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Thursday 10/2
Silver Jews, Spiritual Family Reunion
(Neumos) See preview.
Brightblack Morning Light, Avocet
(Tractor) See Stranger Suggests.
Stranger Personals
Mark Farina
(Last Supper Club) See Stranger Suggests.
Horse Feathers, Matt Bauer
(Sunset) Horse Feathers began as the solo acoustic project of
Portlander singer-songwriter Justin Ringle, but they've since grown to
include multi-
instrumental collaborator Peter Broderick as well as
a host of live players. The band's debut album for Kill Rock Stars,
House with No Home, finds Ringle and company delivering spare
acoustic numbers
accented by such rural signifiers as banjo,
fiddle, and saw (as well as the more urbane cello, celeste, and, of
course, guitar). But the focal point is always Ringle's whisper-quiet,
feather-soft voice, which ranges from a low singing tone to a wounded
whimper to an airy falsetto. Opener Matt Bauer's latest record, The
Island Moved in the Storm, is a song cycle inspired by the case of
a mysterious young girl found dead along a dirt road in Bauer's native
Kentucky in 1968. So, good times. ERIC GRANDY
High Places, Ponytail, Oh Man!
(Nectar) I just conducted an unscientific survey with myself and
came to the conclusion that High Places
are the most interesting,
distinctive American
indie-rock band working today. Robert Barber
and Mary Pearson compose using the surrealist creative process known as
"exquisite corpse," a cumulative layering of elements generated by a
participant without knowing what the previous contribution is. The 10
songs on their Thrill Jockey minialbum 03/07–09/07 sound
exotic (quasi-Caribbean, perhaps) yet homespun and idiosyncratically
mongrel in ways that don't feel exhausted. Their beauty is a rare
thing. Baltimore's Ponytail exude outrageous exuberance, coloring
outside of the indie-pop lines with cute bundles of radiant clangor.
They recall tightly wound, early-'80s Scottish bands like Josef K and
Fire Engines, sans British moroseness. DAVE SEGAL See also Underage.
MSTRKRFT, Felix Cartal, Congorock
(Showbox at the Market) Along with Justice, MSTRKRFT have the
blog-house/nü-rave scene on (caps) lockdown. Toronto duo Al-P and
Jesse F. Keeler crank out the sharp-toned synth motifs, snappy disco
beats, and talk-boxed bittersweet nothings that reliably push the
pleasure buttons of mid-'00s metro-
sexual clubbers. The title
"Neon Knights" (off the twosome's 2006 album The Looks)
succinctly sums up MSTRKRFT's candied and 'cained '80s aesthetic. An
early taster for their Fist of God full-length (out in October),
"Vuvuvu" tilts MSTRKRFT into harder EBM territory, recalling Visage's
"Frequency 7." It's a good look for them. Vancouver's Felix Cartal has
remixed Britney Spears and Ashlee Simpson, but his own tracks lean
toward corrugated, unhinged, and sinister electro. DAVE
SEGAL
Friday 10/3
Jamie Lidell, Janelle Monae
(Showbox) See Data Breaker, and My Philosophy.
Gutter Dandy Gala: Orkestar
Zirconium, Hot
Grits!
(Free Sheep Foundation) The Free Sheep Foundation is becoming a
nexus of the R&D wing of Seattle culture. It occupies decrepit
buildings that are about to be demolished—a fleabag motel on
Aurora, a doomed apartment building, and now an abandoned single-story
building in Belltown—and turns them into mayfly clubhouses. Its
charm is ephemeral and ephemera is its charms. Inside Free Sheep, you
can find innovative graffiti and poster artists (NKO, No Touching
Ground), anarchic theater collectives (Stranger Genius
Award–winners Implied Violence), musicians (Truckasauras),
dancers (Haruko Nishimura of Degenerate Art Ensemble), and more.
Tonight you will find an all-black, all-lady punk band called Hot
Grits!—whose cover of James Brown's "Please, Please, Please"
sounds like Kathleen Hanna fronting the early Sex Pistols—and a
Balkan brass marching band called Orkestar Zirkonium, who borrow
members from Circus Contraption and the defunct Infernal Noise Brigade.
