Jamband Legends Leftover Salmon Reinvent Themselves at a Rare Small-Club Gig

What’s the likelihood of being able to see Leftover Salmon at the smallest venue the legendary jamband has probably ever played? It happened last night at Bowery Electric, a spot where you’d hardly expect to see these summer festival vets. For what it’s worth, this wasn’t the crew who made a name for themselves as jamgrass pioneers. Sure, many of the songs started out with a scampering bluegrass groove and then went further and further outside, but this new version of the group is more psychedelic than ever. Their brand-new album is aptly titled Something Higher, working an epically vamping, stylistically puddle-jumping blueprint that the Grateful Dead refined at their majestic, early 80s peak. Yet this version of Leftover Salmon are also a lot tighter than the Dead ever were.

The addition of keyboardist Erik Deutsch has completely transformed the band. He started out playing ragtime and honkytonk-influenced piano. By the time the set was over, he’d spun through lowdown clavinova funk, dub reggae, majestic art-rock synth vistas, swirly Doorsy organ interludes and a couple of wryly hobbity detours that wouldn’t have been out of place in early 70s Jethro Tull.

No matter what style they’re using as a lauching pad, this band has always been about the jam, and this show was a clinic. The trippiest, most adrenalizing tradeoffs were between Deutsch and Andy Thorn’s banjitar, which he was running through a delay pedal for a stunningly spot-on approximation of a steel pan. While Thorn’s rapidfire frailing fueled the most Appalachian-flavored moments, he was just as much a force throughout the show’s most ambitious, artsy points.

Bushy-bearded group partriarch and guitarist Vince Herman waited til the end of the set, during the cheery gospel-flavored singalong Let In a Little Light, before he fired off a series of breathtakingly effortless volleys of bluegrass flatpicking. Likewise, six-string bassist Greg Garrison hung back in the pocket for the most part, taking over lead vocals on the night’s two most vintage soul-oriented numbers. As it turns out, the band’s strongest singer is drummer Alwyn Robinson, who took over the mic on one low-key number and also harmonized with founding member/mandolinist Drew Emmitt (whose searing, tantalizingly brief Strat leads had every bit as much voltage as his endlessly machinegunning mando runs).

A Brooklyn violinist joined the group a few songs in and contributed bouncy bluegrass as well as more uneasy textures. The night’s most surreal song was House of Cards, a sticky tarpit of dub fueled by Deutsch’s tersely warpy, oscillating leads. The most exhilarating was Astral Traveler, which with its towering, gale-force chorus would have been a standout Bob Weir number in any 80s Dead second-setlist – it was easy to imagine that band taking a flying leap into it from, say, Saint of Circumstance as the show peaked out.

The new album’s title track was a launching pad for slashing Emmitt riffage and tight solos all around. The band opened both Foreign Fields and Game of Thorns as broodingly spiky, serpentine bluegrass and sailed into the clouds from there. And Burdened Heart was no less potent for being downbeat, the group eventually vamping out a long interlude midway through, Emmitt and Deutsch pawing the seeds and stems to uncover the sweetest, most pungent buds. Leftover Salmon’s endless tour continues; the next stop is this May 10 at 8 PM at the Boathouse, 11800 Merchants Walk in Newport News, Virginia; cover is $20.

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A Blazing, Psychedelic Night of Heavy Algerian Rock at Lincoln Center

“We love to present amazing work from around the world that reflects the population of this city as well,” Lincoln Center’s Meera Dugal said with relish, welcoming Imarhan onstage this past evening. Imarhan – whose name translates as “the posse” – are Algerian, not to be confused with the similarly named Imharhan, who are essentially the electric version of Malian traditional group Tartit. With two vintage Gibson guitars, incisively trebly bass, thumping drums and calabash, Imarhan play a distinctly North African take on American psychedelic and garage rock that resembles its northern hemispheric influences a lot more than loping Tuareg duskcore. Their music is faster, and louder, yet just as trippy as the sounds coming from deeper into the Maghreb.

