- Søren Solkær
- Belle and Sebastian won’t be at the dance party, but their cardigan- and beret-clad fans will.
BELLE AND SEBASTIAN DANCE PARTY
Thurs Jan 29 at 8 pm at Vermillion
Glasgow’s feelings-pop purveyors Belle and Sebastian gently released a new album on January 19 called Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance. Though I wouldn’t say we’re in “peacetime” at the moment, I can bet that girls and boys in cardigans, plaids, and berets want to dance (and, at times, not dance) to Belle and Sebastian’s emotionally literate discography at this dance party. The press release promised the DJ would be “starting with general good stuff and ending with the danceable stuff.” And you’re in luck—the latest album is arguably the most danceable to date. Bring your best friend, if she wants you.
- Iska Dhaaf: Once inspired by Sufi poetry.
ISKA DHAAF
Thurs Jan 29 at 8 pm at Crocodile
Iska Dhaaf (who, despite a move last fall to NYC, are still a Seattle group) make complex, subtle melodies originally inspired by Sufi poetry—a form of prose sometimes used in private devotional readings—and religious lyrics. Grave Babies make tense, gothic post-punk that, despite all its melancholy, makes you feel strangely alive. Newaxeyes, the newest act in this lineup, are a quartet making genre-defying sounds together for a little over a year. They use obscure samples and break many rules, and come out sounding like nothing else but themselves.
- seattlefortunesbonesproject.org
- This is the skull of Fortune, an enslaved African whose remains were used for research and display.
ETHICS AND HUMAN REMAINS
Thurs Jan 29, 7–8:30 pm at Burke Museum
For four years until the bones of three human beings were returned to Peru by the Burke Museum this November, actual human bones were just sitting in storage in a museum, in a country that wasn’t theirs, far away from wherever they belonged or ever were while they lived. Collectors used to think it just fine to dig up human bones at archaeological sites, and ship them to wherever. Now what do museums do with what they have? What are the rules? This is a panel discussion about just that, and it ought to be both enlightening and dark.
- Local author Sharma Shields.
SHARMA SHIELDS
Thurs Jan 29 at 7 pm at Elliott Bay Book Company
The local author reads from her new novel, Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac, which looks to be the first promising local book of 2015.
- Sussie Ahlburg
- Conductor Ludovic Morlot.
MASTERPIECES BY RACHMANINOV AND IVES
Thurs Jan 29 at 7:30 pm at Benaroya Hall
Seattle Symphony, conducted by Ludovic Morlot and featuring pianist Denis Kozhukhin, performs Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Ives’s Fourth Symphony. Pre-concert talk one hour prior to performance.
See all of today’s top picks in The Stranger‘s Things to Do calendar. Planning ahead? Here are the top events…
ON FRIDAY…
- He used to play in Harry Pussy.
BILL ORCUTT, BILL HORIST, AND SEAN CURLEY
Fri Jan 30 at 9 pm at Machine House Brewery
Where do you go after leaving a band like Harry Pussy, one of the noisiest, most chaotic/cathartic rock bands America ever produced? HP guitarist Bill Orcutt decided to opt for an acoustic-based approach that swaps out traumatizing feedback for a more nuanced, knotty folk-blues style that’s practically no-wave-ish in its angularity and prickliness. His exhilarating music tweaks tradition with a surly and speedy iconoclasm. Tonight, he performs on a bill with fellow guitar antiheroes Bill Horist and Sean Curley.
See all of Friday’s top picks in The Stranger‘s Things to Do calendar.
ON SATURDAY…
- A huge nerd living the nerd dream.
PATTON OSWALT: OFF THE PAGE
Sat Jan 31 at 7:30 pm at Town Hall
Patton Oswalt is not just one of the smartest, funniest comedians in the business, he’s also a huge nerd who’s living the nerd dream, from scoring guest roles on superhero TV shows to ad-libbing awesome fan-fiction rants on Parks and Recreation. (He also filmed the world’s most awkward sex scene with Charlize Theron.) Tonight, Seattle Arts & Lectures brings Oswalt to town to discuss his newest book, Silver Screen Fiend, a biography of the pre-fame Oswalt, back in the days when he’d obsessively watch movies and fail at stand-up routines.
See all of Saturday’s top picks in The Stranger‘s Things to Do calendar.