Brooklyn Rider Redefines What a String Quartet Is in the 21st Century

For the past few years, Brooklyn Rider have pushed the envelope pretty much as far as a string quartet can go, and in the process have raised the bar for other groups: they transcend any preconception about what serious composed music is all about. Their latest album, The Brooklyn Rider Almanac – streaming at Spotify – is their most ambitious effort yet, and may well be the one that most accurately captures what the group is all about. They draw on a wide composer base, including their own members, an A-list of mostly New York-based players and writers across the musical spectrum, from indie classical to Americana to rock and now even jazz.

It’s also a dance album in many respects – pianist/flutist Diana Wayburn‘s similarly eclectic Dances of the World Chamber Orchestra also comes to mind. Beyond the rhythms – everything from funky grooves to waltzes and struts and the hint of a reel or a stately English dance – dynamics are everything here. The pieces rise and fall and shift shape, often with a cinematic arc. The first track is Rubin Kodheli‘s Necessary Henry!, the group – violinists Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen, violist Nicholas Cords and cellist Eric Jacobsen – establishing an ominous/dancing dichotomy out of a stormy intro. It may have originally been written for Kodheli’s snarlingly majestic cello metal band Blues in Space.

Maintenance Music, by Dana Lyn shifts from a lustrous fog with distant echoes of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here to a slow waltz and then a chase scene – it’s the most cinematic piece here. Simpson’s Gap, by Clogs‘ Padma Newsome makes a good segue, an Appalachian ballad given bulk and heft with fluttering echoes, as if bouncing off the mountain walls and down into the valley below.

The Haring Escape, by saxophonist Daniel Cords veers from swaying, echoing funk, to slowly shifting resonance, to an aggressive march. Aoife O’Donovan’s Show Me is akin to something Dvorak would have pieced together out of a gentle Hudson Valley dance. Jazz pianist Vijay Iyer‘s Dig the Say gives the quartet a  theme and variations to work, a study in counterrythms, funky vamps bookending a resonantly atmospheric interlude.

There are two pieces by indie rock drummers here. Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier – most recently witnessed  trying his best to demolish the house kit at Glasslands a couple of weeks ago – contributes the most minimalist piece here, Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche’s Ping Poing Fumble Thaw being more pointillistic. The album continues on a kinetic path from here until the very end, through Ethan Iverson‘s Morris Dance – which blends contrastingly furtive and calm themes – then Colin Jacobsen’s Exit, with Shara Worden on vocals, a triumphantly balletesque, swirling, rather Reichian piece. The most rhythmically emphatic number here is by Gonazlo Grau, leader of explosive psychedelic salsa band La Clave Secreta. After Christina Courtin’s raptly atmospheric Tralala, the quartet ends with a warmly measured, aptly pastoral take of John Steinbeck, by Bill Frisell.

Deoro’s Eclectic Cello Rock Strikes Gold at the Rockwood

New York is full of good cello rock bands. Serena Jost is about to put out a new album; Blues in Space are playing the Highline the first week in January; Erin and Her Cello are about to do her “holiday spectacular” at the Rockwood this Friday. Last night, cellist Dave Eggar’s band Deoro played the Rockwood and proved equally good at an absurd number of styles. The first ten minutes of the show capsulized a lot but not all of the surprises that would come afterward. Backed only by nimble five-string electric bass and smartly terse drums, Eggar fired off a snazzy display of overtones, a Middle Eastern flourish and then a verse of Silent Night that he peeled away from, Jimi Hendrix style, into a cello metal boogie. A swaying dance alternated with stark, still, moody passages, the bassist sneaking in and introducing a tango beat. A hypnotically circling avant garde-tinged motif segued into a dramatic art-rock dance, in 6/8, and then their drummer finally sang an apprehensive reggae number about impending ecological disaster. Earlier this year, the band recorded their album New Kingston Morning at the legendary Tuff Gong Studios in Jamaica, Eggar taking obvious pride in announcing that it had been nominated for a Grammy.