The catchy, snapping bassline that anchored their first song of the night could have been a Zombies riff, the two guitars flinging out shards of minor-key chords. The second number was sort of a mashup of Tinariwen and Brian Jonestown Massacre. When the wah-wah guitar kicked in after the second verse as the bass ran a bouncy six-note blues riff over and over, it was as adrenalizing as it was hypnotic – and then the band ended it suddenly, cold. After that, the snarling Brian Jones-style blues licks – a more focused Sympathy For the Devil, maybe – in the pounding, undulating song after that came as no surprise. What was unexpected was the long, gritty Haiballah Akhamouk guitar solo that took the song straight into a dust storm for extra unease.

Imarhan’s lyrics – in Tamasheq and Arabic – are brooding, pensive, often angry. They speak of longing, the exhaustion of war, the constant angst of life in exile, and once in awhile, guarded hope for a peaceful future. For those in the crowd unable to grasp those specifics, the group let the restlessness of the music speak for itself, particularly in the careening guitar lines of bandleader/Iyad Moussa Ben Abderahmane a.k.a. Sadam.

If there’s such a thing as heavy disco, it was the group’s fourth song, grounded by a bassline that at halfspeed would have been reggae but at this close-to-breakneck pace took on a snap and crackle beneath the radiant, ringing reverb of the guitars’ minor chords rang. They really went into overdrive after that, almost bluegrass speed, up to a big, defiant stadium rock chorus – by now most of the crowd, a mix of expats and the divergent demographics typically found at shows at the atrium space here – were on their feet and clapping along.

They flipped the script after that, bringing the music down, awash in resignation and regret before building back up to one of the night’s most ferociously bluesy crescendos, fueled by the bandleader’s offhandedly savage, heavy blues riffage on his old Gibson SG. From there the guitars spun out a sinister web over a lickety-split offbeat groove, then went in a psychedelic funk direction, almost an Algerian take on early Santana. Rhythms grew trickier and more traditional, bringing to mind Niger bands like Etran Finatawa, before the group picked up the pace again with a little sardonic hip-hop flavor.

The encores were an unexpectedly traditional, low-key duskcore tune that could have been a Tinariwen cover, and a ferocious final stomp with a grittily spiraling bass solo that was arguably the high point of the night. There have only been a few bands this loud at Lincoln Center in recent years – a reunion by legendary Detroit proto-punks Death, and an explosive early evening set by Moroccan rockers Hoba Hoba Spirit come to mind – but this was probably as heavy as any show anywhere in New York this evening. 

The next free concert at the Lincoln Center atrium space is next Thursday, May 10 at 7:30 with another powerful act, Detroit blues belter and bandleader Thornetta Davis. Get there early if you’re going. 

A Wryly Trippy, Picturesque New Album and an Owl Release Show by Curtis Hasselbring

Curtis Hasselbring has been a mainstay at the adventurous edge of the New York jazz scene since the late 80s. Best known as a trombonist and composer of cinematic themes with a sardonic sense of humor, he’s also a very distinctive guitarist and keyboardist. His new solo album, Curha II is streaming at his music page. It’s a lot more techy than his usual work, and probably the most psychedelic thing he’s ever done. Here, he plays all the instruments. He’s playing the album release show on April 20 at 9:30 PM at the Owl, leading a very cool quintet with Alec Spiegelman and Peter Hess on bass clarinets, Ari Folman-Cohen on bass and John Bollinger on drums.

The album opens on a slashing note with Scissors, a gamelanesque, pointillistic stroll through a Javanese funhouse mirror. Then Hasselbring completely flips the script with Egon, a woozy, blippy synth-and-drum-machine acid jazz number.

A squirrelly new wave-influenced shuffle, Respect the Pedestrian comes across as an early 80s video game theme as XTC might have done it – with a not-so-subtle message for an era in New York where a driver can blast through an intersection, take out a couple of toddlers, and get away with it.

Mystery Guest mashes up Eno-esque rainy-day ambience and a warpy trip-hop groove. The Beatles catch up with Gary Numan in the catchy Sir Fish; then Hasselbring goes further into psych-folk mode with ’68, its wah-wah guitars and catchy acoustic garage riffage.

Party Platter People is prime Hasselbring: a staggered motorik drive, cascading Tangerine Dream synths against King Crimson guitar flares…and dreamy Hawaiian swing when you least expect it. The dubby Fish Coda is sort of King Tubby meets sleng teng uptown. The album ends with the stomping Ana-lo, which sounds like a Joy Division instrumental b-side. There’s also the surreal trombone-and-electronics shuffle Alpaca Lunch and Madgit, an interminable, robotic techno parody – maybe. Tune in, turn on, bug out. 

