THE BLACK SEEDS SPROUT
NEW ZEALAND REGGAE
The Black Seeds sell multiplatinum in their native New Zealand with reggae-tinged, electronic-soul numbers that go down easily and breezily. (Note: Platinum status = 15,000 in that country.) The new Dust and Dirt album is anything but those titular things. Rather, the Black Seeds finesse a sleek, hybrid strain of reggae that’s more about romancing than chanting down Babylon. This music will not please reggae purists, but it’s a pleasant enough diversion for casual fans of the genre and for people into mellow-vibed music that diverges into Afrobeat and funk with tasteful (maybe too tasteful) restraint. With Kore Ionz and Mighty High. Crocodile,
8 pm, $15 adv/$17 DOS, 21+.
I REFUSE TO SHUT UP ABOUT
HUSH HUSH
Because two of Seattle’s top selectors—DJ D’Nelski (aka KEXP graveyard-shifter and first-call Expansions guest host Alex Ruder) and DJAO (aka Alex Osuch, Dropping Gems and Car Crash Set recording artist)—are manning the decks to bring us more of that crucial, nocturnal, dreamy beatscaping business. If you’ve listened to Ruder’s wee-morning-hours radio slots, you know he’s mastered that oneiric flow of head-nodding, cloud-rap cuts (among many other things, of course). And DJAO is the city’s go-to producer for chopped-and-screwed everything (even Big Star tunes; stay tuned for the birth of Chiltonwave). Slow and low, that is the tempo—except when it accelerates a bit, and even then it’s very cool—and Cooly G. Living Room, 9 pm, free, 21+.
THE SEXY FUTURE BASS OF PAPER DIAMOND AND FLARELIGHT
Local crew MindField—who also runs the Juice Box monthly at Moe Bar—is bringing Colorado producer Paper Diamond and his seriously lush, sumptuously melodic post-dubstep productions. PD’s latest release, the Levitate EP (which you can download for free at www.paper-diamond.com), abounds with floridly vivid synth textures and subtly bumping beats that keep the party bubbling without lowest-common-denominatoring. Flarelight, the new project of post-crunkstep heavies Splatinum’s Adam Houghton, angles toward the more libidinous end of the future-bass spectrum, with a clever assemblage of male and female hiphop and R&B vocal samples sexing up the pneumatic rhythms and glossy keyboard tonalities. With Minnesota. Neumos, 8 pm, $12, 21+.
