Wednesday 2/6

Ghost Mice, Your Heart Breaks, Theo Grizol, Living Rheum

(Heartland) See Underage.

Shelter: Pyschemagik, Slowpoke DJs, Trouble

(Q) See Data Breaker.

Adam Green & Binki Shapiro

(Barboza) Adam Green (ex–Moldy Peaches) and Binki Shapiro (ex–Little Joy) recently paired up to make an album of duets that project a sweet and civilized chemistry. Their arrangements showcase the duo's charming vocals (Shapiro's crystalline croon, Green's peppery baritone) and ability to channel the likes of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood. Tales of heartbreak—though written tongue-in-cheek enough to avoid being a bummer—lilt along in an assured '60s-pop style, carefully reflecting on the messy components of love and breaking up. After they spill it all out, it's hard not to think that they should just forget those failed relationships and date each other already! EMILY NOKES

Thursday 2/7

JK Pop!: Atasha Manila

(Barboza) See Stranger Suggests.

Motor: Bankie Phones, Airport, Crystal Hell Pool, Xua, DJ Slow, Jon Carr

(Electric Tea Garden) See Data Breaker.

Soundgarden

(Paramount) Soundgarden do not fuck around. After rising to the tippy-top of the American hard-rock heap in the mid-'90s, the band stopped having fun and called it quits in 1997. A decade and a half later, Soundgarden decided to rev up again, and from its first notes, the new King Animal announces itself as a sibling to Superunknown. Steeped in the great tradition of melodic headbanging rock for nonstupid people, these are songs that sound great on first listen. And they'll mix perfectly well with the many grunge-era classics the band is sure to dish out tonight (and tomorrow). DAVID SCHMADER

Juan de Marcos and the Afro-Cuban All Stars

(Jazz Alley) Composer/bandleader Juan de Marcos González, along with Ry Cooder and other musicians, reintroduced the erotic beauty of classical Cuban jazz to the United States and Europe with the album Buena Vista Social Club, which was released in 1997. In the summer of 1999, the year Wim Wenders's documentary of the same name entered theaters, I found myself looking for a party in Linz, Austria, at around 4 a.m. I finally found that party after 5 a.m. It was in a loft on the second floor of a building in the west part of the small city. The sun was brightening the sky as I walked up the stairs and entered the loft. People, however, were no longer partying but sleeping, snoring, and dreaming on couches and the floor. But the bar was still open—one man was serving and another one drinking. The stereo behind the bar was playing the first tune on Buena Vista Social Club, "Chan Chan." I sat at the bar, ordered a glass of wine, and, while drinking, listened to the sex, sorrow, and sun that slowly flowed out of the speaker. Cubans know how to make love; Cubans know how to make music. CHARLES MUDEDE

Charms, Chastity Belt, Week of Wonders, Shogun Barbie

(Chop Suey) The pineapple-flavored tropi-pop of Week of Wonders is exactly what my ears needed in order to tell my brain that summer is a real concept. Somewhere the sun is shining—people might even be getting sunburns! Featuring ex–Orca Team and Torn ACLs members, Week of Wonders spill reverbed-out vocals and glittery guitar over a constant conga-line beat—you could swish your hips in a grass skirt to this, no problem. Speaking of hip-swishing, the very danceable Chastity Belt will also be there to keep you warm with their catchy-as-fuck, angst-laced jams. EMILY NOKES

Seattle Improvised Music Festival

(Chapel Performance Space) At 27 years old, this boasts of being the longest-running festival of its kind in North America. Performers come from Seattle, Tokyo, Berlin, British Columbia, Philadelphia, Portland, and elsewhere, and even they do not know what is going to happen before it does. Through February 9. JEN GRAVES

Friday 2/8

Soundgarden

(Paramount) See Thursday.

White Murder, Red Liquid, Sioux City Pete and the Beggars, Murder in the Wood

(Black Lodge) See Underage.

OM, Sir Richard Bishop

(Highline) I know you're not going to believe this, but one of the year's best shows is going to happen at a vegan bistro/bar. Bay Area trio OM have morphed from theosophical doom-metal minimalists to theosophical psych-drone minimalists boosted by an uncorny Eastern mysticism. They're so heavy, they're featherlight. Ain't nobody like 'em. Master guitarist Sir Richard Bishop is a national treasure whose sound is international. He's revivified the ye olde American baroque-folk convolutions of John Fahey and his acolytes, but his 10 dexterous, articulate digits speak fluently in Arabic, Central European, North African, spaghetti western, raga, drone, and other modes, too. Experiencing the fluidity, beauty, and inventiveness of Bishop's playing is spiritually revelatory. DAVE SEGAL See also Stranger Suggests.

Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground, Cascadia '10, Emerald City Soul Club

(Columbia City Theater) By now a Seattle institution, Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground are a sprawling ensemble that finesse a grandiloquent psychedelic pop that sounds like Van Dyke Parks conducting the Polyphonic Spree—but with more soul. It's overachieving glee in motion. Another large local unit, Cascadia '10 carry Fela Kuti's unfuckwithable Afrobeat torch with bravado, transporting you to Lagos circa 1975 with roiling funk beats, snaky bass lines, and celebratory horn charts. Finally, the seasoned DJs of Emerald City Soul Club know more about old soul 45s than your dad, and they spin the great rare ones that often cost more than your monthly drug budget. DAVE SEGAL

Thao & the Get Down Stay Down

(Sonic Boom) I hate the term "girl crush," because who gives a shit if, as a woman, your crush is on a girl or a boy? That said, I have a total no-pronoun-necessary crush on multi-instrumentalist Thao Nguyen of Thao & the Get Down Stay Down. She is at once folk, punk, feminine, and badass. She has collaborated with Mirah and the Portland Cello Project, and she totally nailed a cover of "Push It" with Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein as her backup band. Be my best friend, okay, Thao? We can make cupcakes and listen to records, and it'll be like an episode of Girls but without the insufferable conversation and constant bad decisions. MEGAN SELING

Saturday 2/9

Unnatural Helpers, La Luz, Lonesome Shack

(20/20 Cycle) See preview.

