Soggy Po' Boys w/ Helen Gillet

The Soggy Po Boys, native to New England, have quickly become an institution. They are spreading the good news of New Orleans music across the northeast and beyond, playing at concert halls and street corners; music festivals and burlesque festivals; bars and libraries; wherever the party requires. Part of the beauty of New Orleans music is that it's celebrated and appreciated wherever it goes, from the street to the theater. Helen Gillet is a singer-songwriter and surrealist-archeologist creating synthesized sounds, texture, rhythm using an acoustic cello and effects. For someone with her varied background, New Orleans, with its mix of cultures and musics, seemed like a natural place to call home. She was born in Belgium, raised in Singapore from the ages of 2 to 11, and routinely shuttled between the homelands of her Belgian father and American mother. Over the past 20 years — working in New Orleans with musicians of all stripes, from avant-garde jazz and classical to pop and funk — Gillet has developed a singular polyglot style. The synthesis of her work is featured in her solo performance with live looping, layering cello parts and vocal lines. Rhythmic figures emerge with bowed or plucked ostinatos or a variety of rubbing and slapping on the body of the cello, then enhanced with melodies played or sung in her haunting alto.