Music Features

Gimme swelter

The searing hot sounds of summer

By SUSANNA BOLLE | July 15, 2008

Polyrhythmatics Brass Quartet

Local composer, trumpeter, and electronic-musician FORBES GRAHAM has been blazing in recent weeks, with a gaggle of gigs around town and a fine new solo CD, I Won’t Stop, out on his own Blaq Lghtn label. His music meshes a disparate array of influences, from heavy metal to drum ’n’ bass, free jazz to hip-hop, modern composition to noise. This Friday at Outpost 186, the POLYRHYTHMATICS BRASS QUARTET — Graham and JOE MOFFET on trumpet, GEORGE SAENZ on trombone and ADAM DOTSON on euphonium — will perform Graham compositions including a graphic score and a piece based on various mathematical magic squares. Graham says he likes to describe the quartet’s music as “being about experiencing life contrapuntally.”

As I write, the city is unbearably hot, but dollars to doughnuts it will be more sweltering still this Monday when Boston’s most ferocious two-guitar, one-trumpet trio, HEATHEN SHAME, take the stage at the Abbey Lounge in support of the Bay Area psych-pop-noise duo SIC ALPS. Get your drinks on as many rocks as will fit and don’t forget your earplugs.

Last but not least, on Tuesday at the Mills Gallery, RED HORSE, the incendiary duo of percussionist ELI KESZLER and instrumental mad scientist STEVE PYNE, will perform in the final installment of the month-long OVERHEARD/UNDERGROUND series at the Mills Gallery. According to Keszler, Red Horse have been building resonating sculptures and some instruments for the occasion. They’re part of a bill that also includes a talk by Sort Of label founder Raymond Morin.

Related: Sic Alps, Instant messages, Blake babies, More

Sic Alps
U.S. Ez , emboldened by all sorts of sloppiness, works in the way of Lomax’s porch recordings, forcing rock and roll back into a folk tradition.
Instant messages
The immediacy of communicating personal information that Internet culture and high bandwidth provide is not part of the new exhibition at the Mills Gallery, which eschews digital technology altogether.
Blake babies
Nature is mysterious and mystical in "And the fair Moon rejoices" (at the BCA's Mills Gallery through August 16), as foreign as the wilds of New England probably seemed to its first English settlers. And maybe there are witches about.
Weather reports
One of the great themes in America is nostalgia for the "good old days," which flame into being and then fade into the distance.
Photos: AMALGAM and Different Kind of Monster at BCA
Photos from opening night in the Mills Gallery at BCA
Ty Segall | Goodbye Bread
At just 23 years old, Ty Segall is on his fifth LP, and that's not counting more than a dozen releases with Sic Alps and his four other bands. But Goodbye Bread — his first record for Drag City, in which he plays every instrument — is his most scrupulous work to date.
Autumn blossoms: Our 10 most anticipated art shows this fall
This fall is a season of celebrations and new beginnings as the Museum of Fine Arts opens its new contemporary art wing, the Institute of Contemporary Art turns 75, the Addison Gallery reopens after fixing its roof, and Brandeis's Rose Art Museum reopens after a mini renovation and settling a lawsuit by backing off from its threat to close for good.
Cooling it
It's good news that the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, in conjunction with Berklee College of Music, is bringing back jazz as a regular part of its concert season.
The screaming life
Experimental music occupies a space on the margins, at the outer limits of established genres.
There's room to improv
My conversation with Weasel Walter is plagued by his crappy cellphone batteries.
2009: The year in local pop
When I think back on 2009, I feel the same pleasant discomfort you get at the end of a John Hughes movie, when suddenly all the jocks and dorks and punks are good friends. This year, hardcore denizens of time-worn niches came out of hiding and acted all presentable and all sorts of scenes and sounds went behind the bleachers for some unlikely scores.
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ARTICLES BY SUSANNA BOLLE

ASSAULT AND BATTERIES | February 20, 2009
After a brief stint in Pittsburgh, guitarist and electronic musician GEOFF MULLEN is back in his native Rhode Island, and the New England music scene is so much the better for it.

SO MUCH IN STORE | February 10, 2009
Australia's the NECKS are the sort of band who thwart classification.

A COMPROVISATIONAL WHAT? | February 02, 2009
Local saxophonist and electronic-musician JORRIT DIJKSTRA combines a variety of styles ranging from jazz to electro-acoustic improv and noise to create his own emotive and often idiosyncratic music.

WINTRY MIX | January 26, 2009
There are so many interesting and unusual musical happenings this week, it's almost more than this little column can bear.

RARE FREQUENCIES: CALLITHUMPIAN CONSORT, THURSTON MOORE AND BILL NACE | January 20, 2009
Although composer JOHN CAGE is best known for 4'33" of silence, he could raise a ruckus when the mood struck.