Slinky Female-Fronted Funk and Soul From Shelley Nicole’s BlaKbüshe at Lincoln Center

“It is going to be an amazing, amazing night,” enthused Lincoln Center’s Jordana Leigh as politically fearless singer Shelley Nicole took the stage there last night with her shapeshifting eight-piece band blaKbüshe. This was the latest of a long series of Lincoln Center performances for the veteran member of kaleidoscopic New York avant funk institution Burnt Sugar.

Dressed in a natty grey suit with gold sleeves and vest, sporting a short mohawk and smacking a tambourine, she and her nine-piece band kicked off the party with BlaK Girls, a slinky latin-flavored funk tune that took a turn into classic 70s disco and then back. Keyboardist Leon Gruenbaum wound it up with a bubbly Rhodes solo. He teamed up with bassist Ganessa James for a thunderstorm low end as the band pounced into Box – as in “You’re not gonna box me!” – a heavy, cinematic funk tune driven by drummer Hiroyuki Matsuura and percusionist Shawn Banks.’

As the show went on, members of the Burnt Sugar family pitched in. One intoned a heartfelt, elegaic poem, For Marjory over a spaciously twinkly Isaac Hayes psych-soul backdrop. From there the group segued into the Harlem River Drive boudoir soul ballad Give It to Me, the bandleader’s impassioned vocals in tandem with harmony singer Ki Ki Hawkins, handing off to T. Jeffrey Smith’s smoky tenor sax and then a moody trumpet solo from Lewis Barnes before a big horn raveup.

Burnt Sugar guitarist Ben Tyree materialized at the back of the stage as Jerome Jordan switched out during that band’s Somebody to Love You, a slow-jam salute to motherhood punctuated by resonant, wee-hours muted trumpet and some snazzy, flickering tremolo-picking. Meanwhile, videos played on the screen overhead – one particularly strong image was a woman being embraced from behind, “Our love is militant” lipsticked on her chest.

A Doobie Brothers cover by any other band would have cleared the room, but you have to give this crew credit for having the chutzpah to do Long Train Running, reinventing it as a brisk soul-clap tune with a growling Jeff Jeudy metal guitar solo midway through.  A poetic tribute to Nina Simone was a big hit, followed by the catchy, determined hard-funk anthem I Am American, inspired by the promise of Obama’s first campaign.

“Puerto Rico is not in the news cycle. Let us not forget,” Nicole reminded, explaining that she’d welcome any contributions for a family with two little girls there that she’s helping through hard times. Then she launched into her new pro-choice single Punnany Politixxx – but before she did that she made sure everybody knew what punanny is. Images from recent womens’ marches played overhead as the group built momentum up to a rapidfire dancehall reggae coda featuring Jua Kali. 

The night’s best song was the defiantly undulating, organ-fueled latin soul anthem In Your View. They closed with Power on the Floor, its latin-funk message of empowerment inspired by the character Trinity in The Matrix. Fans of this band should also check out the free show on April 13 at 7:30 PM at the Lincoln Center atrium space just south of 63rd St. where singer Martha Redbone will collaborate with the similarly eclectic Brooklyn Raga Massive for a mashup of Indian and African-American sounds. Get there early if you’re going.

You Can Lead a Bushwick Crowd to Water But…

The Man in the Long Black Coat turns through the entryway and enters the Bushwick bar. Other than a few gaggles of gentrifiers, it’s pretty empty. The walls are festooned with leftwing slogans, but the beer prices don’t match the decor. Nor should they, really. This is all for show, the man decides. It’s a Kafka short story, The Department of Protests. You see the bureaucrat, you sign up to rally about your favorite issue: the weather, catcalls, cruelty to pet marmosets. Anything you want, really, unless that might impede the steady flow of income upward from the working class to the gentrifiers’ parents.

This bar has a reputation for things starting late. Nublu late. Which explains why nothing’s happening yet. The man decides to take a walk around the neighborhood, a dubious choice considering that it’s nine in the evening. On his way out, he almost bumps head-on into a friend, who’s carrying her axe. They greet each other; he swings the door wide so that she can make her way in. “See ya in a bit,” he says brightly.

