Marisa Anderson 6/8/26 Spaceland

 Portland Oregon based guitarist Anderson plays the intimate front room of Spaceland for an excellent set of music. A climate and social activist, Anderson has been forging an eclectic body of work over the past fifteen years. I was enamored with her early work excavating and polishing public domain material into modern instrumental jams. Gorgeous collaborations with the drummer Jim White and fellow axe-wielder William Tyler followed. She starts her set on solo electric and some older material, a nice reading of the old blues number Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning was great. Marisa says the song has relevance in today’s world as a call to readiness. The next section of the performance pulled songs from her recent recording The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music. The title is a nod to Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music considered a Rosetta Stone for folk artists in the 60s and 70s. Smith was a kook, junkie, song collector, who traveled the world collecting field recordings, indigenous music made by amateurs to get a feel for the cultural roots of song. When Smith died, his belongings were auctioned off. Turns out the University of Oklahoma was the recipient of the detritus. Inexplicably, they had no ability to store the material and called the Bob Dylan center in Tulsa for help. Marisa wrangled some alone time with the archive and her project was born. While Harry focused on America, Marisa culled music from UnAmerican sources. She copied recordings of  900 songs and spent nearly a year just listening. She whittled the trove to a dozen songs, five of which she performed. Beautiful haunting melodies ensued. Marisa performed some on a classic resonator guitar. One from Turkmenistan, one from Pakistan, one from Afghanistan, one from Tajikistan, and a final one from Syria. She explains that the field recording from Syria left a big dent on her. Upon close listening, she said she could hear the building. In context, that building is almost certainly destroyed as are the instruments and maybe the relatives of the musicians. She closed the concert with some older tunes, one dedicated to her sister and another written for her dog. As we bear down on the 250th anniversary of our nation, it may be antithetical to revel in UnAmerican music, but I will follow Harry Smith whose eyes may have been red, but wide open.

Mdou Moctar (solo) 6/1/26 Spaceland

 “Hendrix from Niger”, not sure who was responsible, but the similarities are striking. Young black men, lefty virtuosos on electric guitar. Seattle is a hemisphere away from Niger, and so is the music. This will be the third or fourth time seeing Mdou, but the first in a solo setting. A few years before the pandemic, Moctar’s record label, Sahel Sounds, arranged a US tour of hipster locations. The crowds were sparse, but the buzz was palpable. Dressed in the Bedouin robes and headgear, the group spun a delicious elixir of psychedelic desert trance drone. The focal point was Mdou’s spider like fretwork. Because no one in the group spoke any English, a label exec explained the back story. Turns out that secular music was a no-no in Mdou’s religion, forcing him to make his own guitar and practice in private. Fast forward to 2026, Mdou plays solo to a packed Spaceland and even regales the crowd with some stories. The music is exotic with beautiful call and response passages. Mdou sings in his native tongue, but has the New England crowd swaying as if they understand. Because he played while seated, it was difficult to see the master at work. The dizzying sounds were hard to parse as coming from one set of hands. After the encore, Mdou explains that the proceeds from merch and touring are funneled back to his impoverished homeland in an effort to build schools, dig wells and move his country forward. Glad to be a witness to the evolution of this amazing artist.

