FRIDAY JUNE 17
LUSINE, CODEBASE, DJ RECESS
Seattle producer Lusine improves with each show and each show is different, which makes me (and Decibel’s Sean Horton, who suggested the idea) wish he’d record his live sets and release ’em. Until then, you’d best catch every Lusine performance you can, as he burnishes tech-house, glitch-hop, IDM, and ambient through his refined sensibilities. Fellow locals Codebase and Recess can always be counted on to rock a party with equal parts smarts, rambunctiousness, and derring-do. Nectar, 412 N 36th St, 632-2020, 9 pm-2 am, $6, 21+.
SATURDAY JUNE 18
KILL MEMORY CRASH, JERRY ABSTRACT
Chicago duo Kill Memory Crash forge a sinewy brand of industrial/EBM that can appeal to both techno and IDM heads-a rare feat. Their second album, American Automatic (Ghostly International), vastly improves on KMC’s 2003 debut, When the Blood Turns Black. KMC’s beats are dance-floor-ready and the textures crunchy and warped enough to curl Richard Devine fans’ toes. They’re one of the few groups to work the malevolent-robot shtick without sounding like nimrods. Seattleite Jerry Abstract, who records for Germany’s Shitkatapult Records, grinds out his own brilliant strains of knarz-techno, which, roughly speaking, sounds like a chainsaw cutting through rivers of tar-very metronomically. With Kristina Childs and Paul Edwards. Mantra Lounge, 210 Washington St, 652-0981, 9 pm-2 am, 21+, $10.
WEDNESDAY JUNE 22
MOCEAN WORKER, L’ALTRA, HAKEA
By dint of being the spawn of renowned jazz producer Joel Dorn, Mocean Worker (Adam Dorn) has access to many of the genre’s elite players and primo archives. The son capitalizes on his good fortune on his latest album, Enter the MoWo! Such live and deceased greats as David Newman, Bill Frisell, Roland Kirk, and Nina Simone embellish Mocean Worker’s spacious, lounge-y jazz-funk. The disc achieves a pleasing balance between nuanced reverence and jaunty fun. Cincinnati MC Napoleon Maddox joins Mocean Worker tonight. L’Altra consist of ex-lovers Lindsay Anderson and Joseph Costa, but they eschew soap-opera melodrama for understated poptronica located in the swoony nexus where Mum, Her Space Holiday, and countless morose divas mope. L’Altra will be supporting their third dose of MOR-ish melancholia, Different Days. Chop Suey, 1325 E Madison St, 324-8000, 9 pm-2 am, $7, 21+.
