Music
Danay Suárez, Polvo de la Humedad
By Adolf AlzupharSong after song, Cuban artist Danay Suárez’s album Polvo de la Humedad is a well executed hip hop and reggae album. With her grave rapping voice, soulful singing voice, and nuanced rhythms, she mesmerizes with the sincerity of perfected expression.
Pneumatic Mnemonic: Pylon Live
By Daniel GoldI first heard Pylon in 2007. I had just moved to Pylon's home of Athens, Georgia, and that year DFA had reissued the band's 1980 debut album, Gyrate. Aptly named Gyrate Plus, the reissue opens with tracks from the band’s first single, Cool/Dub, from 1979, and closes with a select track from an out-of-print EP followed by an unreleased studio demo.
Highly Selective Listings
Brooklyn Rail Highly Selective Music Events
A thoughtful, discerning, and carefully compiled list of the most notable, promising and unique musical events for the months of July and August in New York City.
MUSIC AS A VOLATILE ART FORM: Terry Allen Reissued
By Marshall YarbroughFor a while now I’ve had a theory about a select group of artists who were making music in the 1960s and ’70s. These are musicians who seem related to their time only obliquely: they may have been marked by it, but they were not of it.
Hearing With Your Eyes
By George GrellaLet me begin by dispensing with Walter Pater: occasionally the plastic arts do indeed achieve the condition of music. You can go hear for yourself at two concurrent museum exhibitions in New York City, one for Harry Bertoia, the other for Stuart Davis.
Jon Savage’s Very Good Year
By Jeff Tompkins“When did music become so important?” an exasperated Don Draper asks his younger wife in a fifth-season Mad Men episode, set in the fall of 1966. Don’s wife responds with a copy of the Beatles’s Revolver, which had come out that August—but Don is so unmoved by what he hears that he shuts off the hi-fi in the middle of “Tomorrow Never Knows.”
Outtakes
By Steve DalachinskyLeaving Cornelia Street Café after an ecstatic set by the Kris Davis Quartet, I encountered one of the gentlest creations I have ever met: a red, white, and blue borzoi named Rhett. Like with all good therapy dogs we hugged, kissed, and smiled at each other until he gave me an “I’ve had enough” look, turned his back on me, and snuggled with another tourist in need. His owner told me that his crazy, oversexed girlfriend had sprayed the dog those colors a few days before, then abandoned it and him.
