6 THENEWYORKER,DECEMBER2, 2019
ILLUSTRATION BY JEREMY LEUNG
The label TDE is known for its preëminent hip-hop roster, which includes
such stars as Kendrick Lamar and Schoolboy Q, but its R. & B. silver bullet
is the singer SiR. The Inglewood, California, native—who performs on
Dec. 3, at Brooklyn Steel—makes the kind of music that sounds as blissful
as the endless-vacation aura of his home town. “Chasing Summer,” his
sophomore album, from August, traces the ebbs and flows of relationships;
from steamy highs to callous lows, it conveys love in the language of an
Everyman. His writing shines against woozy neo-soul backdrops that
proudly wear jazz’s influence, and his velvety voice imbues even his most
unsentimental lyrics with subtle tinges of romance. That duality remains
the anchor of SiR’s style: at once modern and traditional, rude-and-crude
swagger tucked inside grown-and-sexy mystique.—Briana YoungerR.&B.
inches, and her selections have an equally
classic form. She specializes in tracks whose
machine-generated melodic lines unfurl grad-
ually, building a constantly shifting landscape;
their smoky tones and insistent bass patterns
suggest both the celestial and the earthbound,
often simultaneously. She opens and closes
the evening at Public Records; the Polish
d.j. Blazej Malinowski performs a live set
in between.—Michaelangelo Matos (Nov. 29.)Jeff Tain Watts Trio
Made in New York Jazz Café
Defiantly propulsive, Jeff (Tain) Watts, the
onetime percussion power behind the bands of
both Marsalis brothers, can rattle the walls of a
club—and the sidewalk in front of it—should he
feel the need. But he’s also a deft and sensitive
accompanist, a role that he intermittently takes
at this new Brooklyn club as part of a rangy
trio that includes the guitarist Paul Bollen-
back and the bassist Orlando le Fleming.—S.F.
(Nov. 29-30.)Arlo Guthrie
Carnegie Hall
In 1965, the story goes, Arlo Guthrie was
spending Thanksgiving with friends when
he took out the trash and found himself jailed
for littering—an arrest that would ultimately
help the folk princeling avoid the draft.
The incident led to Guthrie’s most beloved
creation: “Alice’s Restaurant,” a discursive
eighteen-minute talking blues that forever
wed the singer to Thanksgiving. His annual
date at Carnegie Hall stretches back to 1967,
but Guthrie claims that it will terminate this
year, with a wish for “younger generations to
take the torches we carried.”—Jay Ruttenberg
(Nov. 30.)Kompakt Night
Elsewhere
Founded in Cologne, Germany, in 1998, the
label Kompakt has one of dance music’s most
immediately recognizable sonic stamps; its
releases are perched between flickering mini-
malist techno and airy trance, with strands of
disco infused into even the most wigged-out
material and polished to a glimmer. Michael
Mayer, one of the label’s co-founders, d.j.s
in much the same invigorating manner. He
headlines this showcase, which also features
the Kompakt artist Rex the Dog, whose re-
cent single “Vortex” spotlights a shamelessly
cheesy melody rendered with vintage-sounding
bleeps.—M.M. (Nov. 30.)Alanis Morissette
Apollo Theatre
Alanis Morissette’s 1995 album, “Jagged Little
Pill,” struck something so deep in the nine-
ties Zeitgeist that it now feels inextricable
from that era of angst-filled alt-rock. Though
it continues to divide critics, the five-time
Grammy-winning release is still revered as
a classic—so much so that it was recently
adapted into a Broadway musical, opening
on Dec. 5. Three nights before the show’s cur-
tain, Morissette performs an acoustic versionlocale a few blocks away, Moran employs his
long-standing Bandwagon trio, a daringly inclu-
sive ensemble—with the bassist Tarus Mateen
and the drummer Nasheet Waits—that exem-
plifies the multidirectional, go-for-broke spirit
of the most compelling modern jazz.—Steve
Futterman (Nov. 26-Dec. 1.)KEY!
Knitting Factory
Equal parts tastemaker and trendsetter, the
rapper KEY! has quietly become one of the most
influential artists to emerge this side of 2010.
His earlier work signalled a swelling tide of
Atlanta hip-hop that supplemented the city’s
trap-music legacy with more idiosyncratic el-
ements. Those innovations were foundational
in hindsight, but KEY! is ever evolving; two
recent releases, “777,” from last year, and “SO
EMOTIONAL,” from June, showcase his ver-
satility as he begins to garner long-overdue
acclaim.—Briana Younger (Nov. 29.)Mary Yuzovskaya
Public Records
The Russian-born, Brooklyn-based techno
d.j. Mary Yuzovskaya plays only vinyl twelve-interest in both industrial materials and the
commodification of the female form—illumi-
nated breasts or mouths with parted lips, made
of polyester resin, are mounted on gooseneck
pipes or presented in ice-cream dishes. In the
“Souvenir” series, photographs—including a
childhood snapshot and images of the model
Twiggy and a Holocaust victim—appear spec-
tral beneath layers of resin. Throughout the
exhibition, the artist directly confronts themes
of trauma and mortality, underscoring histo-
ry’s imprint on personal, embodied experi-
ence.—J.F. (Through Dec. 21.)
1
NIGHTLIFE
Musicians and night-club proprietors lead
complicated lives; it’s advisable to check in
advance to confirm engagements.
Jason Moran & the Bandwagon
Village Vanguard
Since September, the pianist and composer Jason
Moran has been applying his conceptual gifts
to a mixed-media art exhibition at the Whitney,
performing in mock re-creations of iconic jazz
venues. For this engagement, at another famed