DEGENERATE ART ENSEMBLE
The Bastress
(Tellous)

The first time I heard Nina Hagen's "Nunsexmonkrock" was on three hits of acid in a Spokane Nazi's art studio. This new Degenerate Art Ensemble record induces more musical-genetic transmutation than that experience ever did. The Bastress, the seventh album of the 12-year-old, nine-member collective sounds totally new, vividly recreating the death hallucinations of a decaying city in their noise-streams. Haruko Nishimura's senses-snaring vocals play as one of the instruments. Her husband, Joshua Kohl, conducts while long-time member Josh Stewart plays trumpet and sings; together the trio score and compose with the band (which for now includes the equally ubiquitous and adventurous Jherek Bischoff). The music is great, controlled-to-the-point-of-madness psych-noir, as Nishimura squeals, shrieks, scats, and shines throughout. Kohl constructs cacophony through the Shostakovich-meets-bebop of "Tits and Honey (AKA James Taylor)," and the grunting and spinning skronk of "Smoking Car" (inspired by a Bukowski poem).

Don't miss their October 1st show, as Nishimura (also of the Butter Sprites) uses her formal Butoh-dancing training to twitch and flow every part of her body and startle the audience with visual caresses and suggested internalized violence. The band will be restored to the nine-piece that recorded this (their most accessible, but still mind-fucking) album. As with any DAE show, you will be forced to respond somehow with and against those around you—personally, I haven't seen club-goers induced to react to a band as they have to DAE since the final days of GG Allin. CHRIS ESTEY

Degenerate Art Ensemble perform Sat Oct 1 at ConWorks, 8 pm, $5–$15 sliding scale.

BLACKALICIOUS
The Craft
(Anti/Quannum)

Much like Outkast, Blackalicious are truly a study in the evolution of hiphop artistry. From Melodica's jazzy stylings to Nia's warm intimacy to the searing genius of Blazing Arrow and onward, you can trace a certain trajectory best summed up by the title of Gift of Gab's solo offering, 4th Dimensional Rocketships Going Up. This is that group, rare within this hiphop shit, that shuns conventionality at every turn, yet never comes up with something only suited for a few ("Just because we out there/it don't mean we don't care"). They're left of center, but so immediately accessible, they make one wonder how the center got so far moved to the right in the first place.

Aptly titled The Craft, Gift and Chief Xcel's fifth album is a testament to their skill—at the top of their game, they're no longer hung up on lung-busting, head-cracking shows of virtuosity. By simply making good music they demonstrate their mastery of the art form. Gift's delivery alone is enough to peel ya back (as on the jittery "Rhythm Sticks"), let alone his actual lyrics ("Ripple thru skin and thru tissue fix you elixirs that might lift your peripheral vision"). Xcel's beats are leaner this time around, but he's subtle-mashing swampy funk bass, ominous keys, and spacey rock up into pure gravy (just peep the expansive "The Rise and Fall of Elliot Brown," where 808 snares give way to jazz-funk synths and Tower of Power–esque horns). This may be their most radio-ready LP, but it nonetheless doesn't stray one bit from their themes of self-knowledge and redemption. The Craft creeps, wails, and exalts with its own unique tang; this is food for thought, you do the dishes. LARRY MIZELL JR.

Blackalicious perform Sun Oct 2 at Neumo's, 8 pm, $15, all ages.

M83
M83
(Mute/Gooom)
1/2

With the reissue of M83's eponymous 2001 debut disc, it's clear that this French band (now down to original member Anthony Gonzalez) is on the same career trajectory as Iceland's Sigur Rós. Both artists debuted with their most adventurous (and best) albums; both dropped sophomore efforts of much more expansive scope that exposed them to much wider audiences; and both have since created music that's become increasingly bombastic and saccharine—and more popular. Funny how that works.

Before Gonzalez was left to his own vices [sic] following the release of 2003's ballyhooed Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, he and bandmate Nicolas Fromageau seemed to be striving for an ambitious amalgam of Boards of Canada's blissfully blunted triphop and My Bloody Valentine's enwombing guitar miasma (but achieved through battalions of keyboards that would make Vangelis jealous). When M83's good—"Kelly," "I'm Getting Closer," "She Stands Up"—it's fabulous enough to convince you of the inspirational power of judiciously multitracked synthesizers. When it's bad, it'll rot your ears with enough melodrama to fuel a decade's worth of soap operas. As with Sigur Rós, it's often a case of too much air and not enough earth in the mix. DAVE SEGAL

M83 perform Sat Oct 1, Neumo's, 6 pm, $20 adv, 21+.

THE DOUBLE
Loose in the Air
(Matador)

On paper, the Double's latest release, Loose in the Air, could have been trouble. Newly signed to Matador, the foursome (a doubling of the original guitar-and-drums duo) have in the past released a dark, multi-layered chaos of distorted Doors-like organ, weird bits of guitar shrapnel, and a rumbling, halting bass. Bands that drone and blurp like this can slip into noise band obscurity, or worse, pull back their own curtain to reveal little more than weirded-up Britney pop. But putting aside the matter of their glaring talent, the Double are different. Jeff McLeod's phenomenal, pounding drums organize the sprawl into something purely rocking, and frontman David Greenhill's arresting vocals give the rock a beautiful, eerie emotional core. It's dark and spastic, yes, but somehow bright and tight, too.

