Wednesday 11/20

Bill Callahan, Mick Turner

(Neumos) See Stranger Suggests.

James Blake, Nosaj Thing

(Showbox Sodo) See Sound Check and Underage.

Borgore, Steve Aoki, Waka Flocka Flame

(Paramount) See Data Breaker.

Nobunny, Big Eyes, Loud Eyes

(Barboza) Justin Champlin started as an Elvis impersonator in the deserts of Tucson, Arizona. His evolution into Nobunny was born the day Joey Ramone died (a clear-cut mystical case of Ramones-pop reincarnation), launching him into years of exceptional punk-rock antics—a bit of Cramps and Ramones with a heaping helping of the batshit-genius country recluse Hasil Adkins. He performs in various stages of undress and displays a visceral rock 'n' roll sexuality, distorted by a creepy, matted rabbit mask that looks like the skinned face of a bog-dredged, mummified Easter bunny. After years touring the country on nonstop DIY/burned-CD-R tours, he's moved to releasing music on Burger Records, Third Man, and Goner Records—and it's getting harder to keep the expanding congregation of pagan-punk scumbags from shoving to the front of this expanding Hare-pop cult. BREE MCKENNA

Deltron 3030

(Crocodile) Comprising rapper Del the Funky Homosapien, producer Dan the Automator, and DJ Kid Koala, Deltron 3030 burst onto the scene back in 2000 with their self-titled sci-fi fantasia. With paranoid lyrics that referenced everything from Y2K to hijacking mechs, backed with Automator's grandiose beats, Deltron 3030 was a breath of fresh postapocalyptic air in underground rap. Thirteen years later finally sees the release of a follow-up, the scattershot but enjoyable Event 2. Del remains a deft rapper, with a conversational, effortless flow that masks his dense rhyme schemes and mad-scientist vocabulary. Automator's production still knocks with cinematic menace, chopping up bombastic strings with Koala's whiz-kid scratches darting among the fray. Good to see them forming like Voltron for one more trip to the future. KYLE FLECK

Thursday 11/21

Hey Marseilles, Emerald City Soul Club

(Chop Suey) See Stranger Suggests.

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Grynch, Cool Nutz

(Neptune) See My Philosophy.

DRILL: Seattle: Earth, Pillar Point

(Barboza) The methodical evolution of Earth (the band, not the planet) has been richly rewarding. After inventing ambient metal with 1993's Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version, Earth leader Dylan Carlson veered off the doom-dirge path into more conventional hard-rocking territory—including a Hendrix cover—before a nine-year hiatus resulted in a radical shift to a more spacious, desert-bluesy sound. (The addition of Stranger Genius Lori Goldston's cello filled out and classed up the low end.) Albums like Hex, The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull, and the two editions of Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light still moved at Earth's trademark glacial pace, but the guitar attack became much more aerated, the chords hanging in the dusty air and decaying with fraught poignancy; think Ry Cooder's Paris, Texas soundtrack, but with graver, more forlorn atmospheres. Get ready to ponder, y'all! DAVE SEGAL

Meat Puppets, the World Takes

(Crocodile) Arizona's Meat Puppets are punk legends with a beating heart. Not only did the band bust out the whole of their 1985 stoner classic Up on the Sun at 2011's All Tomorrow's Parties, they continue to make and release new music—2011 brought Lollipop, and this spring brought the release of the band's 14th album, Rat Farm. Tonight, the motherfucking Meat Puppets are playing at the Crocodile, joined by openers the World Takes, a moody power-pop trio made up of Stephen Maglio, Jim Stager of Huffamoose, and X's DJ Bonebrake. DAVID SCHMADER

Radiolab Live: Apocalyptical: On Fillmore, Noveller, Reggie Watts

(Paramount) Tonight's event is part of a strange, hybrid tour. The agenda is a "thought-provoking and laughter-inducing dance on the grave of our inevitable demise," featuring major comedians like Patton Oswalt, Reggie Watts, and Kurt Braunohler and experimental musicians Noveller and On Fillmore. Apocalypse LOL? Okay. Noveller (Brooklyn's Sarah Lipstate, who's played with Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca) conjures eerie, emotive atmospheres with guitar and effects, often toggling between fuzzed-out turbulence and spangly placidity. On Fillmore (Wilco percussionist Glenn Kotche and Dazzling Killmen/Brise-Glace bassist Darin Gray) maneuver with fascinating tactility among exotica, cinematic post-rock, and minimalism. They're like Tortoise, but with fewer members, less hoopla, and more vibraphone. DAVE SEGAL