Singer Dina Fanai joined them, adding her unselfconsciously soulful, nuanced alto to a haunting Middle Eastern song that began with a suspenseful drone, Eggar building slinky snakecharmer atmosphere behind Fanai’s impassioned intensity. It was the high point of the night. And then it morphed into another artsy, Jean-Luc Ponty-esque dance. The rest of the set included a country gospel number that they’d recorded with Dr. Ralph Stanley; a fiery rap-metal number with some tongue-in-cheek guitar voicings on the cello and a savage lyric about the Iraq war; the gently bucolic title track to the new album, and Follow Me to the Sun, another album cut, sung by the drummer, eventually morphing into a bouncy disco vamp. Is there any style of music this band can’t do? Apparently not. The impressively full house, especially for what is now an unseasonably cold night, wanted more.

And the show was even educational. As it turns out, Silent Night has a second verse (they sang it, joined by a powerful bass singer from the Metropolitan Opera). Like Meet the Mets, nobody ever hears it – and also like Meet the Mets, it doesn’t really need it. Simon and Garfunkel’s version put that song out of reach for good a long time ago.

The Last True Small Beast?

Botanica frontman Paul Wallfisch, creator of the Small Beast concert series at the Delancey – New York’s most cutting-edge, exciting and important rock event – played his final set at the club Monday night, since he’s moving to host another Small Beast in Dortmund, Germany. Sharing a characteristically rich bill with Wallfisch were ”cemetery and western” crooner Mark Sinnis, cello rockers Blues in Space and Wallfisch’s longtime co-conspirator Little Annie Bandez.

All of these acts get a lot of ink here. Sinnis played a terse duo show on acoustic guitar, backed by the reliably extraordinary Susan Mitchell on gypsy-tinged violin. His trademark Nashville gothic material went over as well with the crowd gathered at the bar as the blast of air conditioning flowing from the back of the upstairs space did. The two mixed up creepily quiet and more upbeat songs from Sinnis’ new album The Night’s Last Tomorrow along with older ones like the hypnotic, vintage Carl Perkins-flavored That’s Why I Won’t Love You.

Blues in Space featured composer/frontman Rubin Kodheli playing electric cello, accompanied by eight-string guitar and drums. Hearing their swirling, chromatically charged, metal-spiced instrumentals up close (the band set up on the floor in front of the stage) was like being inside a cyclotron, witnessing the dawn and decay of one new element after another. And yet the compositions were lushly melodic, especially an unselfconsciously catchy new one which was basically just a good pop song arranged for dark chamber-rock trio. Kodheli fretted afterward that he wanted to take special care not to sound “bombastic,” something he shouldn’t worry about. A little bombast actually wouldn’t have hurt.

After Blues in Space, Wallfisch made the long wait for his set worthwhile. Small Beast is his baby, and as much passion as he put into it, it obviously wasn’t easy to let it go. As much as he didn’t hold back – the guy is one of the most charismatic frontmen in any style of music – he also didn’t go over the top, letting his songs speak for themselves. And they spoke volumes: his glimmering solo piano arrangement of the Paul Bowles poem Etiquette, and his closing number, Leonard Cohen’s I’m Your Man, equal parts seduction and anguish. “One and a half years, it seems like a lifetime ago,” he mused, which makes sense: in that short span of time, Small Beast in its own way took its place in the history of music in New York alongside CBGB, Minton’s and Carnegie Hall.

In between, Little Annie joined him for flickering, torchy, regret-steeped versions of Jacques Brel’s If You Go Away (interrupted by a posse of drunken tourists barreling down the stairs and past the stage, oblivious to the moment), the reliably amusing anti-trendoid anthem Cutesy Bootsies, a genuinely wrenching requiem for a suicide titled Dear John, and an apt encore of It Was a Very Good Year. Annie is reliably hilarious; tonight she was just as preoccupied. And who can blame her (she goes on tour with Baby Dee in late summer/early fall).

