SOUNDTRACK: ELISAPIE-GlobalFEST Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #136/156 (January 14, 2021).
GlobalFEST is an annual event, held in New York City, in which bands from all over the world have an opportunity to showcase their music to an American audience. I’ve never been, and it sounds a little exhausting, but it also sounds really fun.
The Tiny Desk is teaming up with globalFEST this year for a thrilling virtual music festival: Tiny Desk Meets globalFEST. The online fest includes four nights of concerts featuring 16 bands from all over the world.
Given the pandemic’s challenges and the hardening of international borders, NPR Music and globalFEST is moving from the nightclub to your screen of choice and sharing this festival with the world. Each night, we’ll present four artists in intimate settings (often behind desks donning globes), and it’s all hosted by African superstar Angélique Kidjo, who performed at the inaugural edition of globalFEST in 2004.
The second artist of the fourth and final night is First Nations singer Elisapie.
Elisapie returns to Tiny Desk for a show-stopping performance from Montreal, with the disco globe of our dreams helping to light her set. Elisapie, in both her songs and work, is a resounding advocate of First Nations culture in Canada. In her set, she harnesses an incredible energy with electrifying, emotive vocals.
I had really enjoyed Elisapie’s previous Tiny desk. I found her to be a less extreme, but no less dramatic performer than Tanya Tagaq. Her band is outstanding creating all kinds of textures to surround her voice.
The first song is “Qanniuguma.” It starts quietly with a single ringing guitar note from Jean-Sébastien Williams and little taps of percussion from Robbie Kuster. Joshua Toal adds some quiet bass as the guitar plays some higher notes. After a minute Elisapie starts singing. Another 30 seconds later the drums get louder and Jason Sharp start sprinkling in some raw bass saxophone. As the song grows more intense, Elisapie adds some breathing and chanting–throat singing. Things quiet down and then build again with the sax and the guitar soloing as the drums and bass keep things steady
Behind her you can see Mont Royal, which has a lot of history.
The second song “Wolves Don’t Live by the Rules” is “a small song” but very meaningful. It starts in a similar way with ringing notes an thumping drums. She sings this one in English and it feels like a much more conventional sounding song. It’s pretty quiet but the instrumental breaks adds huge guitar chords and the end is really loud.
Introducing the final song, “Arnaq” (which means Woman) she says women tend to forget that we have a lot of strength and we should celebrate it loud and clear. This one opens with a loud raw sliding guitar like an early PJ Harvey song. The song’s chorus builds with an “ah ya ya ya” as the instruments add chunky noises–scratches from the guitar and skronks from the sax and all kinds of precious. It’s a cool noise fest, although the guitar could be a smidge louder.
I’d really like to see her live.
[READ: February 25, 2021] March Book 2
Book Two picks up John Lewis’ life.
Like the first, it starts with Lewis’ preparations for the inauguration of Barack Obama.
Then it flashes back. Lewis was in college and had moved to Nashville where the growing student movement was gaining strength.
The visuals are even more striking in this book. The panels of the white woman pouring water and then soap (or flour) on the quietly sitting Black diners and then hosing them down is really arresting. As is the sequence (which is almost entirely black) of a room full of peaceful protestors being locked in a room when the fumigator was set off.
I couldn’t believe that a man couldn’t really left us there to die. Were we not human to him?
Then next round of protesta was at the segregated movie theaters. I love that they chose the Ten Commandments to protest (the irony was lost on the whites in Alabama). The Black protesters would line up and would be refused seating. Hundreds of people who would then get back on line and be refused seating again. Whites would throw things at them and hurl abuse at them. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS-Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2003).
How do you follow up the fantastic Soft Bulletin? If you’re The Flaming Lips, you simultaneously pull back and push forward. I often thing of Yoshimi as Bulletin part 2 but that’s really not right or fair. Yoshimi has a more Pink Floyd vibe: it’s quite mellow and folky. But nothing the Lips do can be completely commercial, so you get things in every song that add immensely to the sound, yet prevent it from complete accessibility.
I Just Read About That... 