He’s lying. He has no intention of coming back til showtime. When he reaches the corner, he decides to take a left on Irving for once. Walking toward Myrtle, he stops in at a couple of delis to see if they have his favorite beer. But they don’t carry it.

The Man in the Long Black Coat doesn’t even like beer. But it’s cheaper than anything available at the yuppie wine stores – which at this hour are still open, even if nobody’s in there. Just as well, he thinks. The sidewalks may be deserted at this hour, but the cops always put undercovers out in front of the luxury condos.

Past the park, a guy with a backpack approaches from behind. Suddenly he’s a little too close for comfort. The man weighs the possibility of danger, pulls to the right, then with a quick backward glance takes his phone out of his pocket.  He puts it to his ear. “What?” he asks sharply.

There’s nobody at the other end. But that doesn’t matter. “I’m on Irving and, um, Hart Street,” the man says with a hint of aggravation. He prepares for plan B.

But there’s no need. The guy with the backpack – a blue-collar kid in cheap work boots, jeans and a vinyl winter coat – passes on the left. The man puts his phone back as the kid shuffles along.

As he gets closer to Myrtle, the man brightens as he passes a couple of lowlit Ecuadorian delis. Brightly colored bags of snacks, tropical fruit soda and dried chiles are visible from outside. The man considers going in – he’s running out of hot pepper at home – but decides it would look weird if he brought a bag of groceries into the bar. Out here the new arrivals don’t shop anywhere but Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s, or from the expensive Korean delis.

He turns around when he hits Myrtle, retracing his steps, one eye over his shoulder. Luxury condos, undercover cops or not, this is still a dangerous neighborhood. But none of the delis have his first choice of beer – and by now he could use one.

Returning to the bar, his timing turns out to be perfect. The roughly eighteen members of Funkrust Brass Band file from the back room to the front: first the reeds, then brass, then the drummers. They all wear black costumes. The horn players’ valves are all lit up in white like little Christmas trees. Their frontwoman has a bullhorn and leads the band in a chant as the horns pump out a catchy march. They have a theme song! Slowly, one by one, they march back to the inner room.

Several of the customers from the front follow them in, mystified. If they’ve ever seen a street band before, they’ve never been this close. And this group is very theatrical. In formation like a phalanx of soldiers, they crouch, and leap, and strike poses. One of their trumpet players climbs way up by the PA system, balances precariously on something extruding and plays a mean solo. For a moment, the crowd is into it.

For a band who don’t tour much or even play out a lot, they’re very tight. Just as impressive, the man thinks, is that half of their members are women. Even by punk rock standards, that’s noteworthy.  Although they use a lot of minor keys, their songs are closer to punk than Balkan music – and they’re catchy.

The man finds himself nodding along as the trombones blaze and snort and the drums rumble. “Why are we alone?” the group sing in unison throughout one of the quieter vamps. Out of biological necessity, the man wants to tell them. If we were telepathic, it would kill us. If we could feel everyone’s pain, we’d be dead in a nanosecond. But he doesn’t say anything.

The novelty wears off, the crowd starts to filter out and two catchy, thumping numbers later, the band is done. Though what they play is obviously dance music – or at least you can march to it – nobody dances. Afterward, their singer mingles with what’s left of the crowd, handing out buttons and taking emails. The kids seems receptive – that’s a good sign, the man thinks.

Greek Judas play afterward and pretty much completely clear the room. The man finds this amusing, considering that they packed Hank’s the last time they played the place. But this is Bushwick, and the newcomers obviously have no use for loud heavy metal versions of Middle Eastern flavored crime rhymes from the 1930s Greek gangster underworld.

From the first few notes of the first song, it’s clear that singer Quince Marcum – who sings in Greek even if he doesn’t speak it – is way too low in the mix. Afterward, he turns up – and so do his bandmates. Wade Ripka eventually switches from guitar to lapsteel for extra marauding resonance while Strat player Adam Good plays gritty chromatics and some oud voicings – which makes sense considering he’s also an oudist. A mask hangs from the back of Marcum’s head; Good wears a Batman-style mask. Bassist Nick Cudahy plays simple, hypnotic intervals on a big, beautiful Gibson Firebird model and sports a deer mask. Drummer Chris Stromquist is also some equine creature, and makes it look easy as he follows the songs’ tricky meters. He should be the group’s Minotaur – he knows this labyrinth by heart.

