally scheduled to take place on December 2nd.

Russian Circles and Young Widows is still happening at Bowery Ballroom on Tuesday (tickets).

Magneta Lane make a rare trip out of Canada to tour with Sloan. They visit Maxwell's tonight, and will be in Brooklyn in a few days.

Jaymay pops out of hiding to open a show for Diane Birch at City Winery tonight.

Antibalas play free shows tonight at the Winter's Eve Fest at Lincoln Center at 6:30pm and 7:45pm. There's also a free Kidrockers show tied into this event.

Antibalas also have other shows coming up and can be caught multiple nights a week in Fela! on Broadway

Opening at Cake Shop tonight will be Partyface, a guitar duo made up of Indigo Street and musical Shahzad Ismaily, the latter of which has collaborated recently with musicians from Doveman to Yoko Ono to Marc Ribot.

Percussionist John Hollenbeck will play with three diverse groups (a big band and two small ensembles) at (Le) Poisson Rouge to showcase his own compositions and those of Meredith Monk. Video is below.

Janeane Garofalo, Reggie Watts, Chris Gethard & Bob Powers are part of the free lineup of comedy at UCB tonight. It's the weekly 11pm Whiplash show. For free comedy much earlier in the evening, check out Pianos.

Reggie Watts returns to UCB on December 17th as part of Stripped Stories.

The NY Times recently saw Seth Meyers at UCB.

Singer Susan Boyle's new album makes UK chart history.

A video of Kria Brekkan working the accordion at Glasslands on Saturday (11/28) is below.

Some mean people superglued iPhones to sidewalks and videotaped people trying to pick them up. Video below...

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Monday?"

By Andrew Frisicano

Rain washed out Marc Ribot's initial Hudson Square date on July 21st (the story of the summer). So in addition to switching the show to August 18th, Ribot also decided to switch groups (perhaps another rain-caused necessity), subbing the originally booked La Cumbiamba with his "rock band" Ceramic Dog and violinist Eszter Balint.

The parking lot of City Winery, which has been hosting shows all summer, served as a relaxing, tucked away venue, after the sun finally hid behind one of the surrounding buildings. The set sounded great, but accurately describing Ceramic Dog's sound (as I've found in trying to tell friends) can be a bit difficult. It's not exactly what you hear on 2008's Party Intellectuals. That album is more funk driven and homogeneous than their live set, which veers between genres and sounds without warning. Live there were plenty of solos and riffing, but the real clincher was when Ribot pulled more natural, acoustic-based sounds out from the guitar, at times reminding me a little of a spare-sounding Bright Eyes. Subtly comped chords matched up with crunchy leads - often coming, in a reversal of roles, from Balint's overdriven violin. Vocals bounced between Ribot and Balint, who rhapsodized in foreign tongues and, on other songs, added pleasant harmonies. But the loose rhythm section was the element that fought most against the "rock band" premise. Drummer Ches Smith and multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily (who moved from bass to synth to other noisemakers) lead the songs into strange places with a pulse that was more textures and color than 4/4.

Tonight (8/26) Marc Ribot plays Rose Live Music with Sun Ship, a free-form-jazz inspired group with Mary Halvorson, Jason Ajemian and Chad Taylor.

Further on, he plays with Marianne Faithfull (as he did earlier this year) on September 24th at Town Hall. He's also on the schedule for the NY Guitar Festival's Silent Films/Live Guitars series in early 2010.

More Hudson Square pictures and tour dates are below...

Continue reading "Marc Ribot played Hudson Square @ City Winery (pics) ++ at Rose Live Music tonight & other tour dates"

Sunday, September 6th @ 8:00pm ISSUE Project Room presents, in the courtyard of the Old American Can Factory: Jandek with Ryan Sawyer, Susan Alcorn, Shahzad Ismaily + Ryan Sawyer, C. Spencer Yeh, Nate Wooley Trio - TICKETS are on sale. I wonder if it will be funkier than last time (when Issue Project Room was at a different location) (maybe if there's a time after this, it will be in a different location again).

by Andrew Frisicano

April 11th will be ISSUE Project Room's 6th anniversary. We're amazed at how much has happened in this period of time. ISSUE started on East 6th street as an impromptu and spontaneous music, experimental cinema and performance venue...quickly gaining attention and expanding from 60 performances a year to over 250. By 2005, ISSUE had to leave the East Village and migrated to an iconic and beautiful silo along the banks of the Gowanus Canal. This unusual and extraordinarily fun location was voted "Best Art Bayou" by the Village Voice and named "New York's Best Kept Secret" by the Whitney Museum.

Producing amazing performances by Rhys Chatham, Anthony Coleman, Marianne Amancher, Elliott Sharp, Jandek and WFMU's own Kenny G, ISSUE Project Room enjoyed its stay at the silo immensely but then had to move once again. This time to its current location at the Old American Can Factory at 232 3rd Street in Brooklyn. This room, the "sanctuary", was formerly a rehearsal studio for a circus troupe. Instead of trapeze artists, we've now got Stephan Moore's 16 channel hemispherical speaker system hanging from the ceiling, enabling us to move sound over and around the heads of the audience.