Matt Carlson, Panabrite, Secret Colors

(Cairo) See Underage and Data Breaker.

Sound Off! Semifinals, Round 1

(EMP) See preview.

Dancing on the Valentine: Adra Boo, Daniel G. Harmann & the Trouble Starts, Erik Blood, Fox and the Law, Head Like a Kite, Panama Gold, more

(Neumos) Dancing on the Valentine has become a wonderful annual tradition, gracefully put together by local candy heart Jenny George. She beat leukemia several years ago (kicked its ass, really), and now every year for her birthday she throws a big ol' party to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. This year, the event will celebrate the music of the Cure—swoon!—and the impressive lineup will include performances from Adra Boo of Fly Moon Royalty, Daniel G. Harmann & the Trouble Starts, Erik Blood, Fox and the Law, Head Like a Kite, Lesli Wood, Vox Mod, and more. Tease up your hair, smear some eyeliner down your face, and come get weird. MEGAN SELING

Sunday 2/10

Hot Water Music

(Showbox at the Market) When I say, "I fucking love Hot Water Music!" what I really mean to say is "I fucking love Hot Water Music's first six albums and even a little bit of Caution, but because their music means so much to me on a personal level—seriously—I haven't been able to bring myself to listen to their post-reunion record Exister, because if it sucks, it will ruin my heart." So when I wholeheartedly recommend you go to this show and we crowd toward the stage and sing along to their gritty, anthemic rock with our fists in the air, just know I'm saying that under the guise that their new music doesn't exist and it'll be like seeing them circa 2000, before they broke up. It won't be, of course, but for the sake of my heart, let's pretend that it is. MEGAN SELING

Ononos, Stickers, Haunted Horses

(Cha Cha) Ononos were recently featured at a light-installation art festival called Onn/Of. Somehow, and very unusually, there were several formally trained dancers near the stage area when the band started playing. As if dictated by something otherworldly—something beyond individual control—these dancers collectively started doing a strange and jaunty ballet. Confusion registered on their faces, but their bodies stayed in motion. If you've yet to bear witness to Ononos's mystical multimedia spectacle, then this is your chance to do it, and to do it for free in a creepy red-lit dungeon of a basement bar. Maybe bring a flashlight. KELLY O

Monday 2/11

Enslaved, Pallbearer, Royal Thunder, Ancient Wisdom

(Highline) If the idea of "progressive Viking metal" doesn't intrigue you, stop reading this blurb now, Philistine. If it does, rejoice in the coming of Norway's Enslaved, who've been forging a particularly extravagant, chilling, and smart strain of metal since 1991. Enslaved's sound has evolved into something pretty dang symphonic and prog-rock-like on their 2012 album RIITIIR, but vocalist Grutle Kjellson still sounds like he's gargling Beelzebub's jizz when he sings certain passages, so all is well with the world. DAVE SEGAL

Tuesday 2/13

UUVVWWZ

(Sunset) See Sound Check.

Tomahawk, Retox

(Showbox at the Market) No getting around it: Tomahawk are a muzzafunkin' supergroup. Any lineup with mad vocal acrobat Mike Patton, caustic, incisive guitarist Duane Denison, powerful drum deity John Stanier, and Mr. Bungle/Secret Chiefs 3/Melvins bassist Trevor Dunn is going to induce a certain amount of awe among people who appreciate savage virtuosity. But Tomahawk's new album, Oddfellows, only their fourth in a dozen years, is, uh, oddly underwhelming. Not to imply these songs suck or anything, but the players don't seem to be even close to pushing themselves to the extent of their formidable abilities. The result is mildly quirky art rock with somewhat heavy undertones and few songs that stick in your mind after they fade out. DAVE SEGAL

Marilyn Manson, Butcher Babies

(Showbox Sodo) Don't even pretend like you don't still have a sliver of interest in your heart for old Brian Hugh Warner, aka Marilyn Manson—the latex anathema responsible for terror-stricken parents of the '90s, censorship pandemonium, and the entire detention room's bad makeup choices. Besides, there's something kind of entertaining about his whole fetished-out freak show that's essentially just mainstream pop music in a black-and-red package instead of whatever color Britney Spears's package was (hot pink and boob?). Plus, you gotta feel for the guy—maybe he doesn't even like this shit anymore! At least your Hot Topic phase quietly made way for new and better fads—Mans has to wake up and do the whole glam-corpse thing every day. EMILY NOKES

Cam'ron, Nacho Picasso

(Crocodile) Has Harlem's floor-length-fur-coat-wearing, Jay-Z/50-Cent-dissing, former-pink-Range-Rover-driving Killa Cam—platinum album selling rapper and founder of both the UN and the Diplomats, aka Dipset—EVER BEEN TO SEATTLE? I'm serious—has his royal Killa-ness ever played here? I think not! Will Seattle be able to handle such an esteemed East Coast heavy? Maybe. And only if perfectly booked opener Nacho Picasso gets the room warmed up right first. KELLY O See also My Philosophy.

This article has been updated since its original publication to correct the date of the Thao & the Get Down Stay Down show. The correct date is Friday, February 8.