The clubhouse, as always, will be populated by odd characters.
BRENDAN KILEY
John in the Morning at Night: Two Gallants, Harvey Danger,
Blue Giant, Head Like a Kite
(Neumos) Radio is a strange beast, its stations' democratic airwaves
reaching anyone who tunes into their particular frequency, but rarely
uniting them. KEXP has made a point of assembling its listeners in
person, building a real community around its familiar voices, and
boosting up-and-coming bands in the process. This time, the John in the
Morning at Night show features an acoustic set by local stalwarts
Harvey Danger; buzz band Two Gallants; the fuzzy, feisty sounds of Head
Like a Kite; and Blue Giant, the full-band incarnation of Viva Voce's
Kevin and Anita Robinson. It's a great opportunity to connect with your
likeminded listeners and subject yourself to some brain-tingling music
in the process. BARBARA MITCHELL
Why?, Restiform Bodies
(Vera ) Anticon made its name as a home for music that wasn't so
much hiphop—underground, backpack, abstract, or
otherwise—as it was music that resembled hiphop but
reassembled its traits into something else entirely. Headliners and
anticoners Why? long ago transcended ersatz rap, transforming into a
sublime band that still exhibit some of hiphop's best verbal tics in
Yoni Wolf's dexterous verses but combine them with gloomy live
acoustics and songcraft that's as structurally traditional as it is
sonically adventurous. Openers Restiform Bodies, though, remain more
dedicated to the label's typically atypical old-school
style—oblique, often breakneck raps delivered over scavenged
synths, samples, and basement-crafted beats. Too frequently, though,
their songs are stuffed with syllables but short on significance.
ERIC GRANDY See also Stranger Suggests.
Saturday 10/4
Annea Lockwood
(Chapel Performance Space) See The Score.
The Pack, the Cataracs, Dyme Def, Fresh Espresso, DJ Marc
Sense
(Nectar) See My Philosophy.
Santogold, Mates of State, Low vs Diamond
(Showbox Sodo) I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you
dismiss Santogold as an M.I.A. knockoff, you're a deaf racist. The 11
songs, plus one bonus remix, on Santogold add up to one of the
richest pop statements of the new millennium, a collection of tracks
that begs to be played over and over. So thank God it's as good as it
is, otherwise the TV ads and Gossip Girl (over)exposure might
seriously threaten the pleasure. But as it is, Santogold can
take it—it's smart, stylish art pop at its most durable. Tonight,
the woman behind the awesomeness brings her live show to Showbox Sodo,
and it should be a not-to-be-missed madhouse. DAVID SCHMADER
Grand Archives
(Neumos) Singer-guitarist Mat Brooke broke off from Band of Horses
in 2006 to form Grand Archives, a subtle deviation from his previous
outfit. Grand Archives create grandiose pop that uplifts through
earnest, traditional methods—pleasantly chiming guitars; rousing
choruses sung in a sweet, high male voice; familiar melodic contours,
etc. Their self-titled debut album on Sub Pop is as smooth and warm as
hot chocolate. Much of it sounds like the Clientele, if that
introverted English group decided to expand their sound to arena-sized
dimensions. Overall, there's something rosy-cheeked and
sugary—the absurdly cheerful whistles in "Miniature Birds" gave
my ears diabetes—about Grand Archives, but they do their thing
with consummate craftsmanship. DAVE SEGAL
Sunday 10/5
Talib Kweli, David Banner, Little Brother
(Showbox Sodo) Talib Kweli hangs deep words around beats. His cuts
scatter and barrage with short, syncopated phrasing. It's advanced
lyricism and it's a heady earful. Kweli, a Brooklyn prophet whose name
means "seeker," isn't afraid to wax political. In Kweli's 2007 cut
"Take It Back," he asks us to sing along and then raps, "The government
take our sons and our daughters/Give 'em guns, make 'em run to the
slaughter/In places where runnin' water is a luxury." Kweli lures the
listener with a rich melody, then gives his antiwar message. It's fat
educational entertainment. The pride of Mos Def and Jay-Z, Kweli will
step up your brain-wave street smarts, but he won't overhustle you.
