GET PHYSICAL TO BOOKA SHADE'S SLEEK TECH-HOUSE
German duo Booka Shade excel at sleek, understated house and techno that's more about dulcet melodies insinuating themselves into your ears than beats battering you into dance-floor submission. Sure, Booka Shade's output is danceable (they are mainstays of the Get Physical label, after all), but it has more staying power than most club music because they're acute artisans of texture, tune, and rhythm who avoid obvious, played-out tropes. Robert DeLong moved from the Seattle metro area to Los Angeles, and his musical career's taken off with support from influential SoCal radio stations KROQ and KCRW. DeLong's glossy synth-pop compositions feature his fragile white-boy vocals and rudimentary beats, although he occasionally veers into drum 'n' bass, dubstep, and moombahton modes—and a house version of Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al." Showbox at the Market, 8:30 pm, $25 adv/$30 DOS, all ages.
LOCAL ELECTRONIC UNDERGROUND STARS AIRPORT, BLACK HAT, AND BANKIE PHONES
If you want to get an efficient overview of Seattle's fertile, febrile electronic underground, get your ass to Electric Tea Garden tonight, as three of the city's most interesting knob-twisters strut their galvanizing stuff. As mentioned in these pages before, Black Hat (aka Nelson Bean) delivers a particularly rugged, noisy strain of dance music that melds elements of great old-school industrial and IDM—although "Jaune," from the new Covalence EP, is a mellow, gorgeous exception. Bankie Phones (aka GIF master Frankie Crescioni) is a cunning producer of electro that's by turns fun and sinister. Finally, Airport (Midday Veil bassist Jayson Kochan) is celebrating the release of his 12-inch EP on Debacle Records, Sweat/Pleasure, which comes with a remix by Kochan's TJ Max bandmate Mood Organ. For "Sweat," think Giorgio Moroder crossed with Goblin, space disco that's as hellish as it is heavenly, as metronomic as it is soulful. The dreamily bleepy "Pleasure" captures the slow-motion vertigo of falling in lust. Mood Organ's rejigging of "Sweat" is as exciting as watching Star Wars is to a 13-year-old (I've never seen it, so this is pure speculation). With Magisterial. Electric Tea Garden, 9 pm, $5, 21+.
BEN UFO'S DJ SETS ARE OUT OF THIS WORLD
One of three heads behind the excellent Hessle Audio label, Ben UFO is a highly in-demand British DJ who's a canny mixer of disparate genres. His recent entry in the Fabric series proves this, with moving tracks by Herbert, Blawan, Kyle Hall, Mr. Fingers, Shackleton, and Fluxion copacetically commingling. Fantastic booking by Nordic Soul and Recess for the Flash weekly. With Ben Tactic. Q Nightclub, 8 pm, $10, 21+.
