Tonight’s opening party for this excellent four-day festival of underground West Coast music features Robert Wolfe’s art, Meghann Sommer’s jewels, and several short films based on the concept of “After Dark.” The next three days offer futuristic hiphop (OC Notes), loner folk (Ilyas Ahmed, Tiny Vipers, King Dude), shoegaze (Secret Colors), spiky garage rock (Idle Times), catchy indie rock (Witch Gardens, Stephanie), dubby exotica (Flexions), sublime dronescaping (Spencer Clark, White Rainbow, Ensemble Economique), and more. Tiny space, huge cultural payoff. (Cairo, 507 E Mercer, cairocollectionseattle.com, 6 pm, free, all ages)

Dave Segal is a journalist and DJ living in Seattle. He has been writing about music since 1983. His stuff has appeared in Gale Research’s literary criticism series of reference books, Creem (when...