This past year we found out that we were awarded a rent free, 20 year lease on the elk's club room at the former Board of Education building at 110 Livingston Street. It's a pretty amazing room and an amazing opportunity to build a kind of "Carnegie Hall of the Avant Garde" for the next 20 years. It's up to us to bring it up to code and move in, though...so we'll be fundraising for the time being...getting ready for the future. [ISSUE Project Room via Free Music Archive]

To celebrate (and raise money), the Brooklyn venue has lined up some special benefit performances for the month of April.

One highlight (of many) is Moby's "first-ever live electronic/ambiant performance" on Friday, April 24th. Tickets for the show are on sale now - regular and VIP. The full package includes: "an intimate pre-performance cocktail party with Moby [to] hear advance tracks from his forthcoming album, meet and talk with the artist, and enjoy a sneak-preview of his new music video directed by David Lynch." Not surprisingly, Moby was one of many artists who recently appeared at Radio City Music Hall to help raise money for the David Lynch Foundation. Moby was also a part of the Issue Project Room fundraiser that took place at Santos Party House last year (that Tony Conrad also performed at).

On ISSUE Project Room's actual birthday, April 11th, Pitre, with special guest avant-composer/filmmaker Tony Conrad, will perform original composition ED09 "with a 17-piece string/woodwind ensemble". Tickets are on sale. ISSUE Project Room is where Tony teamed up with Genesis P-Orridge (of the reunited Throbbing Gristle) for two shows earlier this year. Video from one of those shows below.

The IPR schedule also has a Tuesday, April 21st show with producer and SNL music supervisor Hal Willner featuring Sean Lennon, Yuka Honda, Chloe Webb and special guests. Tickets to that are on sale. One of the albums Hal recently produced is the new Marianne Faithfull. Still waiting to hear if he'll be back at Prospect Park this year.

Noveller/Sarah Lipstate (who is playing Cinema 16 at the Bell House on Sunday, April 19th) performs at the ISSUE Project Room on Saturday, April 25th as part of artist-in-residence Duane Pitre's Bowed Harmonic-Guitar Ensemble.

Some videos and the venue's full April schedule, below...

Continue reading "Issue Project Room is 6 -- April (pre-move to Livingston St) benefit/birthday schedule w/ Moby, Hal Willner & more"

photos by Ryan Muir

Nico Muhly

Sam Amidon

Just in time for the Olof/Sam/Kria show in a church tonight (Sept 16), here are the pictures from last week's (le) poisson rouge show that Deerhunter also played (if you count it all as one show with a late intermission) (Sept 9). More below...

Continue reading "Olof Arnalds, Nico Muhly, Laurie Anderson, Skuli Sverrisson, Sam Amidon, Shahzad Ismaily & friends @ lpr, NYC - pics "

photos by Chris La Putt

Shahzad Ismaily & Ólöf Arnalds

Ólöf Arnalds's set time was 2:30 at the East Village Radio Festival at South Street Seaport on Sunday (Sept 7). That's when I planned to get there, so naturally I arrived at 2:50. Luckily I was still able to catch a couple of her instantly-recognizable songs from her 2007 Sigur Ros-produced album Við og við.

The crowd watching her was small, and included many random passerbys including tourists and some homeless dudes with 40's (the crowd filled in later by the time the Vivian Girls took the stage). That didn't stop Olof from seeming excited to be there. She even introduced one of the songs with a story about her younger sister who she wrote the song for twelve years ago. The song urged her sister to be creative, and now at 20 years old, she was just accepted into graphic design school. She asked us to give her sister (who I don't think was in attendance) a hand. We all clapped for her sister.

Kind of an Icelandic Joanna Newsom, Ólöf has the kind of voice people either love or hate. The Seaport security guard in front of the stage definitely seemed to be in the latter category. I like it, but I didn't see enough of her live show to say she was amazing. That said, I never wanted to see Joanna Newsom perform outside, and Ólöf is probably also better off in a darker enclosed room with great acoustics. Luckily she is playing two such places before she goes home to Iceland.

Tonight she performs her entire album at a special show at (le) poisson rouge...

On September 9, Skuli Sverrisson and Olof Arnalds and will debut their respective albums, Seria and Vio og Vio in full at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City. Seen as brother and sister albums, each was voted Best Alternative Album at the Iceland Music Awards as well as Record of the Year at Iceland's biggest daily newspaper, Morgunblaoio. Olof played an important role on Skuli's album Seria, singing her own lyrics on three songs as well as playing guitar, viola, charango, koto, and glass. Skuli in turn was influential in bringing the various players together to make Olof's debut album, Vio og Vio.

With Skuli living in NYC and Olof in Reykjavik, the two have been unable to bring their albums together in the live domain. However, Olof's recent addition to the East Village Radio Festival lineup offered them one day (9/9) in their disparate tour schedules to make this happen. Joining them on stage for this historic show will be a glittering array of guests including Laurie Anderson, Peter Scherer, Okkyung Lee, Hilmar Jensson, Shahzad Ismaily, and Nico Muhly.

I don't know how she met all those cool Americans, but I do know that Nico Muhly is friends with Sam Amidon and that Sam and Shahzad Ismaily are both Doveman band members. If you haven't noticed already, that was also Shazad and Sam playing her at the Seaport, and Sam is billed to play solo at her 3rd NYC show next Tuesday in a church with Kria Brekken (who has a connection to Olof through Mum).

In June she opened for Sigur Ros and Bjork in Iceland. Shahzad also played with her at that show. Tour dates and more Seaport pics below...

Continue reading "Ólöf Arnalds - SSSeaport pics & 2 more NYC shows (dates) "