(Town Hall) The name Tomo Nakayama is often followed by the words "of Grand Hallway," but every time I've seen this gifted singer-songwriter he's been making music all by himself. Most recently, I saw Nakayama at the Harvard Exit, where he filled the screen while performing a song in a crucial scene from Lynn Shelton's film Touchy Feely. Immediately after the screening, he stood before the packed house and sang an a cappella rendition of the Judy Garland standard "The Man That Got Away." Tonight, Tomo Nakayama wraps up his residency at Town Hall with a performance, during which he'll premiere new songs alongside a short documentary on how his new album was influenced by the Town Hall building and its surrounding neighborhood. (Also, check out his cover of the Rolling Stones’ "I Am Waiting," on the recently released Wes Anderson tribute album I Saved Latin!) DAVID SCHMADER
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(Neumos) UK electro-pop act Metronomy craft satin-smooth, urbane little tunes whose stylistic polyamory finds them flirting with everything from vintage go-go to lite-kraut pulses. The production’s squeaky-clean, to the point where it almost feels as if principal songwriter Joseph Mount’s taken sandpaper to anything that could considered a rough edge. And while normally that’d make for rather bland music, Metronomy are going for a very specific, cosmopolitan sheen, not down-and-dirty dance music. Think a slightly more rocking Hot Chip, or maybe a less cheeky Chromeo. Metronomy is music for deleting e-mails to, while sipping an Americano. Opening act Cloud Control will adequately prime your mind with their woozy take on pompous, early-’70s psych. KYLE FLECK
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Stoner metal-punks Big Business use songs as weapons of massive riff deconstruction, and do it better than pretty much anyone else right now. Originally formed in Seattle, the furiously rocking duo fled to LA's significantly less green, er, pastures in 2006. But tonight, the now-trio will be wreaking methodical havoc on the Seattle Center all-ages haven Vera Project. Big Business's earth-crumbling brand of sludge is executed with no apologies and should appeal to a wide variety of heavy-music enthusiasts. The trio's hell-bent-yet-controlled chaos shatters eardrums and minds with an unyielding velocity, so don't forget to bring the necessary protection. Fortunate showgoers of the first leg of their appropriately named Situation Awesome! tour also get the super-bonus of Portland's heavy-metal titans Red Fang, but for the tail-end Northwest leg—deemed Situation Business by the band—they are backed by more thunderous and groovy riffage from bong-clad party-warlocks American Sharks. This will be some seriously awesome heavy sludge business you will not want to miss. Vera Project, 7:30 pm, $12 adv/$15 DOS. BRITTNIE FULLER
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(Nectar) Thomas Mapfumo is known as the “lion of Zimbabwe.” He’s one of two musicians from that country who have a global reputation. His best songs, like “Hanzvadi,” blend the Afropop sound of Harare with the traditional rhythms of the mbira (thumb piano). The actual function of the mbira is to bring into presence the spirits of men and women from a world that has long vanished (“mbira dzavadzimu”), a world that was not timeless but moved at a much slower pace of time. Old mbira music speaks to this old time that was organized by the seasons (dry and wet), ruled by kings and heroes, and haunted by evil forests and spirit lions (mhondoro). The one thing that Zimbabwe shall remember Mapfumo for is being the first man to properly fix onto the rhythms of this ancient music the modern pulse of electric/urban/global guitars. CHARLES MUDEDE
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And here's all our recommended music events—tonight, tomorrow, this weekend, and beyond!