Progressive artist for most of his career Forgive me electronic music R.&B. he intuitively played with the idea of genre, integrating it into the DNA of his sound. On many recordings he consciously adapted his music to fit its context, allowing both margin and intent to directly determine its form. His latest album “new avatar” goes even further, blending shoegaze and grunge into his current palette. Influenced by his days in Washington DC’s indie scene, the record pushes his practice towards a more guitar-driven substrate of intersectional songcraft, attempting to expand the parameters of what “alternative” can mean—Sheldon Pearce (Brooklyn Paramount; October 9-10.)
Art
We stepped into a kind of deep, three-dimensional painting: in the exhibition “You Made My Shirt Red” Eric N Mack He guides us from layer to layer of fabric, making a nimble economy of angles and movements across the gallery floor. Huge pieces of fabric play between different levels of opacity and transparency. The most common shape in the gallery is due to gravity; the parabolic curve of the fabric sinks towards the ground: the fabric is encouraged to sag and fall, the weight draws a line in the air, the physics of lightness and heaviness become formal elements. In many of the pieces, Mack weaves fabric from body-like steel armatures. The works lay claim to our own bodies, their fabrics becoming adornments extending from limb to limb.—Zoë Hopkins (Paula Cooper; until October 24)
Off Broadway
Inside “Elf Lyons is the Woman on the Frontier” Lyons, a master physical performer who trained as a clown, uses his engagement breakup via WhatsApp as the starting point for his latest show, which debuts at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe. A wigged Lyons, smokin’ low-cut in her cocktail dress, balances on her toes like a life-size doll (an award-winning feat of arched endurance), darting through performance genres and emotional registers. It channels a Hitchcock-style woman in distress and narrates the film “Apollo 13”; There is a wonderful episode about two banana phones and the opera “Pagliacci”. The series is a real, absurd, and angry exploration of love and heartbreak.—Mengfei Chen (SoHo Theatre; through October 18)