SEÁN BARNA GETS REAL

The

BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER @DANIELJKUSHNER DKUSHNER@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

Seán Barna lives in Philadelphia, but Rochester has become a second home for the singer-songwriter, who specializes in music that speaks to the queer experience.

Many of his most fruitful creative ideas have flourished here, including the music on his new rock-pop album “An Evening at Macri Park,” which prominent indie label Kill Rock Stars is set to release on May 12.

He recorded the album in Rochester’s rural suburb of Macedon at 1809 Studios with a voice that carried the wide vibrato of an earnest ’70s folk singer and the expressive cadence of David Bowie.

“Whatever the song is, pain or sadness or nostalgia or hope or whatever is happening, I let that really kind of overtake me,” Barna said.

“As an artist,” he went on, “your only responsibility is to yourself and trying to get your point of view as honest and open as possible. And in those moments, I’m able to do that.”

Barna, 37, is able to do that with the help of his close friend, the bassist and producer Dave Drago, who owns 1809 Studios. Drago said their work together moves swiftly because of the trust they have in each other.

“We provide a safe space for each other and just chase magic around, and (don’t) judge each other,” Drago said.

Ironically, it was their judgment of another artist that brought them together. They met several years ago at Rockwood Music Hall in Manhattan during the Underwater Sunshine Festival.

“The real story is we locked eyes in the back of a bar, talking shit about a band,” Drago said.

“Everybody in the room was being like a sycophant for this artist that he and I could just see right through, like, ‘No authenticity here. What is this?’ And he and I were the only two people in the back of the room with clearly a look on our faces.”

The friends spoke to CITY together in a video conference — with Barna in Philadelphia and Drago in Macedon.

Barna wore a black baseball cap emblazoned with “cissy,” the name of a previous EP he recorded with Drago at 1809 Studios, and sipped coffee from a mug that read, “I’m your Huckleberry.” When asked what it meant to identify as a queer artist, Barna picked up a second mug with an image of a sloth lounging under a rainbow and the words “gay and tired.”

“I am the very, very least vulnerable version of a queer person on the planet,” Barna said. “I’m a white cis male that can pass as straight easily. I’m not threatened ever. . . . As the least vulnerable type of queer person, I’m willing to put myself out there as much as I can, and challenge people as much as I can.”

Drago said that it’s rare and refreshing to come across a singer who lays themselves bare emotionally and gives it all away in the performance.

“So much modern music is apathetic and guarded,” he said. “And Seán — to his quality and to his detriment — can be nothing like that.”

Barna said he sees too many artists impersonating singer-songwriters they admire. They wear the right styles, craft the right lyrics, but lack authenticity, he said.

“There’s something missing, I think maybe it’s called heart or something,” he said. “That’s probably why I’m not more popular, but it always bothered me. And so what I’m doing is the only thing that I can do, which is be annoyingly myself. And I see people kind of be fake onstage and it just makes me feel like I’m wasting my time. So anything I write isn’t going to be like that.”

Barna kicks off his tour of “An Evening at Macri Park” with a full-band show at Radio Social on May 11. The free show starts at 8 p.m. with special guests Pluck and Cece Vile.

“TEMPLE HEIGHTS” BY DYSPLÄCER

With its debut “Temple Heights,” released on April 20, the band Dyspläcer gives listeners a mashup they didn’t know they needed: kung fu heavy metal.

After a cinematic intro ushers us into the world of this bizarre concept album, “Lightning Fury Fist” pulls no punches with Dyspläcer’s throwback sound. We’ve been whisked away to the late ’70s in a whirlwind of harmonizing electric guitars, pummeling double bass drums, and the kind of melodic power vocals that would make Bruce Dickinson proud.

The album’s first single, “Black Widow,” immediately follows, but lacks the frenetic energy and explosive tempo that made “Lightning Fury Fist” such a retro revelation. In sharp contrast, the second single, “Kuma Kaiju,” features brilliant guitarwork, spot-on vocals, and just enough thrash metal to give the song an edge.

The title track is loaded with all of the heavy metal pyrotechnics possible in eight minutes. Dyspläcer is dripping with so much sonic excess, it draws comparisons it may not have anticipated and probably doesn’t want. But I can’t listen to the vocals on “Bloodsport” without hearing a bit of Steve Perry wailing away on Journey’s “Wheel in the Sky.”

That said, the influence of iconic British metal band Iron Maiden is front-andcenter, and couldn’t possibly be overstated. Dyspläcer’s members might have instantly relegated themselves to self-parody, but they wisely chose to take the music seriously, and not themselves.

The music is a delightful throwback, barreling its way to our eardrums from out of nowhere. Everything about “Temple Heights” is over-the-top and indulgent, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

— BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER

“BEGGAR’S PITCH” BY FREE CASINO

Beginning your debut album with an instrumental is a flex. For the three math-rock virtuosos in Free Casino, “Queen Anne’s Revenge” goes so hard it doesn’t need lyrics — but a well-timed scream at its climax speaks volumes.