Marta Sanchez 5/29/26 Firehouse 12

 Solo piano excursions at the Firehouse are always a treat. The artist is the main attraction, but the Firehouse house piano adds to the wonder. I have lovingly described this behemoth many times, and will take this opportunity to try again. Spanning a city block, this monstrous beauty looks like a 1970s Cadillac complete with tasteful spotless whitewalls. On this evening the hood was propped, allowing Sanchez access to install capos or clamps to modify the sound output. “Prepared” piano prompts panic palpitations in some listeners. Messing with the piano’s mallets or strings takes some musicians to the absurdist dark side of the avant garde. I still remember some would-be plinker dropping fruit on the strings for some cacadadaphonous effect. Sanchez stayed closer to the true sound which was refreshing. Soft-spoken, diminutive, Spanish, and about five months pregnant added to the allure. Marta said the evening’s compositions were pulled from her recent recording “For the Space You Left”. Her accent made it difficult to understand, but the gist of the record focused on two periods of isolation. One was the COVID pandemic which evokes a certain level of dread and uncertainty. The other was a retreat of choice where Sanchez traveled to a remote Spanish cabin to unplug and commune with nature. The music was beautiful and careened toward chamber offerings. Before each tune, Marta would climb under the hood and install the preparations. The clamps made a focused metallic wheeze for a few locations among the 88. The songs  beautifully danced around these locations offering percussive glitches in her gorgeous runs. The visual of this tiny pregnant Spaniard under the hood was memorable. One can only imagine the in utero experience of that child.

Mary Halvorson’s Canis Major 5/1/26 Firehouse 12

 Guitarist Halvorson has been wowing the Firehouse crowds for decades. In support of other jazzbos or leading her groups Amaryllis or Thumbscrew, Mary is a restless spirit. Her popularity is also blooming as evidenced by two sold out sets. I was lucky to plan ahead and grab an advance ticket for the second set. This project has Mary on guitar, Henry Fraser on standup bass, Dave Adewumi on trumpet, and longtime collaborator, friend, and drummer Tomas Fujiwara. The quartet breezes through their set. Still nerdy and bookish, Mary plays her large hollow body guitar while seated, which makes it hard to see her. Adewumi is new to me and is solid on trumpet. Confident blasts and runs are a good counterpoint to the guitar noodling. Fraser is amazing. Usually plucking, but occasional bowing, Henry is worth following. When soloing, Henry alternated softly plucked passages with loud stabbing runs, as if there were two people playing. Tomas has been positively reviewed in this blog many times. Master time keeper, Fujiwara spent the evening focused on cymbals. His cymbal-centric solo was beautiful. Halvorson is a chameleon on guitar, she even slurred her way through a Hawaiian slack-key passage. The international accolades keep piling up for Mary, I’m happy to say that I have been a fan from the jump.

Weird Music Night 4/26/26 Ely Center

 Can I get an amen? I must be blessed. Joe Morris’ Sunday afternoon recitals, spring and fall series at the Firehouse, odd offerings from the Space Ballroom, local scenesters like Fernando, DJ Shaki, and Manic Mark, the FIM noizoids, not to mention what passes through Yale or Wesleyan. So how bout adding Weird Music Night to that mix. Started by local Dadaist John O’Donnell, the series provides a showcase for regional electronic and video projects that are definitely of the left field variety. The new Ely Center is growing on me. The lack of a sign, the heavy windowless metal door, no light in the foyer, as if to say, “ you’re here for weird music, go find it”. The evening had five artists, I arrived late so I unfortunately missed the first up DJ Turd Burglar. I enter to the sounds of Long Island’s Chants Voyage. He is a traditional DJ with a trippy kaleidoscopic video backdrop. The sounds changed pace, slurred and stuttered, with the DJ in total control of the volume. The trick to this music is to get heads bobbing, Chants had a good percentage. After a brief break, New Haven’s KC1YMF takes the stage. The room has been darkened, like totally. Some weird static and grainy video appear. From stage right enters a sashaying figure dressed in a Sasquatch suit with illuminated night vision goggles. For those familiar with the work of visual artist Nick Cave, not the musician, can conjure the visual of this apparition. The figure hulas in slow motion toward the crowd before kneeling in front of the stage in child’s pose. The sounds pick up and the Sasquatch exits. A young man appears with laptop and two vintage slide projectors, applying sounds to the overlapping images. Something about the sound and operation of the projectors transported me to the early 70s with my dad at the helm putting the slides in upside down. Next up is a Boston based Berklee student who goes by the name Cskonopka. Solo laptop performer also had the kaleidoscopic video. He cut and spliced photos of monuments while soundtracking the video. Didnt stick around for the last offering from Ithaca’s Anna Oxygen, but I’m sure it was weird.