Marcum gamely explains a few of the narratives – a guy lusting after a cute Romany girl in the adjacent public bath; two smalltime crooks planning on resuming their music careers once they get out of jail; and a crack whore on the streets of Athens in the 1920s. But there’s hardly anyone there to explain them to. The band soldier on, determined to have some fun even if nobody else is there to share it with them. That’s ok, the man thinks. This isn’t their turf anyway. Or mine either. After their last song, he exits without a word.

A Lavish, Twisted, Trippy Album by One-Man Band D. Treut

One of the most strangely beguiling albums of recent months is multi-instrumentalist D.Treut’s solo release, some of which has made it to Bandcamp. Dave Treut is best known as a drummer with a long association with Brandon Seabrook, one of the jazz world’s most distinctive, assaultive guitarists and banjo players. But Treut – whose solo project is pronounced like the lead poisoning capital of the world – is also a talented multi-instrumentalist and singer. He’s just back from midwest tour, leading his group at around 10 on March 1 at C’Mon Everybody. Adventurous guitarist Xander Naylor plays at 9; cover is $12.

Treut plays all the instruments on his lavish nineteen-track collection: drums, bass, keys, guitar and sax. Stylistically, it’s all over the place, with classic soul, jazz, psychedelic rock and unhinged experimentation, often all in the same song. It gets weirder as it goes along. The first track, A Dream Is a Wish, is a haphazardly orchestrated epic with a long, woozy portamento keyboard solo at the center. It manages to stagger as much as it swings: imagine Tom Csatari’s Uncivilized big band on really good acid.

The second track, Absolution – Saints & Demons is a long psychedelic soul ballad with chugging organ and a neat little alto sax break: when Treut’s voice finally goes way up the scale, he takes you completely by surprise. Whirlwind Woman  – (Sarah’s Song) is a careening, slowly disassembling mashup of glamrock, soul and a little Hendrix. If Oneida weren’t so pretentious, they might sound something like this.

Treut stays in vintage soul mode for The Way the Cookie Krumbels – (Chloe’s Song), with Let It Be piano in tandem with stomping kickdrum and misty cymbals. Grammy Tappy is a funny, noodly guitar instrumental – truth in advertising. Treut follows that with Everything I Did I Did For Love, an even goofier EDM spoof.

Churchy organ comes to the forefront over the stomp in A Gift; then Treut takes a detour into wooly post-Velvets rock with Full Moon Insomnia. He strips the instrumentation down to loopy, swaying drums and bass for Where Others Have Gone, then balances sax squeal with bass growl in 78 Miles, the first crazed jazz track here.

Likewise, a staggered organ loop anchors somewhat calmer sax in Skip 5, catchy riffs percolating to the surface and then sinking back into the morass. Uptown Downtown is gritty no wave disco, while Times a River comes across as Public Image Ltd. covering Lady Madonna, maybe.

Joe’s Bounce is a misnomer: it’s more of a loopy Terry Riley-style theme, with a drum track that artfully blends shamble and precision. Circle could be described as sliced-and-diced Afrobeat at halfspeed; the Seabrook inflluence comes across most vividly in the simmering, keening, blippy Skip Funk 5.

There are hints of both distant, fragmented menace and new wave amidst call-and-response vocals in Dreamed a Wish On. She’Wanna’Doo is the catchiest and poppiest track here; the album winds up with a little over a minute worth of Body & Soul, just disembodied sax and vocals.

As with a lot of good psychedelia, the obvious question is whether or not you have to be high to appreciate this. Let’s say that couldn’t hurt. And for anybody who remembers late 90s/early zeros Lower East Side kitchen-sink legends Douce Gimlet, this is a real treat.

