“There were certain things about my Christian upbringing that I liked. Others, not so much.” The irony that John Rossiter’s band is playing in a Lutheran church has not been lost on the Young Jesus frontman. Surely the crucifix presiding over the stage at Park Church Co-Op did not go unnoticed by Rossiter, who, with his shoulder-length hair and slim frame, could have easily played our Lord and Savior in a high school Christmas pageant. But despite the coincidence and implicit humor in a band called Young Jesus performing in a place of worship, the setting was perfect for the Los Angeles quartet, who clearly know how to optimize their surroundings.
The songs from Young Jesus’ most recent album The Whole Thing Is Just There felt perfectly at home in such a space. The music seemed to billow from their instruments, drifting upward to the vaulted ceiling along with the machine-secreted smoke that accents so many of the Co-Op’s concerts. The songs took their time, allowing us to bask in every trilled hi-hat and the programmed howls emanating from Eric Shevrin’s double-decker keyboard. Rossiter and his band are proficient in the art of anticipation, lingering in silence before doling out a single strike on their instruments, repeating the process at slower intervals until their songs settled like dust on the chapel floor. Tracks like “Bell” and “Deterritory” stretched out like Jeff Buckley compositions, and I wondered if it was mere coincidence when Rossiter mentioned that a particular song on their setlist had “Grace” as its working title. Whether or not Buckley was on Rossiter’s mind, he admitted that “Grace” felt like a fitting, one-word sermon for the evening.
If Young Jesus provided the pensive, languorous atmosphere at the Co-Op, L.A.’s IAN SWEET ushered in a dreamscape of love and longing. Helmed by the tiny and tenacious Jilian Medford, IAN SWEET arrived onstage in a cloud of hot pink smoke, as if they were genies emerging from a shared lamp. Having just released their sophomore LP Crush Crusher on Sub Pop’s Hardly Art imprint, the trio played the bulk of its tracklist during their set, including the murky “Spit” and the sparsely arranged title track, during which Medford’s band left the stage to make space for what she called her “dance break.”
Medford is an unlikely but captivating bandleader; she seems perpetually amused and even surprised that she is onstage. Her between-song banter often fractures into a girlish giggle. But she is quick to volley from her sweet and vulnerable side to a wailing, guitar-shredding entity, who occasionally screamed so hard that she sounded possessed. Possessed by what forces, I can’t say—but something strong enough to make me stay put in a church pew.
As someone who’s spent little time in them, it is strange how familiar old churches smell. They smell like warm dust, wood, and maple syrup—like a childhood home you’ve never stepped foot in before. It’s a combination of aromas rarely found in the glass and concrete structures of New York City, but at Park Church Co-Op in Greenpoint, it is a scent that lingers low in the air and welcomes you in. On Monday night, the Co-op was glowing electric pink and blue, casting an artificial sunset against the furthest stage wall. Its edges bled to purple where the two colors met. A slight, boyish woman by the name of Franz Charcoal took the stage holding a mint green electric guitar. Franz played simple, minute-long songs that sometimes ended just when you were getting into them. At times these songs were so short, the audience would hesitate to clap at the end, thinking Franz was simply pausing before another verse. She never was. “Yeah, they’re pretty short,” Franz said after one such moment. “But there’s a lot of them.”
Despite the dimly lit stage, I couldn’t help but think that this Franz Charcoal person looked and sounded familiar. A bit like Greta Kline of Frankie Cosmos. A lot like Greta Kline of Frankie Cosmos, in fact. But if you were to ask the woman herself, she was Franz Charcoal, a “rascal” who plays brief, autobiographical songs about misbehaving in church, of all places. Her presence was playful and lightweight considering the heavy atmosphere of the church itself. When Franz left the stage, the crucifix hanging behind her was bathed in hot red spotlights like a scene from a religious horror film.
The following acts helped a great deal in bringing some levity back to the setting. Felicia Douglass (of Ava Luna) offered her crisp approach to electronic, soul, and poetic R&B, which at times sounded like the seeds of Prince songs. Palberta’s Lily Konigsberg, meanwhile, made great use of her comedic timing to compensate for the fact that she’d lost her voice the night before. “This is a 50-year-old smoker’s rendition of my songs,” she said. “I may cough. I don’t want to.” Her music retained its stark beauty despite being stripped of some of the synthesizer flourishes on her recordings, and the rasp in her voice was a welcomed bit of grit to an evening filled with such polite music. Alone with an acoustic guitar, Konigsberg still yields a lovely and entertaining performance, especially when punctuated by the artist spritzing her throat with mentholated cold medication. At the end of her set, she curtly and sweetly said, “Okay. I’m done.”