As for the future of Small Beast, the Delancey’s Dana McDonald has committed her ongoing support (she’s no dummy – being known for running a club that books smart music is always a plus, no matter how much more moronic the world of corporate and indie rock gets). Vera Beren – a rare bandleader who can match Wallfisch pound for pound in terms of charisma – hosts next week’s Beast on July 12, featuring her band along with ambient, minimalist synth goths Sullen Serenade and ornate, artsy Italian/New York 80s-style goth band the Spiritual Bat.

Concert Review: Blues in Space at le Poisson Rouge, NYC 8/19/09

Nice to see a good crowd come out late on a brutally hot weeknight and fill the house for a creative band who refuse to be pigeonholed. Are Blues in Space a metal band? Art-rock? Avant garde? Yes, all of the above and more. This time out bandleader/cellist Rubin Kodheli was backed by a powerfully propulsive drummer and two guitarists, one playing an eight-string a la Charlie Hunter for basslines when Kodheli himself wasn’t fingerpicking a line himself. But bass isn’t what this band is all about – the show was a whirlwind of rich textures, mostly in the high midrange where most noise-rockers make their home. Matching lush melody to ferocious roar, they played a mix of both recorded and unreleased material that almost predictably spanned a vast range of styles.

They opened with the appropriately titled Rage, a chromatically-charged, minor-key stomp perfect for Ozzfest. Kodheli transcends the mold of the classically trained string player, showing off a smirkingly vast knowledge of metal licks and an ability to transpose guitar voicings to the cello. The single best song of the night was a spaghetti western instrumental, Tumbleweed, probably the last thing you’d ever expect an ornate, amplified string ensemble to tackle, but it worked, masterfully, right up to the understated diminuendo of the ending. In the same vein, the group reworked the metal raveup Apocalypse almost as a chamber music suite, the two guitarists feeding the fire with a remarkable restraint. The playfully titled Happy Minor was in fact upbeat, inspiring and completely psychedelic, with the echoey effects on the stringed instruments blending into one another. They closed with another playful, ornate, smartly crafted multistylistic number, The Greatest, matching atmospherics to a crushing metal crescendo. Bands like Blues in Space make a good battering ram: they destroy boundaries. It would make as much sense for them to do Bang on a Can as it would for them to do Ozzfest or for that matter take up residency at a place like Barbes.

CD Review: Blues in Space

Cellist Rubin Kodheli is a busy sideman in the New York scene, perhaps best known as a member of lush, hauntingly atmospheric art-rockers Edison Woods. He’s also a composer, and considering how gracefully he leaps from genre to genre as an ensemble player, it’s no surprise that his own band Blues in Space spans many different styles as well.

There are five songs on this captivating ep (it’s up on itunes), a mix of clever, playful and frequently ferocious instrumentals. Three of them have a crunchy metal edge in the same vein as Apocalyptica or Rasputina in a particularly enraged moment; others are quieter. Under the layers and layers of cello, soaring, grinding, roaring or wailing through an army’s worth of digital effects, there’s also Justin Sabaj’s tasteful, incisive guitar and Garrett Brown’s percussion, from a pounding metal thump to judicious tribal beats.

The first track, Like a Tree is full of evocative soundtrack-style vistas, swaying and ornate with an eerie, stark cello passage about halfway through before returning to its earlier atmospherics. As its title would imply, Apocalypse is straight-up thrash metal – it’s a showcase for Kodheli’s virtuosic ability to transpose metal guitar voicings to the cello. This particular apocalypse is pretty much done with destroying the world by about halfway through, eventually fading out with an evil oscillation.

With its blithe, pizzicatto stroll, Happy Minor evokes another genre-bending New York string ensemble, Ljova and the Kontraband. The self-explanatory Rage is a wild, crunchy metal number, its darkest segments interestingly played with clean tone without any of the crazy electronic effects. The last cut, The Greatest swirls around atmospherically for a couple of minutes before exploding with more sizzling metal riffs. Throughout the songs, Kodheli shows off an impressive restraint, a welcome change from the self-indulgence in most metal. He’s more interested in hooks, and in developing a mood. There are definitely plenty of indie films in development who would get good mileage out of the stuff here. Blues in Space play le Poisson Rouge on August 19 at 11ish with special guest Eleanor Norton of Divahn on cello.