Thursday 10/2


Silver Jews, Spiritual Family Reunion
(Neumos) See preview.

Brightblack Morning Light, Avocet
(Tractor) See Stranger Suggests.

Mark Farina
(Last Supper Club) See Stranger Suggests.

Horse Feathers, Matt Bauer
(Sunset) Horse Feathers began as the solo acoustic project of Portlander singer-songwriter Justin Ringle, but they've since grown to include multi- instrumental collaborator Peter Broderick as well as a host of live players. The band's debut album for Kill Rock Stars, House with No Home, finds Ringle and company delivering spare acoustic numbers accented by such rural signifiers as banjo, fiddle, and saw (as well as the more urbane cello, celeste, and, of course, guitar). But the focal point is always Ringle's whisper-quiet, feather-soft voice, which ranges from a low singing tone to a wounded whimper to an airy falsetto. Opener Matt Bauer's latest record, The Island Moved in the Storm, is a song cycle inspired by the case of a mysterious young girl found dead along a dirt road in Bauer's native Kentucky in 1968. So, good times. ERIC GRANDY

High Places, Ponytail, Oh Man!
(Nectar) I just conducted an unscientific survey with myself and came to the conclusion that High Places are the most interesting, distinctive American indie-rock band working today. Robert Barber and Mary Pearson compose using the surrealist creative process known as "exquisite corpse," a cumulative layering of elements generated by a participant without knowing what the previous contribution is. The 10 songs on their Thrill Jockey minialbum 03/07–09/07 sound exotic (quasi-Caribbean, perhaps) yet homespun and idiosyncratically mongrel in ways that don't feel exhausted. Their beauty is a rare thing. Baltimore's Ponytail exude outrageous exuberance, coloring outside of the indie-pop lines with cute bundles of radiant clangor. They recall tightly wound, early-'80s Scottish bands like Josef K and Fire Engines, sans British moroseness. DAVE SEGAL See also Underage.

MSTRKRFT, Felix Cartal, Congorock
(Showbox at the Market) Along with Justice, MSTRKRFT have the blog-house/nĂź-rave scene on (caps) lockdown. Toronto duo Al-P and Jesse F. Keeler crank out the sharp-toned synth motifs, snappy disco beats, and talk-boxed bittersweet nothings that reliably push the pleasure buttons of mid-'00s metro- sexual clubbers. The title "Neon Knights" (off the twosome's 2006 album The Looks) succinctly sums up MSTRKRFT's candied and 'cained '80s aesthetic. An early taster for their Fist of God full-length (out in October), "Vuvuvu" tilts MSTRKRFT into harder EBM territory, recalling Visage's "Frequency 7." It's a good look for them. Vancouver's Felix Cartal has remixed Britney Spears and Ashlee Simpson, but his own tracks lean toward corrugated, unhinged, and sinister electro. DAVE SEGAL

Friday 10/3


Jamie Lidell, Janelle Monae
(Showbox) See Data Breaker, and My Philosophy.

Gutter Dandy Gala: Orkestar Zirconium, Hot Grits!
(Free Sheep Foundation) The Free Sheep Foundation is becoming a nexus of the R&D wing of Seattle culture. It occupies decrepit buildings that are about to be demolished—a fleabag motel on Aurora, a doomed apartment building, and now an abandoned single-story building in Belltown—and turns them into mayfly clubhouses. Its charm is ephemeral and ephemera is its charms. Inside Free Sheep, you can find innovative graffiti and poster artists (NKO, No Touching Ground), anarchic theater collectives (Stranger Genius Award–winners Implied Violence), musicians (Truckasauras), dancers (Haruko Nishimura of Degenerate Art Ensemble), and more. Tonight you will find an all-black, all-lady punk band called Hot Grits!—whose cover of James Brown's "Please, Please, Please" sounds like Kathleen Hanna fronting the early Sex Pistols—and a Balkan brass marching band called Orkestar Zirkonium, who borrow members from Circus Contraption and the defunct Infernal Noise Brigade. The clubhouse, as always, will be populated by odd characters. BRENDAN KILEY

John in the Morning at Night: Two Gallants, Harvey Danger, Blue Giant, Head Like a Kite
(Neumos) Radio is a strange beast, its stations' democratic airwaves reaching anyone who tunes into their particular frequency, but rarely uniting them. KEXP has made a point of assembling its listeners in person, building a real community around its familiar voices, and boosting up-and-coming bands in the process. This time, the John in the Morning at Night show features an acoustic set by local stalwarts Harvey Danger; buzz band Two Gallants; the fuzzy, feisty sounds of Head Like a Kite; and Blue Giant, the full-band incarnation of Viva Voce's Kevin and Anita Robinson. It's a great opportunity to connect with your likeminded listeners and subject yourself to some brain-tingling music in the process. BARBARA MITCHELL

Why?, Restiform Bodies
(Vera ) Anticon made its name as a home for music that wasn't so much hiphop—underground, backpack, abstract, or otherwise—as it was music that resembled hiphop but reassembled its traits into something else entirely. Headliners and anticoners Why? long ago transcended ersatz rap, transforming into a sublime band that still exhibit some of hiphop's best verbal tics in Yoni Wolf's dexterous verses but combine them with gloomy live acoustics and songcraft that's as structurally traditional as it is sonically adventurous. Openers Restiform Bodies, though, remain more dedicated to the label's typically atypical old-school style—oblique, often breakneck raps delivered over scavenged synths, samples, and basement-crafted beats. Too frequently, though, their songs are stuffed with syllables but short on significance. ERIC GRANDY See also Stranger Suggests.

Saturday 10/4


Annea Lockwood
(Chapel Performance Space) See The Score.

The Pack, the Cataracs, Dyme Def, Fresh Espresso, DJ Marc Sense
(Nectar) See My Philosophy.

Santogold, Mates of State, Low vs Diamond
(Showbox Sodo) I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you dismiss Santogold as an M.I.A. knockoff, you're a deaf racist. The 11 songs, plus one bonus remix, on Santogold add up to one of the richest pop statements of the new millennium, a collection of tracks that begs to be played over and over. So thank God it's as good as it is, otherwise the TV ads and Gossip Girl (over)exposure might seriously threaten the pleasure. But as it is, Santogold can take it—it's smart, stylish art pop at its most durable. Tonight, the woman behind the awesomeness brings her live show to Showbox Sodo, and it should be a not-to-be-missed madhouse. DAVID SCHMADER

Grand Archives
(Neumos) Singer-guitarist Mat Brooke broke off from Band of Horses in 2006 to form Grand Archives, a subtle deviation from his previous outfit. Grand Archives create grandiose pop that uplifts through earnest, traditional methods—pleasantly chiming guitars; rousing choruses sung in a sweet, high male voice; familiar melodic contours, etc. Their self-titled debut album on Sub Pop is as smooth and warm as hot chocolate. Much of it sounds like the Clientele, if that introverted English group decided to expand their sound to arena-sized dimensions. Overall, there's something rosy-cheeked and sugary—the absurdly cheerful whistles in "Miniature Birds" gave my ears diabetes—about Grand Archives, but they do their thing with consummate craftsmanship. DAVE SEGAL

Sunday 10/5


Talib Kweli, David Banner, Little Brother
(Showbox Sodo) Talib Kweli hangs deep words around beats. His cuts scatter and barrage with short, syncopated phrasing. It's advanced lyricism and it's a heady earful. Kweli, a Brooklyn prophet whose name means "seeker," isn't afraid to wax political. In Kweli's 2007 cut "Take It Back," he asks us to sing along and then raps, "The government take our sons and our daughters/Give 'em guns, make 'em run to the slaughter/In places where runnin' water is a luxury." Kweli lures the listener with a rich melody, then gives his antiwar message. It's fat educational entertainment. The pride of Mos Def and Jay-Z, Kweli will step up your brain-wave street smarts, but he won't overhustle you. Kweli wants a better way. See also My Philosophy, page 43. TRENT MOORMAN

Monday 10/6


Wolves in the Throne Room, Fauna
(Vera Project) Olympia's Wolves in the Throne Room have been tilling farmland and writing extreme music for years, finally creating a singed masterwork with Two Hunters. To call the band post–black metal isn't completely fair, because when they want to get cult they throw down curdled screams and blitzing guitars just like their Norwegian stepfathers. But when the band's songs expand, they shift into bent post-rock melodies instead of fruity symphonics or serial-killer samples. This is the same attitude they bring to their live show, abandoning the theatrics of gauntlets and pentagrams for a jarring, blackened DIY performance. Wolves in the Throne Room aren't the saviors of black metal; they're just showing it still has a furious pulse. SHANE MEHLING

Tuesday 10/7


Deerhoof, Experimental Dental School
(Neumos) Deerhoof are an indie-rock anomaly, consistently releasing inconsistent music that one side of a room will always love, the other side will always hate, and the few in the middle won't know exactly where they stand—depending on the song. I've always been in the latter group. I've gone to see Deerhoof based on true fans' assertions that drummer Greg Saunier is a mechanized animal. His precise acrobatics behind the kit are impressive enough to overshadow the flexing guitar interplay and bassist-vocalist Satomi Matsuzaki's cute lyrical innocence. Regardless, between the last time I saw the band (supporting Friend Opportunity) and hearing their latest, Offend Maggie, I can admit that I've been pulled to the lover's side of the room. TRAVIS RITTER

Liz Phair
(Showbox at the Market) This past June, a bunch of Seattle musicians—including Throw Me the Statue, Tennis Pro, Lesli Wood of Ms. Led, Rachel Flotard of Visqueen, and M. Bison—hit the stage at Chop Suey to perform, in order, the 18 tracks of Liz Phair's classic debut, Exile in Guyville. It was a revelation, proving among many other things the lasting brilliance of Phair's "novice" compositions. Tonight, Lady Phair herself perform "songs from Exile in Guyville," a description that lets her off the hook for a full-album re-creation and opens the door for gems from the latter Phair songbook. (She may never make a better album than her first, but the best of her post-Exile songs—whitechocolatespaceegg's "Polyester Bride" and "Love Is Nothing," Liz Phair's "Little Digger"—stand up to anything on her eternal debut.) DAVID SCHMADER

Wednesday 10/8


Cut Copy, the Presets, Heartbreak
(Showbox at the Market) Australia's Cut Copy have scored one of the year's most deliriously blissful pop records with their sophomore album, In Ghost Colours. The band revive to stunning effect the dance-floor-friendly but still emotionally cool new wave of New Order, delivering dreamy ballads and ecstatic electro workouts with equal aplomb. Binding it all together is frontman Dan Whitford's tuneful crooning and catchy, weightless pop lyrics. Live, the band are ringmasters, commanding drums, guitars, synths, sequencers, and demanding kinetic response from their crowd. Countrymates the Presets don't fare as well on their latest, Apocalypso, but their live show, which combines hard-hitting live drumming and a phalanx of analog synths, is still fun. ERIC GRANDY

The Dutchess & the Duke, the Moondoggies
(Neumos) Earlier this year The Stranger declared the Moondoggies one of Seattle's "Young Ones"—predicting the fairly unknown but great local folk-and-more band were poised to do big things in 2008. Looks like we made a good call with the 'Doggies. The band's recently released full-length, Don't Be a Stranger (Hardly Art), is the celebratory soundtrack to a summer afternoon barbecue that fades into a bonfire jam session. The songs are played with enthusiasm, but also a chilled-out, easy-going vibe. Unsurprisingly, Don't Be a Stranger has been one of the best-selling Northwest records for weeks in local record stores. MEGAN SELING