A “post-Christian nihilist pop opera” sounds like a strange, nearly impossible amalgam to synthesize. But for Brooklyn-based composer Matt Marks and his chief co-conspirator, vocalist Mellissa Hughes (both raised in the Southern Baptist tradition), The Little Death—which Marks began writing in the summer of 2007—is the result of relentless “tinkering” and indiscriminately drawing from a reservoir of dizzying musical touchstones and the moods and emotions they engender.

What happens when three indie music groups crash Lincoln Center’s 2010 American Songbook series?

The New Yorker Festival is a celebration of ideas, with provocative discussions about politics, business, film, theater, and literature. But how do you best present poignant ideas when they are sung rather than spoken?

The sound of an electronic organ swirls upward through a sludgy backbeat, as digitized woodwinds sparkle. The shimmering ambience soon gives way to a beat-driven din that inundates the listener.