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Brian Slattery |
Jan 14, 2021 10:27 am
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Parker, Benton, Chew.
Drums, keys, and guitar meander for just a moment. A sampled voice intones, “the city, the city, the city — the city of Townsville.” Then adds, almost at a scream, “is under attack!” The instruments snap into focus, digging into an urgent groove that’s one part anxiety, three parts creative energy. “Watch me go!” Moon Cha sings, mixing fear and exhilaration.
It’s from “Mojo Jojo,” the second song off of 900 Grand, a new album from a new band, Mightymoonchew, that combines the talents of three young New Haven musicians — Thailend Parker (a.k.a. Moon Cha) on vocals and guitar, Marcus-Aurelius C. Benton on keys, and Chris Chew on drums — who mine the chaos of 2020 to blaze a wide trail into 2021.
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Karen Ponzio |
Jan 13, 2021 10:29 am
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Gustavo Requena Santos Photo
Radio Stevie.
“I wrote all my feelings down on white lined paper. I don’t always tell you what I’m thinking, baby.”
The heartfelt admissions begin, and the beats build, becoming a straight-up bop as memories of “the 203” become a plea to go back to a sweeter time in “Elm City,” the latest song from New Haven-based rapper, singer, songwriter, and producer Radio Stevie, also known as Stephen Grant.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 12, 2021 10:09 am
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It jumps right into the kind of rhythm that screams “party.” A hands-in-the-air rhythm. A bumping bass, frizzy keys, horns snaking in and out. And most of all, a whole lot of voices, talking about nothing but fun, nothing but love.
Kuro Shiro owner Kenny Kim prepares vegan tantanmen.
The broth was creamy, savory, almost nutty. And it was vegan.
Kuro Shiro owner Dohyuan “Kenny” Kim created his recipe for vegan tantanmen with his younger brother. It was a twist on the meat-based, Japanese noodle soups that were just getting popular in the U.S. at the time.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 11, 2021 10:23 am
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Elk and cello. A hand drum known as a Guda. Bars spat over near-orchestral samples. Throughout the pandemic, musicians and music lovers have turned to that art form to help them get through its hard times, or just pass an afternoon, and in the face of a tumultuous week, New Haven’s music offers both solace and release, sometimes from unlikely places.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 8, 2021 4:16 pm
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Brian Slattery Photos
Hazan.
Jessica Hazan, chef and owner of The Soup Girl on Whitney Avenue, thanks the insistence of a customer for getting her to come up with a recipe for gumbo, which has turned out to be one of the takeout place’s most popular dishes.
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Sophie Sonnenfeld |
Jan 7, 2021 6:36 pm
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Sophie Sonnenfeld Photos
Tony Zhang (momentarily unmasked for the photo).
Chef Tony Zhang’s squirrel fish is traditional dish with an individual spin: a boneless deep-fried sea bass with pine nuts, green beans, corn, carrots, and a homemade fruit sauce, a traditional dish with an individual spin. It also happens to be his boss’s favorite dish .
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 7, 2021 11:14 am
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Host Nadine Nelson turned over a string of pink beads she was starting in her hands on Wednesday evening.
“I think it might be the end of the world,” she said, referring to the riots at the U.S. Capitol, so “I think I’m going to make a necklace and some earrings.” She wanted to “make something I can finish.”
Her guest, artist Lee Lee McKnight, was working on an altered book. It was the latest installment of Co Create, a series supported by the New Haven Free Public Library in partnership with MakeHaven.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 6, 2021 10:18 am
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Ruth Sack
There’s a clock on the back wall of City Gallery. It doesn’t have hands, and the numbers by and large have been replaced by abstract shapes. It’s a sign of how time has drifted away, and the expression on its face gives an unmistakable sense of mixed feelings. The piece, by artist Ruth Sack, is about the election season, the sense of anticipation and worry it has brought, but in another sense it sums up how so much of the last year felt — and how we look to this coming year with beleaguered hope.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 5, 2021 10:54 am
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“The Coffee Tree and I.”
