SUSSANAH BLUHM'S PLACELESS PLACES
Susanna Bluhm @ G. Gibson Gallery
The landscape is a lover in Susanna Bluhm’s juicy, semiabstract paintings. They’re made of “weird personal stuff,” she says, “abstract painting and sex… Green means something. Squishy means something.” These are the kinds of pieces that make you wonder how something could look so little like a place yet still take you there, right inside the cabins and trees and on the trails of Yosemite, for instance. Bluhm won this year’s Neddy award, and you should see why. JEN GRAVES
HEART-PALPATATING TECHNO AND EERIE ATMOSPHERES AT MOTOR XIX
MOTOR XIX @ Kremwerk
The 19th edition of MOTOR is going to be a corker. Portland-based headliner Best Available Technology (aka Kevin Palmer) is celebrating the release of his new EP, Neon Razor Chain, which should be a fixture on best-of-2014 lists. It’s a sterling example of eerie atmospheres and in-the-red, filthy distortion merging with foreboding techno beats. Besides his ingenious noisy-techno-oriented exploits, B.A.T. excels at the sort of uneasy-yet-calming ambient music Brian Eno perfected on records like The Shutov Assembly and Neroli. Seattle’s Mood Organ (Timm Mason, who also plays in psych-rock ensembles Midday Veil and Master Musicians of Bukkake) has been applying his highbrow, abstract synth machinations toward more dance-floor-geared workouts, gaining the kind of hedonistic sweat equity heard in his gigs with Airport under the TJ Max handle. Better known as one of the city’s best psych-rock and ambient-music DJs, Explorateur is making her MOTOR debut tonight. DAVE SEGAL
- Kelly O
THE CHAMELEONIC AND ELECTRIC ERIK BLOOD
Erik Blood & Guests @ Sunset Tavern
The versatile and vital Erik Blood has put his fingerprints on a not-insignificant amount of Seattle’s most interesting music these past few years, and it should surprise no one that his solo career is just as idiosyncratic and alchemical. His most recent album was the lauded Touch Screens, a pornography-addled rock/pop gem that was as fascinating for its subject matter as it was for witnessing Blood transform himself into a legit frontman. He’s since released volume one of Canons, a collection of mostly instrumental works fusing ambient, experimental electronics, and shoegaze into explanation-defying, sumptuous, and subtle grooves. Even at this point in his storied career, however, one can’t help expecting even greater things from Blood. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the smart money says his magnum opus, his Grand Artistic Statement, is still to come. Perhaps we’ll get a glimpse of it this evening. KYLE FLECK
DARK, EXHILARTING COMEDY FROM MARIA BAMFORD
Maria Bamford @ Neptune
No one delivers an "Uhhhhhhhhhh" quite like Maria Bamford, and nobody has ever done impressions of phlegmy fathers and mall-walking bitchez in such a perfect and dark and exhilaratingly bizarre way. She is possibly a genius. LINDY WEST
A TRILOGY OF TALENTED WRITERS
Ryan Boudinot, Christian Winn and Charles Finn @ Phinney Books
This is an evening of readings from three authors, co-presented by Dock Street Press. Boudinot is an author and a primary advocate for getting Seattle officially designated as a UNESCO City of Literature, Finn is the editor of High Desert Journal, and Winn's most recent compilation of stories, Naked Me, has four nipples on the cover.
Get thee out.