The New Yorker - USA (2021-02-08)

THENEWYORKER,FEBRUARY8, 2021 7

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MUSIC

Ani DiFranco:

“Revolutionary Love”

FOLK So much of Ani DiFranco’s career feels

like an act of rebellion: the blunt songs she

began writing as a precocious kid; the inde-

pendent music label she started in her twen-

ties, after refusing to sign with the corporate

record companies that had been courting

her. It’s perhaps surprising, then, that “Rev-

olutionary Love”—an album centered on

today’s political turbulence—isn’t seething

with the barbed defiance of her earlier work.

Inspired by “See No Stranger,” a book by the

Sikh-American activist and lawyer Valarie

Kaur, DiFranco instead endorses love and

compassion as radical tools to process rage,

grief, and tumult. Robust melodies, padded

with streaks of soul and jazz that represent

some of DiFranco’s fullest productions yet,

prop up a challenging attempt at peace and

healing.—Julyssa Lopez

“The Glitch”

CLASSICAL The resourceful conductor and

impresario Neal Goren, best known for

his work with the late, lamented Gotham

Chamber Opera, maintains his customary

penchant for innovation as the artistic di-

rector of Catapult Opera. This week, the

fledgling outfit presents “The Glitch,” the

first offering in a new series of commis-

sioned works expressly intended for online

viewing. The seventeen-minute chamber

opera, conducted by Goren and composed

by Nico Muhly, with a libretto, by Greg

Pierce, based on true events, features the

mezzo-soprano Krysty Swann, the bari-

tone Lester Lynch, and the pianist Adam

Tendler. The video, directed by Catapult’s

executive director, Marcus Pierce, subtly

evokes the suspension of disbelief intrinsic

to live theatre.—Steve Smith (Feb. 3; cata­

pultopera.org.)

Goat Girl: “On All Fours”

ROCK The four members of London’s Goat

Girl signed to Rough Trade as teen-agers, in

2016. On the band’s self-titled début, from
      2018, their youth became most transparent
      in their apparent attempts to mask it: every
      song is delivered with a world-weariness, at
      once jaded and flecked with angst. Set to a
      guitar crunch, the music felt beamed in from
      the nineties. Goat Girl’s follow-up, “On All
      Fours,” aligns more neatly with the present.
      The songs are laced with electronic effects—
      softly hiccupping beats, airy synths—that
      allude to dance music without necessarily
      encouraging dancing. Where nineties rock
      trafficked in irony and solipsism, these righ-
      teous lyrics are consumed with contempo-
      rary injustices. As the music grows dreamier,
      its bite hardens.—Jay Ruttenberg

“London Pirate Radio
Adverts 1984-1993, Vol. 1”
ELECTRONIC For many fans of pre-Internet
British pirate-radio recordings, hearing the
ILLUSTRATION BY HARRISON FREEMANads is half the fun. Rough and ready by defi-

As his many admirers will attest, the saxophonist Joe Lovano can turn

on the juice, blowing hard and strong, whenever necessary. His creden-

tials as a full-blooded jazz swinger and an unfettered free improviser

are perfectly in order. His most satisfying work, though, may be on

display when he cools his jets and allows his gentle side to come to the

fore. On “Garden of Expression,” he picks up where his 2019 record,

“Trio Tapestry,” left off, communing with understated poise on origi-

nal compositions with the pianist Marilyn Crispell and the drummer

Carmen Castaldi. The mood now is equally low-key—the final track is

titled “Zen Like”—yet enchantment never tips over into stasis. Lovano

can render a memorable musical phrase into a poem, and his selfless

cohorts are equally attuned to the vitality of restraint.—Steve Futterman

JAZZ

nition—and made with an approximate bud-

get of zero—they emit a grimy, found-object

delight. The forty spots gathered on “Lon-

don Pirate Radio Adverts 1984-1993, Vol.

1,” covering the era when illegal U.K. sta-

tions began to concentrate heavily on dance

music, are heady time capsules, whether

they’re hawking an “Under 18s Disco” or

a “Ravers Dateline,” a phone number that

single partiers could allegedly call to find

people to “socialize with, go to raves with,

or even start a long-lasting relationship

with.”—Michaelangelo Matos

Anna Netrebko

OPERA In the course of Anna Netrebko’s ca-

reer, the soprano’s formidable set of lungs

has enabled her to bring an opulent tone and

propulsive phrasing to some of opera’s most

taxing lyric and spinto roles. There was some

alarm when she announced, in September,

that she had COVID-19. “Everything will

be fine!” she assured her Instagram followers

from her hospital bed. For her streaming

recital in the “Met Stars Live in Concert”

series, which has been rescheduled from the

fall, Netrebko sings art songs by Rachmani-

noff, Tchaikovsky, and Strauss—all masters

of rapturous melody—amid the stately bal-

ustrades and galleries of the Spanish Riding

School, in Vienna.—Oussama Zahr (Feb. 6 at 1;

metopera.org.)

Caroline Shaw: “Narrow Sea”

CLASSICAL The composer Caroline Shaw has

had a rich and multifaceted career in con-

temporary music. Since becoming the young-

est-ever winner of the Pulitzer Prize for

music, in 2013, she has produced for the rap-

pers Kanye West and Nas, composed a movie

score for the 2018 drama “Madeline,” and

collaborated with the National and Arcade

Fire’s Richard Reed Parry. Her new album,

“Narrow Sea,” comprised primarily of com-

positions she wrote for Sō Percussion, the so-

prano Dawn Upshaw, and the pianist Gilbert

Kalish, channels water as a spiritual vehicle

between here and the hereafter and conjures

the euphoria of transitioning (crossing over,

leaving the world behind). These works are

texturally stunning—percussively sharp yet

melodically smooth, fluid, and even bubbly,

constantly playing with the tensions of not

knowing what lies beyond but seeking peace

nevertheless. In her continued examination

of folk songs, complex rhythms, and the jux-

taposition of tune and pulse, Shaw’s music

grows ever more mystic.—Sheldon Pearce