In “The Coffee Tree and I,” a short film by Konjit Seyoum, we see a coffee tree in its adolescence, not much more than a sapling. A red liquid at its base — is it water colored by fertilizer, or just water as it appears after poured onto the soil? — seeps slowly into the ground around its roots. It’s a chance to take a long, deep breath, to think about how we nourish plants, and how plants, in turn, nourish us. Margaret Hart’s “Poly-Morphosis” is an animated collage that ruminates on the wonders of science in an elliptical, often humorous way. And Daniel Hyatt’s “Escape from the Cage (and Dance)” features just that, as a man first magically finds his way out of a kennel, then dances until he disappears.
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Emily DiSalvo |
Jan 4, 2021 3:42 pm
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If you order Mikro Depot’s Sunday brunch in Hamden and can’t decide which breakfast food you are craving most, you can ask for the French toast and get the flavor of multiple breakfast foods all in one order.
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Karen Ponzio |
Jan 4, 2021 11:24 am
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Addy Edward Photo
single cover
“Crawling into bed / a busy head / Later that it gets / the more I stress / Anxious now to sleep / the cycle creeps / on and on and on / right through the dawn.”
So begins “Too Hungry to Eat,” the latest single from New Haven-based multi-instrumentalist Addy Edward, a meditation on pent-up frustrations and the anxiety of an emptiness that cannot be filled, themes that have become more common than not as the world continues to find a balance between safety and searching for a way to keep themselves occupied and entertained. For Edward — full name Adam Bensen — this included developing a new approach to his music.
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Brian Slattery & Karen Ponzio |
Dec 24, 2020 10:44 am
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Live to livestreaming. Crowded bars to living room concerts to shows in the open air. Release shows to emailed links. Loud, back-of-the-bar conversations to threads full of typos in chatboxes. Stage lights to video production.
Musicians were among the first to feel the immediate societal effects of the Covid-19 pandemic — and among the first to adapt. The precariousness and resourcefulness, the ability to make something out of almost nothing, that has always been the heartbreaking and uplifting double-edged sword of a life in music turned out to be a source of innovation and change in a year that needed it most.
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Brian Slattery |
Dec 23, 2020 10:42 am
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Brian Slattery Photo
”(I’m In The) Sunshine State,” the first track from Popsychle, the second release of 2020 from The Alex Butter Field, begins a crackling guitar and, well, sun-drenched vocals that intone the title in rich harmonies. “I’m in the sunshine state,” the voices sing, “and I feel great.”
Whether they mean Florida specifically is beside the point. As winter sets in on a strange year, the song is a blast of warm weather, and much-needed optimism.
City government and business leaders have launched an “Eat New Haven” campaign to encourage people to order from restaurants to help them survive the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Brian Slattery |
Dec 22, 2020 10:44 am
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Dan Gries
180 Cups of Coffee, detail.
It’s a simple geometric design, just a grid of dark circles, but look closer and you see the abstraction is pulled out of something very concrete. Dan Gries’s 180 Cups of Coffee — part of the “Solos 2020” exhibition now running at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art on Trumbull Street through Feb. 21 — fits in with a theme that emerges among the six artists’ work in the exhibit, of using unorthodox materials and exploring the most basic ideas of our existence, like hunger, thirst, and the simple fact of living in our own bodies.
Ketkeo Rajachack with daughter Christine Son at Pho Ketkeo.
Ketkeo Rajachack learned to make khao poon from her mother to sell from an open-air tent in Laos. Now she cooks and sells the dish at her Temple Street restaurant, Pho Ketkeo.
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Brian Slattery |
Dec 18, 2020 4:23 pm
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“Sweet Sorrow,” the newest song from Thabisa, begins with a pulsating guitar line that suggests both melancholy and movement
“Even in strange times, I’ll find my strength,” Thabisa sings. “Even when I’m down, I’ll stand tall / Do you ever feel you don’t belong? / Sometimes I wish I wasn’t born.”
That’s all before the rhythm comes sneaking in — and, in time, crashing in — as the song builds in intensity, and Thabisa uses her voice to become an entire chorus.
