Liz Pelly

As her 2017 full-length record started coming together, Hannah Read felt grateful. When the 26-year-old, who performs as Lomelda, shared the sketches of songs with family and friends, she put the rough demos of her emotive folk tunes on Bandcamp and titled the collection Thx. The album evolved, but the name stuck. Released in September via Double Double Whammy (a label that’s pressed records by folky standouts Florist, Told Slant, Frankie Cosmos and more), Thx captures Read’s reflections on growing up, leaving town and the spaces in-between. Her spacious songs play out like snapshots tucked inside handwritten letters to old friends, little moments in the cracks separating the places we leave and where we later find ourselves. “If it means nothing I could give it up / And then give it all again / Interstates are not what I want,” she sings on the album’s captivating opener. Her voice rises and the tempo slows, embedding a few simple, cryptic lines with gravity. There’s an understated brightness throughout, punctuated by occasional drums, strings, and keys. It’s these types of unassuming, crushing instants that give Thx its distinct emotional weight. After learning the guitar at an early age, Read began to use the name Lomelda (a made-up word she said means “echo of the stars”) when she was in high school. Originally from small-town Silsbee, Texas, Read’s travels in the state brought her to live in both Waco and Austin. She’s staying in the latter city at the moment, though it’

In San Francisco in the early 2000s, Deerhoof singer-bassist Satomi Matsuzaki and drummer Greg Saunier watched the poet Kazuko Shiraishi perform to a small crowd in a tiny room. On that night, Shiraishi read with no microphone but was joined by a trumpeter, one who had “the most exquisite sense of space imaginable,” says Saunier. “It was impossible not to imagine an empty canvas.… We were totally blown away.” RECOMMENDED: A full guide to Winter Jazzfest As it turns out, that trumpeter was the legendary AACM musician and composer Wadada Leo Smith, an avant-garde jazz vet who has been making music since the ’60s. After the show, Matsuzaki and Saunier introduced themselves and were struck by Smith’s kindness. He gave them a copy of his latest album. Years later, when the experimental rock quartet was planning a 2009 show at the Echoplex in Los Angeles, they contacted Smith about playing together. He agreed. “I couldn’t believe it,” Saunier recalls. A week before the show, Saunier received an email from Smith saying, “Send me some of your tunes, so I know what to play.” Unbeknownst to Deerhoof, Smith didn’t want to open: He wanted to play with them.  America's National Parks by Wadada Leo Smith With no rehearsals beforehand, the band calls that set one of the “great thrills” of its 23 years together. “There was no wasted note, no wasted phrase, no wasted gesture,” says Saunier of Smith’s masterful playing. “It completely made us feel like we were playing music we’d never heard

“What’s that? You’re breaking up,” sings vocalist/pianist Nicole Miglis halfway through “Particle,” the opening to Hundred Waters’ third full-length album, Communicating. Delivered in her intimate, enveloping whisper, it’s an apt entry to a record about the nuances of miscommunication, unbreakable habits, hiding and unhiding. Since forming in 2011, the Los Angeles via Florida trio, which also includes electronic producer/bassist Trayer Tryon and percussionist Zach Tetreault, has made enormous songs with seamless layers of acoustic and electronic instruments. Communicating— released in September by OWSLA, the label owned by longtime fan Skrillex—sees the band pushing itself in new directions, with the occasional sparse, art-pop piano ballad and its most thoughtful songcraft to date. It’s been three years since your last record. Is this the longest time you’ve spent on an album?Miglis: Yeah. It was a lot more filtering. We were a lot more critical of what we were doing. We wrote a lot more and we put more expectations on ourselves than last time.Tryon: We do everything for the most part ourselves. We’re doing music as a group. We record drums and piano. Everything we do has to satisfy all of our needs. How do the three of you write songs together?Miglis: Tray is the believer. I’ll write songs every day and constantly make stuff. But I don’t have the drive to share it as much. I kind of do it for therapy. And Tray will recognize, “Oh that’s really good, we should keep that."Tr

In the summer of 1995, Rainer Maria formed in Madison, Wisconsin. Though they eventually moved to Brooklyn, the indie-rockers became much-beloved staples of a particular, influential Midwest emo sound. The trio released five full-length albums and toured internationally, but ultimately decided to pursue other paths in life. In 2006, Rainer Maria played one of its farewell shows at Bowery Ballroom, where the now-reunited group returns Wednesday, September 27. Earlier this year, the band released its first album in more than a decade, a self-titled collection of songs laced with traces of its members’ lives since they were last together. In that time, vocalist and lyricist Caithlin De Marrais released a couple of solo records; guitarist and vocalist Kaia Fischer studied Buddhism and lived in Asia; drummer William Kuehn worked as a touring drummer and also lived and studied music in Syria and Yemen. “We all have different aesthetics, different approaches, different worldviews,” says Kuehn. De Marrais adds, “We were excited to find a way to knit that all together.” On their new record, they’ve done so seamlessly: The nine songs are wise and weary, beaming with cathartic grit and crushing melodies. Opener “Broke Open Love” meditates on mistakes, learning and growth. “Suicides and Lazy Eyes” probes the world’s harshness, begging for light: “Let the rest of the world be coarse / You stay sweet for me,” De Marrais offers in muscular shouts. On “Lower Worlds,” over churning, cycling