Dogs of War, Levels, X-suns

(Highline) When bands say something like, "We play a unique blend of influences like you've never heard before!" it usually means they sound exactly like whatever influences they claim. An artist has a context the listener will never have—it's difficult to see past intent to hear reality. Seattle band Levels, though, really do defy easy labeling. Sure, it's rock, but I also hear new-wave revival acts like She Wants Revenge and the Killers. There's no synth, though, and the bass is heavier and fuzzier, almost doomy at points. And maybe it's just because I have Bowie on the brain, but I feel like "Diamonds" is something the Goblin King would sing if he were fronting Depeche Mode, something I'd very much like to see, codpiece and all. Check it out at facebook.com/levelstheband. MEGAN SELING

Friday 11/22

Nine Inch Nails, Explosions in the Sky

(KeyArena) See Stranger Suggests.

Lunice, B. Bravo, WD4D

(Nectar) See Data Breaker and My Philosophy.

Julianna Barwick, Hannah Epperson

(Fremont Abbey) See Underage.

Radiolab: On Fillmore, Noveller, Reggie Watts

(Paramount) See Thursday.

Quasi, Blues Control, Hobosexual

(Tractor) Since the mid '00s, Pennsylvania's Blues Control—Lea Cho and Russ Waterhouse—have been forging a unique amalgam of Alice Coltrane–inflected astral jazz, skewed dub, spiritual ambient (they've collaborated with New Age master Laraaji), and post-rock. For a two-piece, Blues Control cover a lot of ground, and they do so very interestingly. Cho's radiant piano motifs and Waterhouse's cunningly distorted guitar arabesques reach a sophisticated peak on their latest album for Drag City, Valley Tangents, as exemplified by "Gypsum," which is one of the greatest A Love Supreme homages I've ever heard. It's hard to gauge where Blues Control will go next, but you can be sure that it's going to be a thrilling ascent. DAVE SEGAL

XVIII Eyes, Wishbeard, Lazer Kitty, Half Kingdom

(Lo-Fi Performance Gallery) Complementing 206 hiphop's massive and expanding space program (whose recent launches have been Grayskul's Zenith and Spac3man's Beyond the Stars) is a local post-rock band called Lazer Kitty. Its members are Jason Jordan (on bass), the electro wizard Scot Porter/Vox Mod (on drums), and the founder of Unsound America, Kyle Porter (on the synthesizer). But unlike the 206's space program, which is mostly about traveling through space, visiting distant planets, and communicating with aliens, Lazer Kitty are about the very nature, structure, and textures of space itself. The music does not go anywhere, but instead slowly—almost carefully—unfolds and reveals the galactic stuff of time, heat, light, and forms of life. CHARLES MUDEDE

Monster Magnet, Royal Thunder, Zodiac, Witchburn

(Neumos) Monster Magnet have been wielding their flamboyant psych metal for damn near a quarter century. During the early '90s, Dave Wyndorf and his fellow heavy muthas had the world by the short and curlies with a spate of high-impact singles and the dazzling stoner-rock classics Tab and Spine of God. Those LPs still sound like druggy revelations. Monster Magnet's new album, Last Patrol, is better than expected. Skip the late-era Bob Segerism of the opening song and dig into the other eight tracks, which flirt licentiously with most of the Magnet's usual tropes—languid, lysergic epics; growling biker metal; Hawkwind homages; rugged blues rock—but what tropes they are. Monster Magnet's power trip rages on. DAVE SEGAL

Esoterics: PROFANA

(First Lutheran Church of Richmond Beach) In November and December, the Esoterics will perform two separate centennial concerts around the music of Benjamin Britten. The first will include every single one of Britten's secular choral works, and the second (December 6–8) will include every single one of his sacred works. So far, the roster for these concerts includes 64 singers in three separate ensembles. This show runs through November 24 at various venues. JEN GRAVES

Helms Alee, Qui, Victory and Associates, Tacos!

(Chop Suey) What I most love about Helms Alee is their ability to absolutely slay you when you least expect it. Listen to their song "Pretty as Pie" off their latest release, Weatherhead. For the first couple minutes, starry and echoing guitar arpeggios ring out. The repetition begins to wrap around you—their beauty, their calming consistency, comforts you. Then BOOM. The buzziest bass you've ever heard bangs you over the head. The arpeggios continue, almost tauntingly, as singer Ben Verellen starts to growl. Seattle duo Tacos!, on the other hand, get you to the same place (deaf) a different way—their songs are cathartic and meaty from end to end. And I love them, too. It takes all kinds, ya know? MEGAN SELING

Saturday 11/23

Airport, Deastro, Ecstatic Cosmic Union

(Vermillion) See Data Breaker.