Told Slant’s Felix Walworth is the first performer to address the oddness of the church all evening. At one point he paused just before starting a song; “Sorry,” he said. “It’s actually profoundly strange to be up here.” And it was profoundly strange to be down in the pews, as well. Not only for their unavoidable religious context, but also because sitting in a church pew makes you feel like a child. When Walworth (politely) ordered the crowd to stand up and sing “Tsunami” with him, I felt like I was participating in a camp sing-along or a Sunday sermon. Sometimes the connotations of the space you occupy are too powerful to leave the performance alone, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But it was, as Walworth pointed out, profoundly strange.
This was my first show of 2017, unless you count sets by Janelle Monae, Alicia Keys, and Indigo Girls that dotted the Women’s March on Washington days prior. I may have been late to the game regarding Austra, a beloved Toronto band already two albums into their career, and it wasn’t even their music that first grabbed my attention. It was the striking artwork for their third record, Future Politics. On its cover, a woman leads a handsome mare, cloaked in Austra’s signature shade of red. As it turned out, the album was as slick and strong as its imagery.
I sought out this strength one night at Greenpoint’s Warsaw, where Austra moved the whole room to dance with abandon. Lead singer Katie Stelmanis was captivating, her soaring voice sounding miraculously better than on the record. If it weren’t for her obvious talents as a pop star, Stelmanis would have an easy time making it as a stage actor or Broadway diva. The band plowed through the new album’s heavy hitters like “We Were Alive,” “Future Politics” and “Utopia,” sprinkling older favorites throughout the set.
Just days after Donald Trump had been sworn in as the 45th President of the United States, Austra made the Warsaw crowd believe that if we sweat hard enough, we could construct our own utopia right there on the dance floor.
Girl Band, Dublin’s all-boy noise foursome, rarely leave the stage without first inciting a small riot. They’re one of the few bands I’ve seen that can touch something primal in audiences, waking them from their New York, no-dance comas. This spring show at Saint Vitus was no different. The crowd was a little rigid initially, but once Girl Band slammed into “Paul” off of 2015’s Holding Hands With Jamie we all went wild. Daniel Fox’s warbled bass line whipped us into a swirling frenzy. We attempted to scream along with lead singer Dara Kiley, but our sweat and thrashing limbs did most of the talking.
This gig was without a doubt my favorite live performance of the year – and I almost didn’t go. Audiofemme’s own Lindsey Rhoades, who could not make it that evening, asked if I would go in her absence. “Sure,” I said, having no clue of the treat in store. I’d listened to the record, and was of course proud of the Seattle band’s success being from Washington myself, but the sheer magnetism of PG mastermind Mike Hadreas blew me away. He slinked and slithered through each song, howling like a hellhound one minute and whispering like seraph the next. In those moments onstage, Hadreas seemed to be Bowie’s heir apparent. He certainly had a Ziggy Stardust-worthy outfit.
It didn’t hurt that as Blanck Mass’ Benjamin John Power was whipping up beats, Björk was head banging by the PA system… in a hot pink clown suit. But even without Our Lady of Iceland publicly endorsing the set, Power’s gut rattling music had me enraptured. Power always performs in total darkness, giving shape and weight to his intense soundscapes. You can almost feel his songs wrap around you like a python beginning to squeeze. When he cued up “Please” – my #2 favorite song of 2017 – I suddenly understood what it’s supposed to feel like when you get the good MDMA. I’d only ever had the bad shit.
Aldous Harding @Park Church Co-op/Baby’s All Right
I saw Aldous Harding twice within a week at 2017’s Northside Festival. The first time was at Park Church Co-op in Greenpoint. Harding wore an all-white suit, conjuring the combined spirits of Tom Wolfe, David Byrne, and Jerry Hall. She was otherworldly, contorting her voice to reach the vaulted ceiling, then summoning it down low, to rattle the wooden pews we sat on.
