SATURDAY 9/27

S: A VERY COOL CHOICE

Getting her start in the '90s with sadcore weep-rockers Carissa's Wierd, Jenn Ghetto is already a sad-pop superhero. Her latest solo effort as S, Cool Choices, is shaping up to be one of the year's best local releases. Ghetto's sweetly sung melancholia is almost undetectable amid breezy pop melodies and her nimble guitar playing, but the album still sounds positively bummed (in a good way). Released September 23 through Sub Pop subsidarlings Hardly Art—and produced by ex–Death Cab for Cutie guitarist Chris Walla—Cool Choices is a slyly heartbreaking (yet sing-along-able) slice of sublime confessional pop that's almost happy to be sad. The night also glitters with pervasively catchy garage rock from Deep Creep, Seattle hospital-gown-sporting super-trio Childbirth, and recent bedroom-pop-punk transplant Lisa Prank. Black Lodge, 8:30 pm.

MONDAY 9/29

WHIRR'S OPULENT POWER-GAZE

Bay Area nu-gazers Whirr (featuring former Deafheaven guitarist Nick Bassett) skillfully avoid the shoegaze genre's usual MBV/Slowdive-inspired tropes. Recorded at Atomic Garden with Sunbather producer Jack Shirley, Sway is a heavy feat for indie rock's sexiest subgenre. It's an opulent power-gaze opus and is instantly one of the year's best releases for this reviewer. The album is a fine testament to shoegaze 20-plus years after it emerged: a shimmering, heavenly bit of post-gaze with spacious guitars, soft/loud extremes, and a surreal expansiveness that will appeal to delay-loving daydreamers and post-metal/-rock heads alike. Get very lost in Whirr's expansive guitar bliss and possibly enter a 'gaze-induced fever dream at the Seattle Center tonight. With local space-dwelling post-rockers Glass Tunnels, emo-tinged Northwest indie rock-gazers Special Explosion, and Tacoma's emotively charged Middle English dabblers Lo' There Do I See My Brother. Vera Project, 7 pm, $10 adv/$12 DOS.

ALSO RECOMMENDED

Friday, September 26: 100% Silk signees Golden Donna will be chilling Cairo tonight with dance-ready synths while labelmates Cherushii will inspire a full-on Detroit techno/Italo-disco/Hi-NRG get-down. Chicago's '80s-minimal-wave-channeling Reaches and locals Youryoungbody add even more electro ice to this mesh-and-lace-covered night. Cairo, 8 pm.