by Robert Leeper

In her performance Tuesday night at the Gramercy Theatre, Danish electro-pop songstress Nanna Øland Fabricius—better known as Oh Land—was everything we love about indie pop stars: playful, amatory, powerful, down to earth. Celebrating the release of her much-awaited third album, Wish Bone, Oh Land announced she was happy to be sharing the occasion with her adopted home of NYC, who seemed equally pleased to be sharing it with her.  

Oh Land's show was influenced by rap, synth-driven pop, lounge singing, and a variety of other styles, all joined by her distinctive vocals and a wild, enthusiastic stage presence that would have made even the most begrudging critic break a smile. A lot of credit also goes to Oh Land's talented band, creating a heavy atmospheric foundation that allowed her voice to float above.

Showcasing her penchant for melancholy were songs like "Wolf and I" and "Next Summer." "Renaissance," the first single off Wish Bone, is an ode to female empowerment that draws its potency from bright electronic beats and elastic vocals: "Doing the laundry and planning for the future/Is the nature of a Renaissance girl." Her penetrating and flexible voice soared above the dark synths and pounding bass drum laden with emotional punch.

by Zoë Gorman

Photo credit: The Wall Street Journal

At the Guggenheim Museum last Thursday, legendary composer Philip Glass and artist James Turrell attempted to blur the line between sense and cognition. Using his signature style of repetitive structures, Glass gracefully delivered a canon of six solo-piano arrangements and one aria for piano and voice over the course of the exclusive one-hour event. Held during a complete cycle of Turrell's installation of shifting colored lights, Aten Reign, Glass played without pause, displaying a patient mastery of technique and form; the composer obscured transitions by layering new motives in between recurring ones, varying intervals via a common tone, and seamlessly transitioning his playing style. 

As the sounds of Glass filled the shifting lights of Turrell's work, the audience became lost in an alien world where changes were incredibly subtle—revolutionary even. The mind spun somewhere along the contour of the ascending dome, undergoing gradual metamorphosis, blooming into one color, then the next. One was completely unsure of when change occurred or how fast it progressed, or whether a recently reintroduced layer of music hadn't been there all along, or if the refractions of light outlining the back of heads in some drastically contrasting color were real or imagined.

The seductive, langurous, occasionally ecstatic music of Julia Holter took over Music Hall of Williamsburg last night, the penultimate stop of her latest U.S. tour. Holter, who played keyboard, performed with an all-acoustic band that reflected her classical composer roots: Andrew Tholl (violin), Christopher Votek (cello), Corey Fogel (percussion), and Danny Meyer (tenor sax).

Performing selections from her latest release, Loud City Song, Holter spent most of the night in a moody hush ("World," "Hello Stranger") which made the occasional free-jazz explosions ("Maxims II") all the more shocking. It was the sort of subcutaneous performance that lodges itself in your memory, leaving you struggling to make sense of it for hours—if not weeks. 

More pics below and on the photo page.