The Brooklyn band has been likened to the Zombies, presumably for their excavation of haunting, catchy melodies from an otherwise experimental sound. The problem with this comparison is that the Double are way weirder. Loose in the Air summons something gorgeous and deliberate from its own riot. Over the course of these songs, things fall apart, all loose in the air, but then reassemble expertly—and suddenly there's Greenhill dying a little with an oddly touching breathiness, singing, "We're on our way, we're on our way." CHRIS COLIN

The Double perform Sat Oct 1 at the Crocodile, 9 pm, $10.

THE USA IS A MONSTER
Wohaw
(Load)
1/2

After being pegged as Load's math-rock component with 2003's Tasheyana Compost, the USA Is a Monster return with Wohaw. It's another slab of complicated time-signature survey, heavy-handed percussion, chanted missives, and infatuation with Native American culture and spirituality. Now a duo, the USA Is a Monster have been through various incarnations, at one time boasting seven members, and, during one productive summer in 2000, recording three albums in as many months. Much like labelmates Lightning Bolt, founding members Colin Matthews (guitar, vocals) and Tom Hohmann (drums), seem bound to each other musically, deftly veering Wohaw's sharp corners and jagged, angular compositions with unified precision. Without aping influences, the harder numbers channel elements of Shellac and the Minutemen into unpredictable formulas of rock deconstruction. Matthews's mostly chanted or spoken vocals are often of a patently activist bent ("The world's leaders do not have the best intentions in regards to the survival of the planet and the majority of the human species," from "All the World's Leaders Must Die"), but his off-key delivery and often baffling lyrical meticulousness eliminate any sense of lecture. Wohaw also finds the boys mellowing considerably, taking a campfire-side-peyote-high of a detour through the acoustic drone-picking of "Poland" and the hallucinatory ramblings of "Built the Fire," only to return to turbulent salvos by the record's end. GRANT BRISSEY

FIERY FURNACES
Rehearsing My Choir
(Rough Trade)

You might call Rehearsing My Choir a junior slump. After the devastating one-two K.O. of Gallowsbird's Bark and Blueberry Boat, Fiery Furnaces were perhaps due for a dip in quality. (The interim release EP also has some great moments.) While not by any means awful, Choir succumbs to the sort of wrongheaded indulgences that often afflict groups who've won widespread critical acclaim from the get-go and who operate on indie labels that give them carte blanche in the studio. (More power to the Furnaces' Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger for securing such creative autonomy.)

The most obviously misguided decision here is for the Friedbergers to give their grandmother, Olga Sarantos, the mic. Yes, she's a trained musician who used to lead a choir, but that doesn't mean her voice should be recorded in 2005. Her strained, manly sprechstimme surfaces in tandem with her granddaughter throughout the album, preventing immersion in the Furnaces' quirkily rococo prog-pop backing. The story—related in dramatic dialogue between Eleanor and Olga—concerns a woman's quest for artistic success in 20th-century Chicago. It's fairly engrossing, as are many of the hugely ambitious songs here, with their quicksilver transitions and panoply of bizarre Mort Garson/Gershon Kingsley–esque keyboard emissions that underscore the theatrics. It's a shame, though, that the music's brazen distinctiveness is dissipated by the overbearing thespianism. DAVE SEGAL

Fiery Furnaces perform Mon Oct 3, Neumo's, 8 pm, $15, all-ages balcony.

DENGUE FEVER
Escape from Dragon House
(M80/Birdman Recording Group)

It normally bodes ill—literally—when you Google a band name, and the first website returned is the Centers for Disease Control homepage. But despite nicking their moniker from a mosquito-borne ailment that causes intense headache and muscle pains, this sextet isn't some sadistic industrial act decked out in off-the-rack latex fetish gear. Inspired by Cambodian pop of the '60s, which bears the heavy imprint of U.S. garage and psychedelic rock from the same era, these Los Angeles cult favorites roll out catchy ditties featuring serpentine saxophone melodies, generous lashings of Farfisa organ, and drums that will leave you with a severe case of funky butt (albeit not the kind that the CDC concerns itself with). So what sets the group apart from catchy Motor City retro-rockers like the Come Ons, and a million other fans of the Nuggets box set? Singer Chhom Nimol, a bona fide Cambodian pop veteran, who warbles and trills in Khmer (although a couple numbers feature brief English asides, like "hold me close to you tonight..."), elevating this already formidable combo to an entirely different plateau of excellence. Escape from Dragon House is one instance where being left feeling dislocated and delirious by exposure to Fever is a wonderful thing indeed. KURT B. REIGHLEY

Dengue Fever perform Thurs Sept 29 at the High Dive, 8 pm, $5, 21+.

Beer Guts
Beer Goggles
Beer Bongs
Beer Nuts