And it was also a treat to catch Treut turning in a standout performance with the Icebergs at Pete’s Candy Store this past evening. Hitting offbeats on the bells of his cymbals and making those off-kilter accents sound perfectly natural, he stepped into the big shoes left behind when David Rogers-Berry left the band and filled them. Drums are typically more of a big deal in a trio. That Treut held his own alongside Tom Abbs – one of the great cello rockers, who plucks out basslines and chords on his axe like he’s playing a guitar – and charismatic frontwoman Jane LeCroy, was an awful lot of fun to watch.

The Myrrors Bring Their Dusky, Pulsing Psychedelic Postrock to a Killer Alphabet City Twinbill

It’s not clear what the title of hypnotically kinetic psychedelic band the Myrrors’ latest record Hasta La Victoria – streaming at Bandcamp –  refers to. Whatever the case, it’s definitely a victory for the band themselves. The Arizona-based group went their separate ways around the turn of the past decade, but regrouped in the wake of ongoing youtube popularity. If there’s any need for further proof of the eternal viability of good psychedelic music, this is it. The Arizona collective are headlining a killer twinbill on Jan 20 at Berlin at around 9; Eno-esque ambient soundscaper J.R. Bohannon a.k.a. Ancient Ocean opens the night at 8. Cover is $10.

The album is a mix of hypnotic, circling epics and shorter numbers. The methodically swaying, ten-minute opening instrumental, Organ Mantra has a simple call-and-response sax loop front and center while the guitars of Cesar Alatorre-Mena and Nik Rayne build a dense wall behind it, and finally join the conversation. Meanwhile, Kellen Fortier‘s bass and Grant Beyschau’s drums bubble above the surface.

Awash in reverb, Somos La Resistencia sounds like Mogwai covering White Rabbit, with a squalling sax solo on the way out. From there the band segues into Tea House Music, with its echoing rainy-day rise and fall, distantly thundering percussion, plaintive twelve-string guitar hooks and echoes of Joy Division.

El Aleph, an ominous string soundscape, has distantly Indian-flavored overtones and melismatics. It’s a good intro for the mammoth title track, a dense, grey swirl and eventual flurry of instruments slowly coalescing around a central loop much like the album’s first number. This is the furthest from rock the band’s ever gone, and the trippiest destination they’ve found so far on a sonic journey that promises to discover newer depths and more enigmatically remote destinations.

An Alphabet City Psychedelic Twinbill to Get Lost In On the 20th

Guitarist J.R. Bohannon a.k.a. Ancient Ocean’s latest album Titan’s Island – streaming at Bandcamp – was inspired by the Cassini spacecraft’s observations of Titan, the moon of Saturn. That’s 90% of what you need to know.

Here’s the other ten. The most obvious reference points for the ambient composer’s immersive, echoey soundscapes are Eno and Laaraji, which testifies to the album’s tunefulness and dynamics. It opens with the title track, slowly rising out of a hazy wash with elegantly pulsing steel guitar, echoing BJ Cole’s memorable work on the live remake of Eno’s Icebreaker album. The epic, almost fifteen-minute Casssini-Huygens is a slowly crescendoing, kaleidoscopic series of layers methodically filtering through the mix, rising to an  unexpectedly catchy, recurrent four-note riff; then the steel guitar enters gracefully. Bohannon takes his time using pretty much every pedal on his board.

Rift Valleys is all about floating, slowly oscillating, glacially tectonic shifts, again with stately steel accents spicing the mix as Bohannon builds momentum. The final track, Life at the Surface has slightly more organic textures including facsimiles of accordion, cello and high strings – as you would expect from life on other planets, or orbiting them, right? 

Ancient Ocean opens a killer psychedelic twinbill on Jan 20 at 8 PM at Berlin; the pounding but similarly hypnotic, trippy Myrrors headline afterward. Cover is ten bucks for the best super spaceout night of the month.

Some Great December Shows Reprised This Month

Who says December is a slow month for live music in New York? The first three weeks were a nonstop barrage of good shows. And a lot of those artists will be out there this month for you to see.

Last summer, Innov Gnawa played a couple of pretty radical Barbes gigs. With bandleader Hassan Ben Jaafer’s hypnotically slinky sintir bass lute and the chorus of cast-iron qraqab players behind him, they went even further beyond the undulating, shapeshifting, ancient call-and-response of their usual traditional Moroccan repertoire. Those June and July shows both plunged more deeply into the edgy, chromatically-charged Middle Eastern sounds of hammadcha music, with even more jamming and turn-on-a-dime shifts in the rhythm. Innov – get it?