The second time was at Baby’s All Right, a far less romantic locale. Still, Harding bewitched me with her strange posturing and mythological voice. As she sunk into the lovelorn depths of “Horizon,” I was near tears. I closed my eyes. I mouthed the words, “Here is your princess/And here is the horizon.” And then a sharp splat cut through the room. The crowd parted like the red sea, and there at the center was not Moses, but a 60-year-old, portly man, barfing all down his t-shirt. After a period of bug-eyed shock, Harding laughed and returned to her set. I went outside to breathe better air.
There was so much to see at Basilica Soundscape this summer, and yet the first band that played on the festival’s opening night is what stuck with me the most. Bing & Ruth’s David Moore seemed to be painting with his piano keys, while the accompanying cellist and clarinet player extracted color from their own instruments. They invoked a staggering beauty that went unmatched for the remainder of the weekend, in my opinion. Bing & Ruth make music that’s incredibly difficult to describe, but I feel lucky I was able to hear and feel it in person.
This was not my first Sean Nicholas Savage rodeo, but it was by far the finest, largely due to opening act Dinner’s inspiring performance. Danish singer/songwriter Anders Rhedin knows how to work a crowd, and does so with a divine combination of goofball and deadpan tactics. He had us sitting on the ground like school children, clapping like a gospel choir, and dancing like disco wildcats. It was a nice round of cardio before Sean Nicholas Savage began his vocal calisthenics. We swayed for Dinner, but we swooned for Savage.
I couldn’t have imagined a better Halloween. After walking a mile through Fort Greene, squeezing past trails of children in Halloween costumes, candy spilling from their cloth sacks, I approached Prospect Heights’ Murmrr Theatre. The stage and pews were cloaked in red light, and the baby grand piano was the requisite black. It was a fitting atmosphere for Diamanda Galás, the singer, composer, and pianist I recently crowned as the Queen of Halloween.
Galás was bewitching. Her piano seemed to awaken the ghost of Thelonious Monk and Satan himself, while her voice was alight with several spirits; some crooning, some growling, some downright shrieking. Galás is a medium above all else, and this last Halloween, she seemed to communicate with other worlds.
Swans @Warsaw
This was another show I almost didn’t attend. I’d already seen these noise dinosaurs two summers ago, and didn’t plan on showing up for their goodbye gig at Warsaw last month. But when a good friend got the flu and offered up his ticket gratis, how could I pass? I got to the venue in time for a plate of pierogis and kielbasa, and through some fortunate twist of fate, had a pair of earplugs in my purse. This was a very good thing considering Swans were playing at decibel levels strong enough for sonic warfare. As Thor smashed his gong, I felt like I was inside of a tank as it unloaded ammunition. Even my feet were vibrating.
Animal Collective @Knockdown Center
Nothing could’ve prepared me for how mesmerizing Animal Collective’s set at Knockdown Center was a couple of weeks ago. The evening’s objective was for Avey Tare and Panda Bear to perform 2004’s Sung Tongs in full. I entered Queens’ Knockdown Center full of skepticism; how exactly, were they going to summon that wall of sound with just two dudes?
I still don’t know the exact answer to that question, but the task was accomplished. After ample fiddling by roadies (one of whom sported a biker jacket and looked like he was named Butch) the stage was set, and the travel-sized version of Animal Collective settled into their chairs. What transpired over the next hour plus was a village of sound supplied by two men, four microphones, and some expert pedal work. Whatever their process was, it blew me away. I was wrapped in surround sound, every blip, crack, and whir massaging my body with the tiniest pulses.
Summer doesn’t officially start until June 21st, but in Brooklyn, the informal kick-off feels more like the first week of June thanks to the annual Northside Festival. Growing exponentially since its inception in 2009, Northside provides sensory overload in the best way possible, with hundreds of bands playing intimate showcases in various venues stretching from Williamsburg up to Greenpoint and out toward Bushwick’s borders. But in order to make your hunt for great live music a little easier, here are a few of our concert picks for the upcoming long weekend! See you on the dance floor (or in the mosh pit).
