ZAP MAMA and ANTIBALAS at Koerner Hall, Saturday, February 7. Rating: NNN
The recent pairing up of Antibalas and Zap Mama makes perfect sense.
At Koerner Hall, sprawling Brooklyn-based Afrobeat band Antibalas added an undulating polyrhythmic groove to Afropop group Zap Mama, led by Congo-born, Belgium-raised Marie Daulne, who dazzled with complex vocal interplay and visual flair.
Early on, Zap Mama was the focus – and it was glorious. Daulne and three female singers sang a cappella, their voices beating and belting polyphonic melodies that soared and swung low. Dualne’s voice is deep when storytelling but turns into a playful, otherworldly soprano at a moment’s notice.
Then the 12 members of Antibalas trickled onstage, bringing rhythmic oomph and prompting fun dance moves from Zap Mama (the women plugging their noses as the brass players tooted solos). But before long, Zap Mama exited and Antibalas took over for a good half of the show. They have a big enough name to warrant that lengthy spotlight, and people began to dance in the aisles, but the relentless funkiness grew tiring.
Eventually the women returned, but the focus stayed elsewhere. Antibalas’s shekere player sang Rockwell’s Somebody’s Watching Me, and Zap Mama bass player/vocalist Manou Gallo stunned with a badass bass solo.
It all came to a loud and vibrant finish, but something about the enchanting a cappella simplicity at the start made some of us wish to see Zap Mama all on their own.
Carla Gillis
THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS with OPERATORS at the Danforth Music Hall, Thursday, February 5. Rating: NNN
With little fanfare, Operators unleashed their synth-heavy electronic punk on a growing crowd at the Danforth Music Hall. Then an added guitarist gave their razor-sharp songs more depth but no less immediacy. Strangely, though they engaged the room, the band never appeared totally comfortable.
New Pornographers began with a rousing Brill Bruisers, the title track from their latest album, in front of an appropriately colourful backdrop. It’s tough to imagine a more colourful rock act, especially when the delightfully quirky Dan Bejar takes over on lead vocal duties.
After 16 years together, they’re clearly a family. And like those members of your own family you don’t actively avoid, you appreciate hearing from them now and then. Their news may be similar to last time, but you always want to hear more.
Make no mistake – frontman A.C. Newman is at their head, but there’s ample opportunity for each member to shine, as Bejar did on the livening War On The East Coast. Occasionally they seemed to be going through the motions, but the set was full of dynamic harmonies, and Blaine Thurier and Kathryn Calder swapped keyboard and synth solos in near-perfect unison.
Joshua Kloke
RUFUS WAINWRIGHT, LOUDON WAINWRIGHT and CHAIM TANNENBAUM at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Friday, February 6. Rating: NNNN
Only a smallish crowd gathered at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, but they got an evening of heartfelt folk benefiting Patients Canada. Rufus and Loudon Wainwright along with Chaim Tannenbaum seemed unbothered by the empty seats, using tongue-in-cheek banter and the beautiful acoustics to their advantage.
They performed together and solo. Tannenbaum’s sparse rendition of Kate and Anna McGarrigle’s post-divorce stunner I Eat Dinner (When The Hunger’s Gone) was free of guile and left the crowd speechless. Kate, Loudon’s ex-wife and Rufus’s mother, was a founding patron of Patients Canada and was spoken of warmly all night.
The trio collaborated on a rousing take on Loudon’s classic The Swimming Song, which followed an interchange wherein father and son argued about the correct way to get to the venue from Montreal. Loudon played casual straight man to Rufus’s funny man but still got laughs during a glaringly revealing I Knew Your Mother.
There was no shortage of honest glimpses into one of the most discussed families in folk.
Joshua Kloke
SINKANE at the Drake Underground, Sunday, February 8. Rating: NNNN
Brooklyn-based Ahmed Gallab is a musician’s musician. He’s played drums for Caribou and Of Montreal and guitar for Yeasayer. His two solo albums as Sinkane expertly combine rhythmic traditions from a host of sub-genres that tend to inspire obsessive fandom: synth-funk, Afrobeat, jazz, Krautrock and country.
From the first galloping rhythm and twangy guitar riff, Gallab and his three-piece band locked into an impressive and energetic synchronicity. He spent the show hunched over a keyboard, singing in a reverby falsetto while fuzzy, elastic funk grooves kept the small crowd dancing for much of the ensuing hour. The momentum waned only during a string of country ballads off last year’s Mean Love, which he belted out over pedal steel guitar accompaniment.
Befitting a seasoned session player, he preferred not to say much. While Mean Love focused on his romantic pop songwriting (with middling results), the live version was all about robust musicianship and transcendent rhythms that highlighted Sinkane as a band rather than Gallab as a frontman.
Kevin Ritchie
