THURSDAY 10/25
High on Fire, Mono, Panthers, Coliseum
(Crocodile) See Stranger Suggests.
DJ Krush, Hidden Habitats
(Neumo's) The subtitle of DJ Krush's just-released DVD retrospective is Suimou Tsunenimasu, which loosely translates as "training never ends." It derives from a Japanese legend about the world's deadliest sword; despite its strength, it needed polishing every day to remain sharp. That's the kind of lifelong dedication shown by the Tokyo-born DJ/producer: One of the world's most formidable turntable talents, Krush has spent 20 years honing his skills and expanding his repertoire. Often touring with a pianist, flutist, and sax player, Krush goes minimal tonight with a straight-ahead DJ set. Minimal isn't the right word, actually: Even with just a set of decks, Krush's beat-drunk sound collages are dense, propulsive, and hypnotic, melding Eastern modalities to Western boom-bap for a posthiphop sound that encompasses entire worlds. JONATHAN ZWICKEL
Shane Tutmarc & the Traveling Mercies, Grand Hallway, PWRFL Power
(Showbox Sodo) Grand Hallway's debut album, Yes Is the Answer, glows brightly with warm, delicate orchestration and thoughtful song structures. Smooth piano and swooning strings only slightly take the spotlight over Tomo Nakayama's tender crooning. The songs are sometimes sad ("Seward Park"), sometimes loving, and at times even playful ("Piano Room"). Slide guitar gives a light country flare to the otherwise poppy "Minimum Wage," while wind instruments and layers of plunking piano, violin, and guitar bring a slight Japanese folk sound to "Darling, Wife." On record the band successfully maintain a mesmerizing beauty, and with their cresting instrumentation and dynamic mood shifts, Grand Hallway's greatness can only flourish when delivered live. MEGAN SELING
FRIDAY 10/26
Meneguar, Elphaba, Talbot Tagora, Police Teeth
(Healthy Times Fun Club) See Stranger Suggests">See Underage.
Carolyn Mark
(Easy Street Records, West Seattle) Carolyn Mark doesn't sing anything without delighting in it. This isn't hard to figure out when listening to the Victoria, BC, native's records of old, full of country stompin' and funny, frank lyrics that earned her too charming a rep to hide behind former bandmate Neko Case. Even on this year's breakup record, Nothing Is Free, she makes the most of heartbreak—"I thought, hmm, lace panties, when I looked up her dress," she sings on "Pictures at Five," before her voice belts out the album title above a blast of fiddle. She might not be over the guy, but that doesn't stop her from singing through her trademark grin. SAM MACHKOVECH
No-Fi Soul Rebellion, the Harborrats
(Jules Maes Saloon) Two things I learned from No-Fi Soul Rebellion's last Seattle appearance: (1) They play really short, really sweaty sets. The husband-wife duo of singer/beatmaker Mark and, um, faux bassist/cheerleader Andrea Heimer were finished a half hour after they started, and homeboy's homemade basketball jersey was totally drenched (though homegirl looked perfectly perky). (2) The band's guiding philosophy: Playfulness and sincerity can go together hand in hand. Examples of this ecstatic union show up all over their just-released Terrible Muscles, an unabashedly exuberant electro-funk dance party of a record. This is a band on a mission to make you feel good. JONATHAN ZWICKEL
SATURDAY 10/27
New Young Pony Club
(Nectar) See Fucking in the Streets.
Black Mountain, the Cave Singers
(Crocodile) In the past decade's stoner/psych-rock resurgence, no band's beards and long manes of black hair have come across on record as well as Black Mountain. Think Sabbath for the wake-and-bake crowd, their hard riffs mingling with laid-back folk and classic-rock jamming—like on Velvet-appreciative "No Satisfaction," on which they beat tom drums and holler that "everybody likes to clang things around." Wuz that mean? Who cares? You won't want to be in a nitpicky mood at this gig if BM unveil their purported "17-minute multidimensional opus" from their In the Future album due out next year. Another dimension, man. Do they clang there, too? SAM MACHKOVECH
MĂşm, Talkdemonic, Tom Brosseau
(Neumo's) One of Iceland's best-ever exports, MĂşm have made paranormal, wide-open nursery melodies for a decade, distorting them out of proportion like someone who confuses imagination with childhood. Except something went wrong. They lost founding twin sisters GyĂ°a and KristĂn Anna ValtĂ˝sdĂłttir and their stare-out-a-train-window atmosphere scribbling seems like it went with them. In new album Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy, it is instead replaced by a relatively busy sound with a distinct push away from electronics, which they probably thought would broaden their ambitions, but has placed them in the same world as the ordinary multi-instrumental indie of Stars or Arcade Fire. A baby step back. DEAN FAWKES
SUNDAY 10/28
Tara Jane O'Neil, Jenny Hoyston (of Erase Errata)
(Vera Project) See Fucking in the Streets.
