The former bassist for Suicidal Tendencies makes some of the country’s most advanced electronic music? Huh? But Stephen Bruner has made that unlikely transition with aplomb, releasing two stellar albums for Flying Lotus’s renowned Brainfeeder label. Thundercat recontextualizes the flamboyant virtuosity of fusion phenoms like Jaco Pastorius and Stanley Clarke for the Low End Theory crowd. His soulful, falsetto vocals pirouette over complex yet sensuous bass lines and beats, creating a bizarrely romantic strain of progressive electronica. Return to forever—again. (Barboza, 925 E Pike St, thebarboza.com, 8 pm, $15 adv, 21+)

Dave Segal is a journalist and DJ living in Seattle. He has been writing about music since 1983. His stuff has appeared in Gale Research’s literary criticism series of reference books, Creem (when...