Kweli wants a better way. See also My Philosophy, page 43.
TRENT MOORMAN
Monday 10/6
Wolves in the Throne Room, Fauna
(Vera Project) Olympia's Wolves in the Throne Room have been tilling
farmland and writing extreme music for years, finally creating a singed
masterwork with Two Hunters. To call the band post–black
metal isn't completely fair, because when they want to get cult they
throw down curdled screams and blitzing guitars just like their
Norwegian stepfathers. But when the band's songs expand, they shift
into bent post-rock melodies instead of fruity symphonics or
serial-killer samples. This is the same attitude they bring to their
live show, abandoning the theatrics of gauntlets and pentagrams for a
jarring, blackened DIY performance. Wolves in the Throne Room aren't
the saviors of black metal; they're just showing it still has a furious
pulse. SHANE MEHLING
Tuesday 10/7
Deerhoof, Experimental Dental School
(Neumos) Deerhoof are an indie-rock anomaly, consistently releasing
inconsistent music that one side of a room will always love, the other
side will always hate, and the few in the middle won't know exactly
where they stand—depending on the song. I've always been in the
latter group. I've gone to see Deerhoof based on true fans' assertions
that drummer Greg Saunier is a mechanized animal. His precise
acrobatics behind the kit are impressive enough to overshadow the
flexing guitar interplay and bassist-vocalist Satomi Matsuzaki's cute
lyrical innocence. Regardless, between the last time I saw the band
(supporting Friend Opportunity) and hearing their latest,
Offend Maggie, I can admit that I've been pulled to the lover's
side of the room. TRAVIS RITTER
Liz Phair
(Showbox at the Market) This past June, a bunch of Seattle
musicians—including Throw Me the Statue, Tennis Pro, Lesli Wood
of Ms. Led, Rachel Flotard of Visqueen, and M. Bison—hit the
stage at Chop Suey to perform, in order, the 18 tracks of Liz Phair's
classic debut, Exile in Guyville. It was a revelation, proving
among many other things the lasting brilliance of Phair's "novice"
compositions. Tonight, Lady Phair herself perform "songs from Exile
in Guyville," a description that lets her off the hook for a
full-album re-creation and opens the door for gems from the latter
Phair songbook. (She may never make a better album than her first, but
the best of her post-Exile
songs—whitechocolatespaceegg's "Polyester Bride" and "Love
Is Nothing," Liz Phair's "Little Digger"—stand up to
anything on her eternal debut.) DAVID SCHMADER
Wednesday 10/8
Cut Copy, the Presets, Heartbreak
(Showbox at the Market) Australia's Cut Copy have scored one of the
year's most deliriously blissful pop records with their sophomore
album, In Ghost Colours. The band revive to stunning effect the
dance-floor-friendly but still emotionally cool new wave of New Order,
delivering dreamy ballads and ecstatic electro workouts with equal
aplomb. Binding it all together is frontman Dan Whitford's tuneful
crooning and catchy, weightless pop lyrics. Live, the band are
ringmasters, commanding drums, guitars, synths, sequencers, and
demanding kinetic response from their crowd. Countrymates the Presets
don't fare as well on their latest, Apocalypso, but their live
show, which combines hard-hitting live drumming and a phalanx of analog
synths, is still fun. ERIC GRANDY
The Dutchess & the Duke, the
Moondoggies
(Neumos) Earlier this year The Stranger declared the
Moondoggies one of Seattle's "Young Ones"—predicting the fairly
unknown but great local folk-and-more band were poised to do big things
in 2008. Looks like we made a good call with the 'Doggies. The band's
recently released full-length, Don't Be a Stranger (Hardly Art),
is the celebratory soundtrack to a summer afternoon barbecue that fades
into a bonfire jam session. The songs are played with enthusiasm, but
also a chilled-out, easy-going vibe. Unsurprisingly, Don't Be a
Stranger has been one of the best-selling Northwest records for
weeks in local record stores. MEGAN SELING
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