Grammy-winning musician and politically engaged activist Allison Russell is bringing her recently released album, In the Hour of Chaos, to the Atlantis this Friday for a soulful night of connection. The album was created as a collaborative song suite, tapping members of Russell’s expansive creative community to contribute to the project. All the songs except one have a featured guest artist, including Norah Jones, Joy Oladokun, and Kara Jackson. Russell herself is a longtime collaborator with Hozier and understands the significance of artistic connection. At a time when people are isolated and competing for scarce resources, Russell’s music reminds us that some of the best and most moving art is made in direct collaboration with other artists. You can experience that at the Atlantis where you’ll be among other Americana and folk music fans, bonded together by a common sound and pursuit of joyful expression. Allison Russell plays at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 16 at the Atlantis, 2047 9th St. NW. theatlantis.com. $46.65. —Serena Zets
Formed in Philadelphia in 2019, Guachinangos set a goal to play and add their own touches to a wide variety of traditional dance music genres from Mexico, including son jarocho. That’s a style known for its high-pitched nylon-string sound courtesy of requinto and jarana jarocha instruments, which both are like smaller guitars. Since moving to New York City, the group has increased its membership to include more musicians with Colombian roots who draw from that country’s cumbia and Afro Caribbean champeta genres. Violinist and vocalist Gabriella Grimaldi tells City Paper via email that Guachinangos sometimes feature even more members, but for this D.C. show the band will be made up of its seven core participants. Named after a type of red snapper fish popular in the Veracruz region of Mexico, the ensemble showcase a number of songs where musical director Juan Carlos Marin’s speedy, san jarocha stringwork is prominent on its debut album, Guachinangos Vol. 1, but the outfit also transforms Mexican song “Chuchumbé” with Colombian champeta elements such as polyrhythmic African guitar riffs and percussion via a tambor alegre hand-hit drum. Grimaldi is prominent on both uptempo numbers and on the group’s exquisite take on the slow-tempoed Mexican waltz “Dios Nunca Muere.” She also engages in gorgeous call-and-response vocals with Marin on the son jarocho song “Bemba y Tablao,” which celebrates that genre’s African roots. D.C.’s Chicha Morada will open with psychedelic Peruvian chicha and cumbia. Guachinangos perform with Chicha Morada at 7 p.m. on Oct. 16 at Songbyrd, 540 Penn St. NE. songbyrddc.com. $16–$20. —Steve Kiviat
Robin Bell, a classically trained printmaker based in D.C., is best known for his mocking projections on what was known as the Trump International Hotel between 2016 and 2022. The often clever projections play a central role in Bell’s retrospective at Addison/Ripley Fine Art, but Trump’s continued presidency calls into question their efficacy. Instead, what stands out in Bell’s 86-work retrospective is the inspired fluidity of his mix-and-match techniques. Bell memorialized his (largely) anti-Trump projections through 48 small, square, photography-based paintings, some with smooth surfaces and some with heavy impasto. Many of Bell’s other works are less explicitly political—and they may pack greater punch as a result. In some, Bell creates what looks like a painting but is actually a video screen. If you look closely, you can see minute, animated movements. Sometimes these look like cellular division under a microscope or a Vincent Van Gogh seen while on LSD. One video work displays stripes that call to mind the drip paintings of Washington Color School painter Morris Louis, only in motion. Another technique Bell uses is video-native; in several works, Bell creates abstract animations in red, white, and blue that serve as a sublimated commentary on democracy. Other times, Bell creates a photograph using video. One, “Milk Tree Square,” shows plant leaves under a black night sky, ringed by wafting fog—the kind of image that works fine as a still photograph, but even better with gentle movement. One work leverages this technique to near-perfection; it depicts a crowded “No Kings” street protest in D.C., but in slow motion, enabling the viewer to track the movements of individual marchers as the video cycles. Robin Bell’s retrospective runs through Oct. 17 at Addison/Ripley Fine Art, 1670 Wisconsin Ave. NW. addisonripleyfineart.com. Free. —Louis Jacobson
India ink, a common material for illustrators and cartoonists, is made of carbon, the same stuff that’s produced by burning fuels and that circulates through the air when we breathe. Trees factor into this “carbon cycle” by absorbing carbon dioxide, and the artist Katherine Steichen Rosing has latched onto that compositional harmony in her forest-based work. In an installation at IA&A at Hillyer, her fiber forest crowds the gallery space, the white surfaces of the cylindrical trees marked by splotches of India ink and singed holes. Each blot and burn serves as a small-scale illustration of the knowing and deliberate damage inflicted not just on forests, but on all parts of the environment and climate, and the effect of wandering among the totems is ghostly. The surrounding walls feature small bold paintings that also take trees as their subject, many of them also spectral white trees. Some of these are in shadowy settings, others practically glow from within with vibrant hues that suggest fiery skies or still-hot embers. A video projected on the wall intercuts imagery of forest fires collected from news and forest service footage with tranquil footage taken by the artist in the forest where she frequently walks, bringing generalized climate crisis anxieties home to roost. Harbingers runs through Nov. 29 at IA&A at Hillyer, 9 Hillyer Ct. NW. athillyer.org. Free. —Stephanie Rudig