DRILL: Seattle: Wire, Chastity Belt

(Neumos) Legendary British rockers Wire released a stunning trilogy of records in the late 1970s—Pink Flag, Chairs Missing, and 154—that segued from bite-size shards of confrontational anti-punk to spooked art rock in a few short years. Since then, they've abruptly broken up, gotten back together, and proceeded to release a boatload of generally great music. Wire have never been ones to rest on their laurels; their later albums continue their rabid experimentalism, spewing out skewed takes on everything from aqueous synth pop to industrial. Their latest, Change Becomes Us, is actually reworked material from what would've been their fourth album more than three decades ago, had they not called it quits. No surprise then that it's fantastic, continuing a remarkable latter-day streak for these post-punk titans. KYLE FLECK

Guantanamo Baywatch

(Black Lodge) No matter how much you just want to stand at this show with your arms crossed, dear rain-drenched Seattleite, Guantanamo Baywatch will pull you into their surf-o-rama swamp party. The Portland jungle-rock/gnarly-garage trio will make you dance to their shaggy, reverb-heavy hits, and you will wish you were wearing a zebra-print swimsuit, in LA, in the '60s. Pro dance tip: Brush up on the shimmy, the boogaloo, and the twist. EMILY NOKES

Girl Trouble, Head, the Fallouts

(Chop Suey) This is a record rerelease party for the album Hit It or Quit It by Girl Trouble—the Pacific Northwest's premiere, self-proclaimed "slowest working band in showbiz!" While that may sound negative, it's really not. Girl Trouble are a forever-running local treasure, not unlike Dead Moon or Mudhoney—all three of which have been severely underappreciated and underplayed over the years. Fans of the Cramps should take note: Girl Trouble's lead singer Kurt "K.P." Kendall sounds like and channels all the best ethos of Cramps' Lux Interior (RIP!). The rest of the band—the "girl in Girl Trouble" drummer Bon Von Wheelie, guitarist Kahuna, and bassist Dale Phillips—make the best, most scrappy lo-fi garage stomp you've (maybe) never heard. KELLY O

Cam the Mac, Mack Ned, Cassow

(Vera) This all-ages bill features three of the fastest rising (for all the right reasons) rappers from the greater Northwest. Cam the Mac, Moor Gang member and West Seattle repper, excels at a classic brand of smoked-out pimpery—think Devin the Dude minus the singing. Mack Ned has already flexed his ultra-modern ambient sample/booming drums production skills on countless Moor Gang tracks, but his first single, "Fireworks" (apparently from his upcoming album Alice Glass), proves he can hold his own as a rapper who's "poppin 8-bit drugs/choppin 808s up." Portland's Cassow burst onto the proverbial scene earlier this year with his Cold Winter mixtape, which, in addition to solid, varied beats and a thorough, hungry-sounding delivery, includes big-name features from Danny Brown and Smoke DZA. This one's a can't-miss for local rap heads. MIKE RAMOS See also My Philosophy.

Sunday 11/24

Albert Hammond Jr.

(Chop Suey) When he's not at his day job playing guitar for the Strokes, Albert Hammond Jr. is writing catchy little indie-pop numbers, a bit reminiscent of another group of well-coiffed New Yorkers: Vampire Weekend. Clean-as-a-whistle electric guitars, bouncy bass lines, wistful lyrics about nothing in particular, everything executed with no-frills professionalism. There are even a few requisite dips into more exotic territory, like the quasi-reggae bop of "Borrowed Time." It's all very polite and approachable, more upstate suburbia than Brooklyn. For those among us who find the Strokes a little too threatening. All that leather! KYLE FLECK

Monday 11/25

Morbid Angel, Gravenloch, Funeral Age

(Studio Seven) It was just two years ago when classic Floridian death metal group Morbid Angel dropped the ultimate turd bomb on the world of extreme music. Illud Divinum Insanus was advertised as a brutal comeback, but in the end, became arguably the most disappointing and universally panned metal album of the past decade. So why, then, am I hearing such a buzz about this tour? Chances are, it's due to the fact that they will be playing their landmark third record, 1993's Covenant, in its entirety. Regardless of recent output, they're still Morbid fucking Angel. KEVIN DIERS

Tuesday 11/26

Jon Hopkins, Clark, Nathan Fake

(Crocodile) See Data Breaker.