Guggenheim goes back to Brooklyn

Brooklyn's I'm In You

By Meredith Deliso

For the experimental Brooklyn-based band I’m In You, the borough is a good place to be right now.

“You have a lot of places to play, and other people making music to inspire you and get you to go out and see shows every night” says Greenpoint-based musician Sebastian Ischer, with other members scattered throughout Brooklyn in Fort Greene, Brighton Beach and other neighborhoods.

It’s actually quite a few more neighborhoods, as beyond Ischer, Chris McHenry, Dmitiry Ishenko, and Andrei Zakow, the band at its peak can consist of 12 musicians, with only one living outside of the borough. When I’m In You play the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan on September 25, bringing their post-rock, arfo-punk disco to the museum’s iconic halls as part of its “It Came From Brooklyn” cultural series, they decided to bring everyone they could to fill up the space.

“It’s a little bit daunting because it’s different from what we’re used to playing,” says Ischer, who’s played more “straight up rock venues” like Cake Shop, Zebulon, and Glasslands Gallery before. “We’re going to try to do more pieces that are a little bit more instrumental and atmospheric sounding, not our most heavy rocking kind of songs.”

Other acts participating that night in the series, which takes a nod a Brooklyn’s recent cultural renaissance, include Julian Plenti, (aka Paul Banks of Interopol), authors Rivka Galchen and Hampton Fancher, who happen to be next-door neighbors in their Brooklyn Heights apartments, and comedian Eugene Mirman, fresh off his own Brooklyn-based comedy festival at the Bell House and Union Hall, acting as MC.

“It Came from Brooklyn is meant to have a cabaret-like atmosphere,” says Sam Brumbaugh, who, along with Bronwyn Keenan, conceived and are producing the series as part of the museum’s 50th anniversary celebrations. “We want to offer a good night out, with music, comedy, literature, and art—all in one program.”

While performing in the Guggenheim is a new experience of many of the acts, for I’m In You, they have played non-traditional venues in the past, including a Park Slope gallery earlier this summer. As with that one, they hope with this show they can reach a whole new audience, outside the usual music scene.

“The thing that was cool [about the gallery] was it wasn’t a standard rock audience – there were a lot of families and little kids watching the band and dancing. And Even when I saw the first It Came From Brooklyn show, it felt like a different kind of crowd, not just the same hipster kids that usually go to shows,” says Ischer. “People that might not come down to Williamsburg and see a show at one of the smaller venues there, but they’d go check them out at the Guggenheim.”

“It Came From Brooklyn” is September 25 from 8 p.m. to midnight. Tickets are $45 for non-members and $40 for members. For more information, call 212-423-3500. The Guggenheim is located at 1071 Fifth Avenue.