With frantic, interlocking fretwork from guitarists Sean Saville and Jake Denning and grounded basslines from Marc Gabriel (who’s been a contributing writer to CITY), the song sets the pace for what follows on “Beggar’s Pitch.” It’s the band’s first full-length album following two exploratory EPs in 2020 and 2021. The eight-song collection was released April 14 on New York label Sad Cactus Records.

The downstate creep of Free Casino lives in the album’s DNA. Four years after forming the band in Rochester, Gabriel and Saville now reside in Brooklyn, while vocalist Denning remains here. Free Casino recorded all but one track in Ridgewood, Queens, a stone’s throw from Brooklyn’s thriving music scene in the Bushwick neighborhood.

A bobbing song called “Jester’s Privilege” nods to this, as Denning presents an annoyed yet whimsical view of big-city life: “My praise to the concrete and rain / It’s making my head hurt / It’s taking my brain.” These lines lead into a squelching guitar solo approximating the delirium of walking around an urban hub.

Yet the music itself is placeless, as the Free Casino members blend Midwestern emo’s dazzling finger styles with alternative rock’s foundational quiet-loud dynamics and rushing post-punk. One song might as well live online; the frenzied spirit and quick chaotic barbs of “Source (I Made It Up)” essentially make it “Twitter: The Song.”

Though it enters roaring, “Beggar’s Pitch” quietly finds a back door to slip out. Free Casino captured the album’s ruminative closer, “Irish Goodbye,” at Rochester’s Mirror Records in August 2021. The performance is stunning, with layers of bright guitar glowing like a sunset.

While you sort out their musical acrobatics, the trio plays itself off. And you hope they’ll return.

— BY PATRICK HOSKEN

“LOVE IN TIME” BY GIANT PANDA GUERILLA DUB SQUAD

At this point in its trajectory, the group Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad doesn’t need to prove anything.

Giant Panda has produced danceinducing reggae with heart consistently since 2001, and with repeated success on the Billboard charts, has already done enough for induction into the Rochester Music Hall of Fame when the time is right.

Yet, I still couldn’t help but want to hear something different from “Love in Time,” Giant Panda’s seventh studio album, released on April 7. Was the band still connected to the sociopolitical “power of the people” that gave the spark to roots reggae in ’60s Jamaica? Or had the upstate New York Squad become only superficially connected to the sound of revolution in a way that pandered to the hippie party music crowd?

The answer to both questions is “Yes,” depending on the song.

Any concern about Giant Panda’s roots reggae authenticity can be quashed with the single “Chants,” powered by cameo vocals from Clinton Fearon of the iconic Jamaican band The Gladiators. Over a mid-tempo, summertime groove, Fearon sings, ”Yes, I believe there will be a better tomorrow / But we have to work for it, so we all can do the freedom dance.”

Elsewhere, “Revolution” finds Panda collaborating with Philly reggae band The Movement to create what is arguably the album’s strongest track, both musically and lyrically: “Only pollution from institutions, solutions are born in the revolution.”

But as a collection, “Love in Time” feels inconsistent. The title track, as well as other songs like “Champion” and “For You,” feel unmoored from reggae’s historical legacy. These songs are pleasant, but they appropriate reggae’s style without delivering on its substance.

Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad excels at making earnest, feel-good reggae. A few unmemorable tracks aside, “Love in Time” builds on the band’s proven formula.

— BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER

“MARGARET BONDS: CREDO; SIMON BORE THE CROSS”

There is something singularly uplifting about choral music. It has something to do with the power of voices coming together for a common purpose.

A new album of large-scale choral compositions by 20th-century Black composer Margaret Bonds achieves that inspiration alongside harrowing sorrow, all of which reflects the Black experience in America.

Released in February, “Margaret Bonds: Credo; Simon Bore the Cross” features the New York City-based Dessoff Choirs and Orchestra conducted by Music Director Malcolm J. Merriweather, an alumnus of the Eastman School of Music.

Some of Bonds’s original works had remained unpublished and obscure until recently.

One such composition, “Credo” — set to a poem written by W.E.B. Du Bois — is not liturgical, but it does speak to a personal set of beliefs clearly outlined in such individual movements as “Especially Do I Believe in the Negro Race,” “I Believe in the Devil,” and “I Believe in Liberty.”

As performed by Merriweather and company, this deeply spiritual work is defiant in its strength and hope, even as it acknowledges the evil of racism. Merriweather’s conducting is decisive and impassioned above all else. Contributions from soloists Janinah Burnett and Dashon Burton punctuate the poignant performances of the chorus.

The two soloists also lend their powerful vocal deliveries to “Simon Bore the Cross,” a kind of oratorio, with text by Bonds’s close friend and frequent collaborator Langston Hughes. Merriweather leads the choirs and orchestra with immediacy as they make the case for this little-known choral masterpiece.

Bonds may not yet be a household name among important American composers, but she should be. Hopefully, this album will be an epiphany for musicians, listeners, and classical music institutions alike to champion Bonds as an ever-relevant, brilliant compositional voice.

— BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER