Fresh off a well-reviewed performance at NEARfest, the most prestigious progressive rock festival in the United States (don’t laugh), Mexican instrumental trio Cabezas de Cera are playing two dates this week in D.C. plus one in Baltimore. Cabezas de Cera aren’t your typical bombastic prog band; rather, they combine folk, prog, free improv and a touch of the avant-garde into a fascinating and fairly uncategorizable mish-mash, and they’ve been doing it for about ten years now. While the basic format of the trio (plus a member credited as a “sound designer”) is guitars/saxes/drums, in reality they play a bewildering array of instruments, from traditional instruments to nontraditional rock instruments like the Chapman Stick, plus a variety of homemade implements.

Cabezas de Cera are playing the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage tonight at 6pm sharp, then at Artomatic tomorrow night at 8:30pm. Both these shows are free. On Sunday, they will make an appearance at Orion Sound Studios in Baltimore alongside Might Could - you can expect a longer set at this show for your $15. Orion is at 2903 Whittington Ave, shows are usually scheduled to start around 8pm.

Have a listen at Myspace or check out their website for more info.

Image courtesy Cabezas de Cera’s Myspace page

“Wasn’t he just here?” you might be thinking. Well, yes, but the last time famed free-jazzer Peter Brötzmann played the Velvet Lounge, just a few weeks ago, he wasn’t backed by a rhythm section straight out of the extreme metal world.

Full Blast sees Brötzmann in a trio with electric bassist Marino Pliakas and whirling dervish/drummer Michael Wertmüller. Pliakas and Wertmüller both indeed have metal backgrounds, and if you can imagine a grindcore band going full tilt with Brötzmann wailing mercilessly on top, you’ve got the right idea. Since I can’t make tonight’s show, I caught this trio last night at the Windup Space in Baltimore, and, just like two years ago at The Red Room, it was a show of epic proportions. Full Blast builds tension relentlessly, and while the music ebbs and flows, the overall feeling is of being swamped underneath an exhilirating wall of sound.

If Brötzmann and Wertmüller are obvious focal points, the crashing waves in this sea of noise - Brötzmann because he’s Brötzmann and Wertmüller because he is absolutely one of the most amazingly dextrous drummers I’ve had the pleasure of watching - Pliakas is the undertow: dangerous, unpredictable, rising with unexpected ferocity at various points in the music. Seeing the trio together in action is a revelatory experience, and this is pretty much mandatory if you’re a fan of free jazz, noise-rock or extreme music. And if you found Brötzmann solo a bit too much to handle, Full Blast is more accessible, even if simultaneously more extreme.

Full Blast plays at the Velvet Lounge tonight; PRV Trio and The Undisco Kidds are opening. Doors at 7:30, show at 9, $12, don’t miss it.

Check out some more photos from last night’s show after the jump. Full gallery here.

Read More “Don’t Miss Peter Brötzmann’s Full Blast Tonight” »

Nordic Jazz Fest, hosted annually by the embassies of Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland and Denmark, has become Nordic Jazz Week for 2009, featuring an opening performance at the Embassy of Finland on Sunday, June 14, and then two nights of performances at the House of Sweden on June 16-17.

Of note in the lineup are Norwegians Nils Petter Molvær & Arve Henriksen, who are pioneers in the peculiar kind of jazz/electronic/ambient music crossover that labels like Rune Grammofon (to which Henriksen is signed) are currently exploring. These two play as a duo on June 17, probably my most highly anticipated set of the festival. A close second is the Søren Kjærgaard Trio on June 16; Kjærgaard is a Danish pianist whose tuneful, energetic style has made him an interesting collaborator with such avant-jazz luminaries as Peter Brötzmann, Derek Bailey, Tim Berne, Herb Robertson, and more.

Full lineup, location and ticket details after the jump.

Photo of Nils Petter Molvær above courtesy his Myspace page.

Read More “Nordic Jazz 09 Lineup Announced” »

If this week’s Opeth and Enslaved bill at the 9:30 Club was an inspired pairing, the combination of Isis and Pelican tomorrow at the Black Cat is almost too obvious. Imagine post-rock played with heavy metal riffs and you’ve got the right idea for both these groups. Isis are touring in support of new release Wavering Radiant, which sees the band cutting back on the gorgeous distorted fuzz of earlier works like Panopticon in favor of a looser, more psychedelic vibe. Vocalist Aaron Turner (also the boss man of Hydra Head Records) has added a decent singing voice to his repertoire to augment his guttural screams, and uses it to good effect on the new material. Isis’ current output is somewhat less sweepingly epic than their earlier work, but it’s still very much widescreen in nature.

Openers Pelican might glibly be called the Explosions in the Sky of metal. Pelican’s music is entirely instrumental and immediately accessible: melodic and major-key, yet still heavy. On their own they might be a little lightweight, but paired with Isis, they should offer a nice counterpoint to the headliners’ more doom-laden heft.

Isis, Pelican and Tombs play at the Black Cat mainstage Saturday night, $15 at the door, 9pm.

Jammin’ Java is a thoroughly unassuming venue, located under spare signage on a strip mall in Vienna, Virginia–as appropriate a place as any for a stripped-down set. Philly-born trio Marah was, by its own admission, exhausted after a racous homecoming set the night before. Frontman David Bielanko, clammy and translucent under the stage lights, looked as though he hadn’t slept in about a week and a half. The band was without a percussion section, save for the tambourine cleverly positioned under the right heel of keyboardist Christine Smith.

