Wingdale Community Singers

Issue Project Room; Fri 30
Barbès; Nov 6
Philoctetes Center; Nov 8

Photograph: Thatcher Keats

It’s easy to get the impression that the Wingdale Community Singers represent some kind of homage to Harry Smith–approved old-time Americana. The quartet’s shows are as intimate as a front-parlor picking session, and its songs are shaped by a love of soft harmony vocals and simple gestures on various stringed instruments. Just check out the group’s heartfelt version of the Carter Family’s “Death Is Only a Dream.”

But a name implying some sort of gospel ensemble or Sacred Harp revival act is really more colorful evocation than hard evidence. The group’s new album, Spirit Duplicator (Scarlet Shame), is a wellspring of original songwriting, inviting the listener into a realm of gentle sadness and acute observations, while mapping day-in-the-life occurrences with poetic glances and seductively down-tempo arrangements.

The outfit has a pedigree: Its founders are novelist Rick Moody and singer-songwriter Hannah Marcus, along with Brooklyn College prof David Grubbs (Squirrel Bait, Gastr del Sol, Red Krayola) and Nina Katchadourian, a visual artist who also wields a dandy alto. Everyone writes and sings, so the community vibe is genuine. That also accounts for the rewarding artistic swerves, as the musicians by turns embrace honky-tonk tradition (“Tears in My Tequila”) and the passing sagas of characters on a Brooklyn street corner (“Naked Goth Girls”). The music’s modesty is a virtue, the cap to a pickle jar of homemade insights.—Steve Dollar

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