So their most recent show at Nublu 151 last month seemed like a crystallization of everything they’d been working on. The usual opening benediction of sorts when everybody comes to the stage, Ben Jaafer leading the parade with his big bass drum slung over his shoulder; a serpentine chant sending a shout out to ancient sub-Saharan spirits; and wave after wave of mesmerizing metallic mist fueled by Ben Jaafer’s catchy riffage and impassioned vocals.

Ben Jaafer’s protege and bandmate Samir LanGus opened the night with an even trippier show, playing sintir and leading a band including Innov’s  Nawfal Atiq and Amino Belyamani on qraqabs and vocals, along with Big Lazy’s Yuval Lion on drums, Dave Harrington on guitar, plus alto sax. Elements of dub, and funk, and acidic postrock filtered through the mix as the rhythms changed. Innov Gnawa are back at Nublu 151 on Jan 12 at around 6:30 with trumpeter Itamar Borochov for ten bucks; then the following night, Jan 13 they’re at Joe’s Pub at 7:45 PM for twice that, presumably for people who don’t want to dance.

The rest of last month’s shows that haven’t been mentioned here already were as eclectically fun as you would expect in this melting pot of ours. Slinky Middle Eastern band Sharq Attack played a mix of songs that could have been bellydance classics from Egypt or Lebanon, or originals – it was hard to tell. Oudist Brian Prunka had written one of the catchiest of the originals as a piece for beginners. “But as it turned out, it’s really hard,” violinist Marandi Hostetter laughed. The subtle shifts in the tune and the groove didn’t phase the all-star Brooklyn ensemble.

Another allstar Brooklyn group, Seyyah played an even more lavish set earlier in the month at the monthly Balkan night at Sisters Brooklyn in Fort Greene. With the reliably intense, often pyrotechnic Kane Mathis on oud behind Jenny Luna’s soaring, poignant microtonal vocals, you wouldn’t have expected the bass player to be the star of the show any more than you’d expect Adam Good to be playing bass. But there he was, not just pedaling root notes like most American bassists do with this kind of music, his slithery slides and hammer-ons intertwining with oud and violin. The eight-piece band offer a rare opportunity to see a group this size playing classic and original Turkish music at Cornelia St. Cafe at Jan 15, with sets at 8 and 9:30 PM. Cover is $10 plus a $10 minimum.

When Locobeach’s bassist hit an ominous minor-key cumbia riff and then the band edged its way into Sonido Amazonico midway through their midmonth set at Barbes, the crowd went nuts. The national anthem of cumbia was the title track to Chicha Libre’s classic debut album; as a founding member of that legendary Brooklyn psychedelic group, Locobeach keyboardist Josh Camp was crucial to their sound. This version rocked a little harder and went on for longer than Chicha Libre’s typically did – and Camp didn’t have his trebly, keening Electrovox accordion synth with him for it. This crew are more rock and dub-oriented than Chicha Libre, although they’re just as trippy – and funny. They’re back at Barbes on Jan 15 at 10. 

There were four other Barbes shows last month worth mentioning. “Stoner,” one individual in the know said succinctly as Dilemastronauta Y Los Sabrosos Cosmicos bounced their way through a pulsing set blending elements of psychedelic salsa, cumbia, Afrobeat and dub reggae. Their rhythm section is killer: the bass and drums really have a handle on classic Lee Scratch Perry style dub and roots, and the horns pull the sound out of the hydroponic murk. They’re back at Barbes on Jan 10 at around 10.

Also midmonth, resonator guitarist Zeke Healy and violist Karen Waltuch took an expansive excursion through a couple of sets of Appalachian classics and a dadrock tune or two, reinventing them as bucolic, psychedelic jams. For the third year in a row, the all-female Accord Treble Choir sang an alternately majestic and celestial mix of new choral works and others from decades and centuries past, with lively solos and tight counterpoint. And the Erik Satie Quartet treated an early Saturday evening crowd to stately new brass arrangements of pieces by obscure 1920s French composers, as well as some similar new material.