Marah put on a hell of a show, considering. Bielanko has a naturally hoarse timbre, as though his esophagus were lined with low-grit sandpaper–think Springsteen, Tweedy, late Dylan, with some Randy Newman-esque vowel-shaping on the odd song–so it’s possible that being on the backslope of a rock bender enhaced his vocal affect. The set ran the gamut: urban country, funk, folk-rock, Boss-rock, even rootsy adaptations of Sinatra standards “Young At Heart” and “New York, New York.”

Minus David Bielanko’s brother Serge, who is on paternity leave in Salt Lake City (where the band dares not tour, David said), Marah was reduced to bare bones–upright bass, guitar, and keys. Still, Bielanko, Smith, and bassist Johnny Pisano delivered a tight, energetic performance that it easily could have mailed in. The highlight of the show was a banjo-and-bagpipe version of “Limb,” a pirate chantey off the band’s very first album. Bielanko said the band’s next album–its tenth–is tentatively scheduled for the fall.

Last night’s show at The Black Cat featured heavy dance rock from two bands: one that was amusing for all the wrong reasons, and one that was amusing for all the right ones.

I had never listened to Living Things before this show, so I was not certain what I was in for. “Living Things”: I imagined ungodly quasi-mammals, throbbing and pink and slightly demented. (Like The Hills Have Eyes, or Frankenstein’s Monster–“It’s Aliiiiive!” That sort of thing.) Their set started off unremarkably: heavy distortion, thunderous drum fills, a lead singer with a voice just baritone enough as to be incomprehensible beneath the merciless flogging of power chords. But once the tech crew tweaked the mixing board enough that Lillian Berlin’s lyrics began to break through the wall of sound, I began to understand.

Read More “Nuclear War on The Dance Floor: Living Things and Electric Six” »

Ever philosophical Reginald Cyntje — the District’s go-to jazz trombonist — has been inspired by the until-today-nonsucky weather to put on a special concert at Twins Jazz, 1344 U Street NW, on Saturday afternoon at 3.

Billed as the “Celebration of Love & the Change of Season concert,” the gig features Cyntje with a quartet (Richard Johnson on piano, Nasar Abadey on drums, To Be Named Later on bass); he also promises some special guests, i.e., “[a] variety of musicians and poets that will stop by for the celebration.”

Sounds good, no? Plus it’s a rare opportunity to see what Twins looks like during daylight hours. The show is $12. Come one, come all.

UPDATE 3:07: The bassist for the concert will be Zach Pride.

Some time ago, Fairfax City Parks & Rec employee Andrew McCarry handed me a glossy flyer with the words “AVANT FAIRFAX” splashed colorfully across the top. I had heard of this event before, but I’m sure he would have forgiven me if I’d done a double-take. As someone who treks into the District several times a month to get his live music fix, McCarry would be the first to say that Fairfax is not the first place in the D.C. area one would go looking for experimental music. But he’s used his connections with the city to set up a seven-hour festival of the avant-garde that kicks off at 6pm tomorrow evening. The benefits of collaborating with the city are immediately apparent: Avant Fairfax will be a nice, seated affair in Fairfax’s Old Town Hall, with a suggestion donation of a mere $5.

Combining improvisational whimsy and ambient noise that will appeal to the Sonic Circuits crowd with a headlining act from avant/prog label Cuneiform Records (Cheer Accident), there’s a bit of something for anyone with a keen ear for this stuff. See the full lineup and other information after the jump, or visit Avant Fairfax at Myspace.

Read More “This Saturday: Fairfax Goes Avant-Garde” »

The Washington Jewish Music Festival, now in its tenth year, caters to all sorts of musical tastes, and every year there’s usually something for everyone. Last year was a particularly grand experience, as the festival dovetailed with a huge Israel@60 Celebration that featured a free Regina Spektor concert on the Mall (pictured above). This year’s event is scheduled to run from June 4-11 at various venues, but most of the concerts will take place in the Washington DC Jewish Community Center’s Aaron and Cecile Goldman Theater.

Read More “Washington Jewish Music Festival Lineup Announced” »

Apparently I picked the worst time possible to take a long weekend and skip town, because for the experimental jazz/rock fan there is something awesome happening every night for the next four nights. Check it out:

• Thursday, April 16: Composer/arranger Ed Palermo will be conducting the U.S. Army Blues ensemble in a program comprised entirely of the music of Frank Zappa. (What.) This takes place at 7:30pm in Brueker Hall at Fort Myer - 400 McNair Road, Fort Myer, VA.
• Friday, April 17: Cuneiform Records artist Beat Circus (Myspace), a rock ensemble whose current lineup includes all kinds of strings and horns (including a tuba), will be at Orion Sound Studios south of Baltimore. Opening is Fern Knight, with whom I’m not familiar but who are described as a mix of “Krautrock, UK folk, and early baroque and renaissance music.” Cool. Orion is at 2903 Whittington Ave., Baltimore, MD. Show at 8pm.
• Saturday, April 18: The Tiptons Saxophone Quartet (Myspace), plus drummer, performing at Orion. This sax quartet has a diverse, fun repertoire that “ranges from New Orleans ’second-line’ to jazz, Afro-Cuban to Balkan, klezmer and beyond.” Show at 8pm.
• Sunday, April 19: Japan’s psychedelic rockers Acid Mothers Temple (Myspace) hit DC9. AMT seems to be constantly on tour, and their shows are semi-legendary for their stoned-out, hazy heaviness. Also, Japanese psych-rock is pretty much just reliably crazy. Show is at 9pm, Sonic Suicide Squad are opening.

Photo of Beat Circus courtesy their Myspace page.