Corey Henry 4/21/26 Skiro Studios Hamden

 Corey is Nawlins royalty. A grandfather who played drums with the Preservation Hall, Corey did stints with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and Galactic before starting his Treme Funktet. Like many New Orleans musicians, Corey is a multi-instrumentalist playing trombone as well as keyboards. This evening was billed as a “jam session” with an unusual start time of 930. I arrive at the studio which occupies an address in the Space Ballroom complex. The studio has a nice stage, decent sound system, and a no frills bar. I sit towards the back to get a full view of the place. A crew of youngsters who seem affiliated with the space hit the stage. Drums, bass, and keys noodle a little to make sure the sound is solid. A figure in a trench coat and wool hat appears and sings nice versions of Crazy by Gnarls Barkley and Nat King Cole’s Smile. They hop off stage, not quite an opening act but system checkers. Another hour goes by and the crowd is starting to get restless. I notice the crowd, I realize that of the hundred or so patrons and workers that i am one of five white people in the place. This never happens. In addition to the racial disparity, it seems that everyone knows each other, like I was transported to a house party. I rarely dwell on this, but given the late start, I had time to evaluate. Could be the music, economics, what someone chooses to spend on, or some combination. At 1130, Henry and entourage appear from the rear. High fiving and greeting takes another 20 minutes which lands us close to midnight. Corey sets up at the keyboards with his brother on drums and another guy on a drum pad thing. The trio noodles for a bit before we hear from Corey. Turns out he was at Yale for an event that ran long and was unclear as to his jam session duties. He queries, “y’all know Doobie Powell?” I’m one of the few that doesn’t raise my hand. Turns out that Powell, a Hartford native , is a big deal in the soul-gospel-funk production world. His father toured with Richard “Groove” Holmes and played with the original Sugar Hill Gang, so yeah, pedigree. Turns out the Powell entourage and the Henry entourage are all friends which explains the house party vibe. Doobie takes the stage and plays another keyboard for some more noodling. The music reminds me of Robert Glasper or that Beastie Boys instrumental record “The In Sound from Way Out”. It’s past my bedtime, so I don’t last much longer. It’s nice to know we walk among legends and all their friends.

Tatsuya Nakatani FIM #116 Ely Center 4/10/26

 The Ely Center has been evicted. I don’t know the details, but the address change from the cushy Trumbull Street cabal of lawyers and therapists to the polluted waterfront hood of James Street reeks of financial distress. The space afforded by this lo-fi location allows for a small concert space amongst a sizable gallery for showcasing local art. The FIM fellas have been positively reviewed in this blog many times. At 116 gatherings, these noiseniks keep a steady schedule of improv performances in and around the New Haven area. Caleb Duval on standup bass, Luke Rovinsky on guitar, and Kaelen Ghandi on saxes are joined by Japanese percussion legend Nakatani. I arrive to the sound guy patching cords and setting up mics, apparently the performance will be recorded. After a lengthy sound check, the improv starts. Luke bends strings and warps sounds. Caleb uses a variety of kindling to capo the strings while using stabbing motion for a shrill sound. Ghandi’s yelps are punctuated with asmr whispering. Nakatani is the main attraction. His credits include stints with Eugene Chadbourne, Acid Mothers Temple, and Mary Halvorson. He has a standard drum kit with two large gongs. His playing is anything but standard, employing a variety of cymbals and shakers that he rubs and scrapes on the snare drum. He uses mallets, sticks, brushes, and bows to coax sound from all sides. Using the bow on the side of the cymbal while scraping the snare made this crazy metallic sound. He bowed the gongs and looked like he was slicing deli meat. The improv fills the room for the twenty brave souls who call this “music”. Based in Boston, Tatsuya travels the region spreading the free improv gospel.