WEDNESDAY 3/11
HAS EX-TACOMA ELECTRO STAR ELIOT LIPP LOST HIS EDGE?
Bursting with 253 pride, electronic producer Eliot Lipp named his 2006 album on John Hughes III's Hefty label Tacoma Mockingbird. I hear you groaning, but its tight, rhythmically springy, and deceptively melodic electro tracks punch above their weight. His self-titled 2004 debut on Prefuse 73's Eastern Developments pops, locks, and does the splits with the sort of lithe-limbed funkiness you'd expect from glitch-hop maestro Guillermo Scott Herren. Later work like 2009's Peace Love Weed 3D (every track lasts 4:20) on Lipp's own Old Tacoma imprint slants toward the crasser, stiffer end of '80s-electro fetishizing, but the last half of the album loosens up and becomes trippier and sexier. (Tip to musicians: Add more of both these qualities to your songs for the overall betterment of humankind.) I'd lost track of Lipp since Peace, and his 2014 full-length, Watch the Shadows, makes me feel that I've not missed much. Change can be good, but Shadows sounds like a descent into bland fodder for Orange County strip-mall dance clubs. Hope this is just a blip and not a permanent dip for Lipp. With StéLouse, Late Night Radio, and Justin Hartinger. Q Nightclub, 9 pm–3 am, $10 adv, 21+.
THURSDAY 3/12
MOTOR HOSTS STRATEGY AND APARTMENT FOX'S WONKY AND DEEP TECHNO/HOUSE
Over the last dozen years, Portland producer Strategy (aka Paul Dickow) has established himself as one of the Northwest's premier shape-shifting musicians. Post-rock and IDM fans may know him for his stellar keyboard work in Kranky Records bands Fontanelle and Nudge. But it's as a solo artist where Strategy really excels, as he makes genres like dub, ambient, and house sound heady and sexy in fresh ways. Direct your ears to "Dilemmas," off Strategy's self-titled 2102 LP on Peak Oil, for proof of his hypnotic approach to dubby space rock. While his excellent new album for Seattle's Further Records, Noise Tape Self, explores Strategy's experimental ambient tendencies to compelling effect, he will likely be dropping his wonderfully wonky dance jams for this edition of MOTOR. Anyone who caught his 2013 Debacle Fest appearance knows how sweetly Strategy can levitate a dance floor. Portlander Apartment Fox's techno and house tracks soar into deep space with the sort of cosmic whoosh that would impress Juan Atkins and Plastikman circa Sheet One. With Bankie Phones and AOS. Kremwerk, 8 pm, $5, 21+.
KLANGKARUSSELL'S SUNSHINY HOUSE ANTHEMS
The reliably bumpin' Studio 4/4 weekly brings in Austrian production/DJ duo Klangkarussell this week. They push a populist brand of emotionally resonant house music, scoring a huge hit with "Sonnentanz," which has racked up almost 19 million views on YouTube. Their DJ sets seem to delve into deeper grooves. With Wesley Holmes, FooFou, and Pinky Promise. Q Nightclub, 9 pm, $10, 21+. 