Aesop Rock, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Blockhead w/DJ Signify
(Showbox at the Market) Aesop Rock's rhymes are extremely crunchy, and not just because they're full of granola. The title single from his new record, None Shall Pass, is full of spits and hiccups and other replicated record-player noise, and Aesop's signature quick flow rolls over these sounds more naturally than you'd think. Also, he sets the record for "most similes ever" on the album's secret track, which also has a kazoo solo. I don't think he played that track live during his revelatory Block Party set, so here's another chance. Plus, Black Moth Super Rainbow are the weird psych band that opened for the Flaming Lips a couple weeks back—you should check them out, too. ARI SPOOL
MONDAY 10/29
Joanna Newsom
(Benaroya Hall) See preview.
Architecture in Helsinki, Glass Candy, Panther
(Showbox at the Market) See Stranger Suggests.
Caribou, Born Ruffians, Feral Children, DJ Colin
(Neumo's) Dundas, Ontario's Caribou (formerly Manitoba, née Dan Snaith) is like a perfectly preserved psychedelic fossil thawed out and cleaned up with only the lightest modern touch. It's like Encino Man, only starring Arthur "Love" Lee instead of Pauly Shore and Brian Wilson instead of that gay hobbit, except, I guess, with the flow of time reversed. On Snaith's latest, Andorra, stylized, '60s flowers push up through frozen tundra, magic creatures hibernate and emerge into the sunshine, and Snaith presides over the seasons like a shaman. Live, his hermetic recordings are realized by a full band and complemented by synchronized visuals. Feral Children's wild stylings are rougher and more rabid that Snaith's but are not without their own moments of organic bliss. ERIC GRANDY
TUESDAY 10/30
Enon, Love of Diagrams
(Nectar) Pop genius comes in many forms, and with John Schmersal—the wizard behind Enon—it's wonderfully eccentric and twisted. Schmersal has taken the tweaked-out energy of his previous band, Brainiac, and channeled it into more hummable territory. That's not to say that Enon are easily digestible: The band make sci-fi hits for sexy robots, and you'd be hard-pressed to rock these tunes on an acoustic guitar. If you can believe Enon, outer space is rockin'. BARBARA MITCHELL
Man Man, Love as Laughter, Wild Orchid Children, Druid Flower
(Neumo's) Sure, it's not technically Halloween until tomorrow (or at least midnight tonight), but you couldn't hope for a better house band for the haunted holiday than Philadelphia's Man Man. The carnival-barking quartet always get dressed up and war-painted for shows, lending every performance a little psychedelic funhouse vibe, and who knows if they'll have something extra in store for the coming holiday. Either way, their boozy, growling ballads and baroque jams should provide plenty in the way of both tricks and treats. Experimental Kay Kay offshoot Wild Orchid Children set the mood with their psilocybin spirituals, wild-animal calls, and forest-fire guitars. ERIC GRANDY
WEDNESDAY 10/31
Do Make Say Think, Apostle of Hustle
(Crocodile) With instrumental acts Mono playing the Croc earlier this week (see Stranger Suggests, page 33) and Sleepy Eyes of Death playing the Sunset tonight, Do Make Say Think are in good company with their vibrant (mostly) wordless noise. Their latest, You, You're a History in Rust, uses the moody components of shoegaze on songs "Bound to be That Way" and "Executioner Blues," while incorporating an almost jubilant energy into the upbeat "The Universe!" It's a little more Mogwai than Explosions in the Sky, with a technical aspect that usually builds into a glittery waterfall of sound. MEGAN SELING
David Kilgour, Euros Childs, Pseudosix
(High Dive) If you're a fan of beautifully crafted alternative pop, David Kilgour's name should ring a lovely bell. As the creative force behind the Clean, he left an indelible print on New Zealand's burgeoning music scene—so much so that he was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit a few years back. His latest album, The Far Now, is a slightly folky, laidback affair full of gorgeously hazy, low-key gems that have been compared to Robyn Hitchcock. You don't want to miss this rare appearance; Kilgour doesn't get here often and that flight to Dunedin is a bitch. BARBARA MITCHELL See also Album Reviews.
Parts & Labor, Sleepy Eyes of Death, Welcome
(Sunset) Parts & Labor craft loud, abrasive explosions of sound, weird enough for them to be tagged "experimental," a description that betrays some of their immediately accessible material. The drum-heavy tracks combine synthy effects with thrashing guitar, ending up aggro, but not angry; noisy, but not dissonant. Sleepy Eyes of Death adopt similar instrumentation, but create a different kind of visceral response, with an extra "band" member augmenting the musical output with colored lights, fog machines, and projected video. The music is a study in quiet-LOUD!-quiet, with 8-bit tones augmenting the guitars. For both bands, the live show is the medium to really "get" their output, with their releases acting merely as the Cliffs Notes for the full, sensory overload of seeing them onstage. DONTE PARKS
