Daiana Feuer on June 27th, 2018

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“We’re gonna play my album shit and then some other shit and that’s what we’re doing,” announced a plucky Kadhja Bonet, greeting the Teragram Ballroom audience on Tuesday night with a sweet little potty mouth and an “EXTRA terrestrial” outfit. This was a release show for her sophomore album, “Childqueen” — out now on Fat Possum — on which the classically trained musician played everything: violin, flute, guitar, bells and space lasers (aka keyboard).

For the show, she needed a band, and she truly enjoyed poking fun at them all night long: “Corey Sanchez hates babies and sunshine and I’m trying to say he is a wicked guitar player.” As for the bass player, “This is Josh, he is one of my oldest friends. I have known him since I was 11. He went out with my sister, and then he broke up with her, and then I finally knew he was cooler,” she said before a high-pitched cover of “Yesterday” deep into the set, performed just with Josh. “And now back to Corey,” she quipped before she teamed up with Sanchez on a cover of the Jackson 5’s “Never Can Say Goodbye.” “I once saw him put a finger in an old person’s pudding.” The only person she didn’t make fun of was her glockenspiel player, Marie Davy, possibly because glock players are dangerous, but it’s likely that Davy, who opened the show with a solo set of English and French numbers, is just too sweet to mock.

She also made fun of herself and her songs, proving that even the deepest thoughts, which elevate her beautifully composed melodies, are still worthy of a good laugh. “You ever have food poisoning and then you’re shocked by how much comes out of your body? That’s what this song is about,” she said introducing “Childqueen.” And before the wonderful “Mother Maybe,” where she hits chandelier-shattering high notes, “This is the song for when your period’s late.”

The set proceeded thusly: First Bonet and band played through a lot of the new record, with Bonet alternating flute, violin and just vocals. Then Bonet played material from her first record, 2016’s “The Visitor,” solo on guitar, including “Fairweather Friend” and “Honeycomb,” and then “Tears From Lamont,” the first song she ever released (back in 2014). She then took turns playing songs accompanied by just one musician at a time, before the whole band joined in again for the last few numbers, but not before Bonet whispered to the audience, “I’m really hungry. If I faint it’s not for dramatic effect.” Don’t worry, she did not faint.

Photos by Daiana Feuer