The renowned jazz saxophonist, producer, composer, and bandleader will take the stage at McCarren Park on Thursday night. Sandwiched on a killer bill between openers Jay Som and headliners Dirty Projectors, Washington might melt your face off with his searing tenor sax. If that scorching woodwind sounds familiar, it’s because he’s played with the likes of Kendrick Lamar (To Pimp A Butterfly, DAMN), Thundercat, and Ryan Adams. — Madison Bloom
If this goth-folk New Zealander doesn’t bewitch you with her stunning voice, we don’t know what will. Aldous Harding recently released her sophomore LP Party, and its mournful hymns will surely become all the more staggering within the high ceilings of the Park Church Co-op (she also plays Baby’s All Right on Saturday). Saps beware: you may want to bring Kleenex. — Madison Bloom
We’ve long admired shoegazey shredders No Joy, who released their four-track CREEP EP this February. They don’t just bank on head-banging distortion (though the dual guitarists’ hypnotizing ripples of blonde hair prove there’s plenty of that), deftly deploying well-crafted hooks with every ferocious track. They headline a bill featuring chilled-out Dutch power pop from Amber Arcades (fans of Camera Obscura or Still Corners take note) and Eartheater, the solo project of multi-instrunentalist Alexandra Drewchin that has to be seen to be believed (vacuum cleaners are often part of the show). — Lindsey Rhoades
A harmonium-wielding heir to Patti Smith, Shilpa Ray is no one to be trifled with. Her snarl alone makes for a compelling live performance – but when it’s paired with heartbreaking melodies and the occasional pedal steel, you really feel like you’re in the presence of the rarest and rawest of performers. — Madison Bloom
If you’re looking to hear something atmospheric, experimental, or just downright gorgeous, pop by National Sawdust for a set by composer and multi-instrumentalist William Basinski. Basinski is perhaps best known for his collections of dissolving tape loops entitled The Disintegration Tapes, and his contemporary work is very in keeping with that hypnotic, cyclical aesthetic. If you’d like to be lulled into a tranquil dream state, don’t miss this set! — Madison Bloom
Conversely, if you are absolutely not trying to chill out at Northside, and prefer to move your bod a bit more brashly, get thee to Terra Firma, where local noise duo Yvette will rev you up. This band is a must-see for anyone into distortion, shouting, and infectious, driving drum rhythms. — Madison Bloom
It’s hard to follow up a breakout debut, especially when it’s named Masterpiece. But Brooklyn band Big Thief aim to do just that with Capacity, which happens to drop the same day they take the stage at Rough Trade for a Northside appearance (they’re also playing Saturday at Park Church Co-op). Lead vocalist Adrianne Lenker is easily one of the best lyricists we’ve come across in recent years, her sweet voice often breaking into a raw moan as her bandmates’ backup fury blooms. — Lindsey Rhoades
We’re sort of obsessed with Jenn Wasner, whose soaring vocals first made our hearts pound as one half of Baltimore-based duo Wye Oak. Now relocated to North Carolina (after a tip from her pals in Sylvan Esso), Wasner’s still one of the hardest working women in indie rock. Last September, she released If You See Me, Say Yes, the debut LP from her solo electropop project Flock of Dimes. If you can stay awake long enough for the late show at Baby’s, definitely say yes to seeing Wasner live. — Lindsey Rhoades
Riding in on the brilliance of their new record Sincerely, Future Pollution, Timber Timbre are likely to knock your socks off on Saturday night. Expect spooky, swampy, synth-washed blues atmospheric and elegant enough to soundtrack the new Twin Peaks. — Madison Bloom
There’s a nebulous quality that the name Nightspace implies – one of liminality, of dissolution, of suspended time and identity. It’s appropriate then, that queer artist of color Bailey Skye would adopt such a moniker to create their glimmering electronic darkwave debut Birth/Decay. Beautiful and surreal, these six tracks offer throbbing post-gender post-punk that’s unlike anything else you’ll hear at Northside. — Lindsey Rhoades
Come hang out with us and listen to some of our favorite new artists! We’re co-hosting an awesome, five-hour daytime showcase with Glamglare featuring Blonde Maze, Gold Child, Letters to Nepal, Kinder Than Wolves, GIRL SKIN, and Josh Jacobson – you can read more about these artists here. Sets start at 12:15, so come say hi and hear some mind-blowing music!
