Avant-garde

Perhaps you came to know Zoë Keating through her Twitter presence (@zoecello has over 1.3 million followers!), but behind the stream of witty 140-character communiques lies a phenomenally talented cellist. Zoë's richly complex layered avant cello music has been featured in movie and documentary soundtracks, ballet productions and in collaborations with a host of artists from Rasputina to Imogen Heap, but it is best savored center-stage in one of Zoë's far too rare solo live performances.

Ticket options and info

"She's the find of the year" - The Guardian

w h o k i l l, the sophomore album by Merrill Garbus’ tUnE-yArDs, is a thrill for fans of the live show that left most stunned in 2010.  No longer is her artful songwriting and soulful voice obscured by digital fuzz as it often was on her solo debut, BiRd-BrAiNs.  Transplanting herself from Montreal to sunny Oakland, California, while touring almost non-stop for over two years, Merrill has stripped tUnE-yArDs away to a more precise, concentrated and vivid sound. w h o k i l l retains the honesty of the lonely bedroom confessional characteristic of her early work, but with the addition of the fangs, claws and dented metal of its new surroundings.

Opening tonight is experimental Brooklyn duo Buke & Gass.

The Residents bring their Talking Light tour to The Cedar in this unique show presented by First Avenue. Songs about various characters' obsessions with invisible siblings, fictional serial killers, people in mirrors, and more. And yes, some costumes would not be out of place on stage tonight.

Tickets go on sale at 11am Fri Jan 21 from from First Avenue and their outlets, and online at TICKETMASTER.

All Cedar shows are all ages.

We kid you not: a short solo guitar set from renowned avant guitarist Marc Ribot, followed by Marc playing his live score to Charlie Chaplin's silent movie The Kid. Commissioned and premiered in Jan 2010 by the NY Guitar Festival at Merkin Hall. Marc Ribot’s delicate and at times haunting solo guitar score contemporizes this classic Chaplin film to a story relevant to the economic and social conditions of today. Read more »

Modern experimentalists Matmos and So Percussion are combining forces for this one-night-only concert on the occasion of the record release of Treasure State, a startling new collaboration. For the past several years, So Percussion has been joining the electronic duo Matmos for shows around the country and in Europe, exploring the sonic and theatrical possibilities of beer cans, hair clippers, ceramic bowls, and dry ice.  "Musique-concrete" oddballs widely known for their collaboration with Bjork, electronic duo Matmos are infamous for turning bizarre sound sources (from plastic surgery to live snails) into shuffling rhythmic pop. Brooklyn-based quartet So Percussion are acclaimed virtuosic performers of classical and avant-garde writing for percussion. Known for playing the music of Steve Reich, David Lang, and Paul Lansky, they are increasingly recognized as composers in their own right.