THENEWYORKER,M AY18, 2020 7
ILLUSTRATION BY JENICE KIM
The current pandemic has posed an
industry-wide crisis for artists and pre-
senters, but they have reacted quickly
and imaginatively, putting out free digital
content as a way to share creative work.
Now the 92nd Street Y is embracing
a two-pronged approach to show how
companies might maintain visibility
while bolstering a badly depleted bot-
tom line. This month, it streams concerts
on its Web site (92y.org) every Tuesday
and Thursday, alternating free archival
content with live events that carry an
admission charge of ten dollars. Next
up are a recording, from 2018, of the late
magisterial pianist Peter Serkin’s final
recital at the Y, on May 14, and a live
performance by the violinist Jesse Mills
and the pianist Rieko Aizawa, presenting
works by Schubert, Poulenc, and John
Harbison, on May 19.—Steve Smith
CLASSICALLIVESTREAMING
fects-laden tone—in view. His trio mates, the
Italian bassist Dario Deidda and the celebrated
drummer Gregory Hutchinson, likewise glean
inspiration from the durable offerings that their
forerunners have left them.—Steve Futterman
Opera Philadelphia:
Digital Festival O
OPERA For the past several years, Opera Phila-
delphia has raised its national profile with a fes-
tival of new music each September. This month,
the company applies its venturesome spirit to a
streaming series, available on its Web site and
YouTube channel, to the benefit of operagoers
curious about what it’s been up to. Philip Ven-
ables’s “Denis & Katya,” a true-crime opera
that rivets without sensationalism, set a high
bar when it kicked things off, on May 1. There
are still three more productions scheduled for
release: Rossini’s “Il Barbiere di Siviglia,” the
series’ one traditional entry; Lembit Beecher’s
“Sky on Swings,” with Marietta Simpson and
Frederica von Stade as Alzheimer’s patients;
and Missy Mazzoli’s devastating “Breaking the
Waves,” with Kiera Duffy, who gave a fearless
performance in the piece at New York’s Proto-
type Festival in 2017.—Oussama Zahr (May 15,
May 22, and May 29 at 8.)
Hayley Williams:
“Petals for Armor”
INDIE When band musicians make solo work,
their efforts are often fascinated with auton-
omy. But Hayley Williams, who has led the
pop-punk mainstay Paramore for half her
life, embraces collaboration on her début
solo album, “Petals for Armor,” and uses it to
deepen her quiet explorations of self. “Sim-
mer,” a seething, synth-filled study of rage,
features her bandmate (and the record’s pro-
ducer) Taylor York, and the indie supergroup
boygenius pipes in to reinforce her vocals on
“Roses/Lotus/Violet/Iris.” The album, which
has been released in three parts, swings from
peppy yet pain-filled moments, as on “Dead
Horse,” to disarming piano balladry. It’s a com-
pendium of varied, strange, jagged pieces, but
eventually a full picture emerges—the clearest
of Williams yet.—J.L.
X: “Alphabetland”
PUNK The founding members of the rock quartet
X quit recording together thirty-five years ago,
only five years and four releases after their
début album, “Los Angeles,” signalled that
punk had taken up residence in proximity to
laid-back Laurel Canyon. The biggest surprise
about their reunion record, “Alphabetland,” is
not that its roar has a familiar potency but that
the songwriter-vocalists Exene Cervenka and
John Doe seem so attuned to the current apoc-
alyptic moment. Atop the boom and crackle
unleashed by the guitarist Billy Zoom and the
drummer D. J. Bonebrake, one topical cho-
rus asks, “Who gets passed to the head line?
Who gets water, who gets wine?” Another,
already exhausted by the year at hand, begs
for mercy: “Please don’t make us cry.” The
ruckus is tailor-made for blowing off steam in
quarantine.—K. Leander Williams
1
MOVIES
Cane River
This 1982 drama, long believed lost and re-
cently rediscovered, is the only feature by
Horace B. Jenkins, an African-American film-
maker who died soon after its completion. It’s
centered on the romance of a young black man,
Peter Metoyer (Richard Romain), a recent
college graduate and a poet who returns to his
family’s farm in rural Louisiana, and a local
approach taken to the genre in its home city
of Detroit—his tracks seem to pulsate with
feeling as much as with star-chasing synths
or swinging hi-hats. Brikha has been espe-
cially prolific of late: his new album, “Prisma,”
comes only three months after an ambient disk,
“Dance of a Trillion Stars.” “Prisma” is aimed
for the dance floor, even though its bouncy
disco rhythms and sheeny production have
arrived at a time when clubs are off limits—but
its contemplative core rather fits our straitened
circumstances.—Michaelangelo Matos
Drake: “Dark Lane Demo Tapes”
HIP-HOP The Canadian rapper Drake has never
seemed too concerned about crowding his
discography. His catalogue has become a res-
ervoir for studio overflow—full of mixtapes,
EPs, playlists, and even a twenty-five-song
album. His latest addition, “Dark Lane Demo
Tapes,” is mostly wispy sketches, powered by
lo-fi beats, that aim for depth without quite
achieving it. Even when the sounds are mel-
ancholy, what Drake pulls off is catchiness:
the Billboard No. 1 “Toosie Slide” is addictive
TikTok fodder, and “Pain 1993” glows as an
up-tempo exchange with Playboi Carti. But,
taken together, the project feels like a stepping
stone to another studio album—his next is due
out this summer.—Julyssa Lopez
Joan as Police Woman:
“Cover Two”
ROCK An international quarantine, it turns out,
is prime time for cover songs. Across the In-
ternet, young singers have busied themselves
interpreting old material; even the “Saturday
Night Live” musical guests have turned to clas-
sic rock as a balm. It raises the question: Why
have covers, once central to rock’s lifeblood, so
thoroughly vanished from albums? Joan Wasser,
who performs as Joan as Police Woman, is one
songwriter who has long devoted attention
to voicing the lyrics and melodies of others.
Though needlessly walled off from her own
work—first on “Cover,” from 2009, and now
on its belated sequel, “Cover Two”—her covers
are reliably cherry-picked and fussed over. Like
many such projects, this second volume pops
when the singer carves up a song to see what
lies inside. From universally male sources as
disparate as Gil Scott-Heron, Prince, and the
Strokes, Wasser unearths torrid ballads. The
songs belong to others; the trails of smoke in
their wake are her own.—Jay Ruttenberg
Kurt Rosenwinkel Trio:
“Angels Around”
JAZZ Improvisation may be the wellspring of
jazz, but utilizing a memorable melody as a
jumping-off point never hurt anybody. On
the album “Angels Around,” the guitarist Kurt
Rosenwinkel, himself an adept composer,
mainly opts to mine the work of illustrious
others; in choosing such polished gems as
Thelonious Monk’s “Ugly Beauty,” Charles
Mingus’s “Self-Portrait in Three Colors,” and
Bill Evans’s “Time Remembered,” he sets a
daunting standard for any future variations. To
his credit, Rosenwinkel remains a high-calibre
melodist, and his fleet yet considered solos
attest to his commitment to keeping striking
phrases—each wrapped in his attractive, ef-