「私たちは映画『フットルース』（ダンスもロックミュージックも禁止されたアメリカの田舎町が舞台の作品）に出てくる街に住んでいるのではないか」。ニューヨーク市のキャバレー法（別名 ダンス禁止法）はそんな風に思わせる。キャバレーライセンスなしに「4人以上」が「一般の人が立ち入る可能性がある場所で」踊ることを違法としている同法は、現在、激しい議論を呼んでいる。しかし実際はずっと昔から火種となっていたのだ。 1926年に黒人クラブを閉鎖させる目的で法案が可決されたことに始まり、1990年代にはルドルフ・ジュリアーニ市長（当時）によってクラブ界を取り締まる手段として利用されてきた。現在では、合法な酒場とDIYライブ会場のどちらにとっても悩みの種となっている。現在ニューヨーク市内にある約2万5000軒のバーとレストランのうち、ライセンスを所持しているのはたった100軒だ。これはおそらく、ライセンス申請の長い審査期間と、無作為の取り締まりが原因だ。 地域のイベントプロモーターで、エレクトロ集団Discwomanの共同設立者のフランキー・ハッチンソン（Frankie Decaiza Hutchinson）にとっては、うんざりな状況だった。彼女は同法がマイノリティーのコミュニティーに偏った影響を与えており、廃止する必要があると証明するため、Dance Liberation Network (ダンス自由化ネットワーク／danceliberationnetwork.com) の設立を支援した。彼女にキャバレー法についての見解を聞いた。 ーニューヨーク市議会議員のラファエル・エスピナル氏が最近、キャバレー法は「古臭く、差別主義的で同性愛嫌悪である」として廃止を求める法案を提出しました。 この法律は有色人種と、有色人種が設立した組織の関係者を、過剰なほどに狙っています。ハーレムのジャズクラブを標的とすることで、黒人の人々の生活を妨害する手段として運用され始めたもので、差別の歴史に深く関係しています。こうした事実は深刻な問題です。アーティストたちがこのような形で不利益を被るのは本当に悲しいことです。 ーキャバレー法は未だにマイノリティのグループに対し偏った影響を与えているのでしょうか。 私たちは最近違反通知を受け取った会場を、独自に調査しました。ほとんどがラティーノやドミニカ人のクラブで、いくつかが黒人が多いクラブでした。白人のクラブは1軒でした。取り締まりは完全に恣意（しい）的です。 ーキャバレー法廃止がニューヨーク市にもたらすメリットは何でしょう。 小規模な事業者にとっては、同法による（検挙の）心配がなくなり、ビクビクしながら過ごす必要はなくなるでしょう。 ーDance Liberation Networkはどのように設立されたのですか。 ボサノヴァ シビック クラブ（Bossa Nova Civic Club／同法違反で出頭させられたブッシュウィックにあるバー）のジョン・バークレー（John Barclay）さんが、私と、私と同じコミュニティー内の数人を呼び集めました。ちょうど大統領就任式があった週の週末だったので、私たちはとても疲弊し、落ち込んでいました。けれど何かをしなければならないと感じ、設立に動いたのです。キャバレー法の廃止案が市議会に提出された今、それぞれが支持する議員に働きかけるよう、みんなに促そうと考えています。 原文はこちら

Are we living in the town from Footloose? NYC’s Cabaret Law sure as hell makes it seem that way. The statute, which deems dancing by “more than three persons” in “any space in the city to which the public may gain admission” illegal without a cabaret license, is a hot-button issue right now. But really, it always has been, starting with its passing in 1926 in order to close black clubs, then with its use in the ’90s as a measure by Rudy Giuliani to crack down on clubdom, and now, when it’s a curse for legit drinkeries and DIY venues alike. These days, only about 100 of the city’s 25,000 bars and restaurants even have the license, possibly because of the lengthy review process and seemingly random enforcement. Local party promoter Frankie Decaiza Hutchinson, cofounder of the electrocollective Discwoman, has had enough; she helped create Dance Liberation Network (danceliberationnetwork.com), which focuses on showing how the law has always disproportionately affected minority communities and needs to get the boot. NYC Council Member Rafael Espinal recently introduced a bill calling for a full repeal of the Cabaret Law, calling it “archaic, racist [and] homophobic.” What’s your take?It has overwhelmingly targeted people of color and people of color establishments and was started as a way to disrupt black people’s lives by targeting Harlem jazz clubs. The fact that it’s all connected to something that is so racist is deeply problematic. For a city like New York—people come here fo

Melina Duterte is in the midst of a whirlwind year when she calls me from an unexpected place: a McDonald’s in Paris. “Luxurious!” says the 23-year-old, laughing. Duterte is at the very beginning of her project’s first European tour, after which the group will travel the U.S. non-stop for the rest of the year in support of Everybody Works, its critically acclaimed second album, released in March on Polyvinyl. A songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer, Duterte home records under the moniker Jay Som, crafting mesmerizing and multidimensional dream pop that favors reality over escapism, drawing from classic pop and funk along the way. Her voice low and languid, Duterte sings as much about intimate moments, lipstick stains and pinkie promises as she does about the grind of city life, riding the bus and struggling financially. Her songs strike a rare balance, conveying intimacy alongside solitude. “Today I'll take a walk / Feel the sun against my skin / For I am worn down,” starts “For Light,” over slow acoustic guitar. The title track is perhaps indie pop’s most beautiful ode to scraping by: “Try to make ends meet / Penny pinch till I'm dying / Everybody works,” she sings, drenched in distorted guitars. “When I first wrote that song, I was in a pretty bad place financially and was very frustrated,” says Duterte. “I was living in San Francisco, working full-time while doing music full-time as a hobby. And trying to navigate my life while trying to do music. It was this repe