At the American Folk Art Museum on the first of the month, singer/guitarist Miriam Elhajli kept the crowd silent with her eclecticism, her soaring voice and mix of songs that spanned from Venezuela to the Appalachians, including one rapturous a-capella number. And at the Jalopy the following week, another singer, Queen Esther played a set of sharply lyrical, sardonic jazz songs by New York underground legend Lenny Molotov, her sometime bandmate in one of the city’s funnest swing bands, the Fascinators. She’s at the Yamaha Piano Salon at 689 5h Ave (enter on 54th St) on Jan 14, time tba.

Some of the Wildest, Danceable Psychedelic Acts in New York Share the Best Bill of the Month…and Maybe the Year

What if you had the chance to see the Doors, the Jefferson Airplane and the Ventures all on the same bill..for ten bucks. Would you go? How about if you added Mulatu Astatke and Mercedes Sosa to the bill?

Obviously, that lineup never happened. But you can see a similarly amazing show this Jan 13 starting at 7:30 PM at Drom with the 2018 counterpart to many of those artists. Since the annual booking agents’ convention is in town, this is arguably the best concert weekend of the year – if you plan on seeing a weekend of music in 2018, it won’t get any better than this. The show starts with Christylez Bacon & Nistha Raj’s Indian hip-hop Bhairavi Beatbox, at 8:15 Super Yamba playing their psychedelic Afrobeat jams, at 9 singer Carolina Oliveros’ mighty 13-piece Afro-Colombian  trance/dance choir Bulla en el Barrio, at 10 the amazing Thai psychedelic jamband Drunken Foreigner Band (a Sunwatchers spinoff); at 11:15 the similarly trippy, more eclectic Combo Chimbita, at midnight awesomely slinky, psychedelic Israeli Ethiopiques groove instrumentalists Anbessa Orchestra and at around 1 Brooklyn’s funnest band, psychedelic organ-driven Middle Eastern-tinged surf rock trio Hearing Things . It’s like a month’s worth of going to Barbes, all in one marathon night – most of these acts are in regular rotation at Brooklyn’s best venue. 

The highlight of the night is Drunken Foreigner Band, not because they’re necessarily better than any of the other acts but because they don’t play a lot of shows. They’re the most psychedelic act on the bill by a mile – and it’s a very psychedelic lineup. They have an amazing new album, sardonically titled White Guy Disease, due out on vinyl from Electric Cowbell Records just in time for the show. Keyboardist/bandleader Dave Kadden draws his inspiration from Akha and Lam Lao folk tunes from Thailand and Laos and then electrifies them with creepy, trebly organ, a slinky rhythm section and Jim McHugh’s eerie electric phin lute. The result is some of the wildest, most psychedelic music you’ll ever hear,  an early contender for best album of 2018.

It’s basically a theme and variations. The first track, Akha 1, a practically thirteen-minute one-chord jam, sets the stage. As Jason Robira’s drums slither along on an altered clave groove and bassist Peter Kerlin loops a leaping one-five hook, Kadden spirals around, making Ray Manzarek-style funeral music out of a riff that’s essentially psychedelic Asian blues. Running through a reverbed-up amp and eventually a wah pedal, the phin has a mosquitoey Vox amp tone . If Country Joe & the Fish had been Laotian, they might have sounded like this.

The title track is louder and a lot shorter, sheets of fuzztone acidity burning from the phin, the organ sometimes doubling the melody line. With its tortured animalian snorts from sax and phin, the fourth track, Chan Choa Wa Chan Bin Dai sounds like the Velvets doing a wordless Thai version of Sister Ray – but infinitely more tightly. It’s the catchiest, most anthemic and rock-oriented track here.

The band make a march out of the opening theme in Akha 2, spiced with a surreal choir of throat-singing voices, then brings it down for a split-second before the surreal spirals pick up again. From there the band segues into the epic concluding segment Farang Mao, bringing the main theme full circle. As this trip peaks out, McHugh, hits his wah and distortion pedal, fires off a little choppy funk and finally goes completely off the rails in a savage flurry of tremolo-picking before pulling himself back on. Sunwatchers are a great band but this stuff is something else. Fans of psychedelic rock in general, as well as those who gravitate toward stoner sounds from other continents, i.e. Chicha Libre or Greek Judas should check these guys out. See you there!