MONDAY 3/9
(BOOKS) In his 2005 novel Godlike, punk pioneer Richard Hell reimagines the tumultuous relationship between 19th-century French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine in 1970s New York. Hell’s adaptation follows esteemed poet Paul Vaughn, a married 27-year-old New Yorker, and a newly transplanted teenage poet, R.T. Wode, as they embark on a messy affair full of acid trips, crashed parties, and unrequited love. The book is getting a snazzy rerelease from NYRB (the Criterion Collection of the book world), and Hell will be there in the flesh to discuss the book and maybe even sign a few (if we’re lucky). (Elliott Bay Book Company, 7 pm, free) AUDREY VANN
TUESDAY 3/10
(MUSIC) Indigo De Souza’s music has always dealt with different kinds of death; her layered vocals revel in the ownership of personal missteps that echo as communal failings and social death. Last summer’s Precipice is no different in tone, from the consistently awesome skeletons-with-boobs album artwork to the edge-of-existence conceit. A main marker of evolution has been the embrace of electronic pop production over the crunchy Lucy Dacus–esque guitar ballads of albums past, which she has confirmed to be a purposeful choice, even excitedly. To this, I cannot give a more heartfelt endorsement, to the contrary of Pitchfork’s Robins-Somerville review. Even the album’s most Taylor Swift–ian of tracks are dark as fuck, and I can’t imagine a better, more worthy philosophical mind fuck to jam the pop algorithms. (Showbox, 8 pm, all ages) TODD HAMM
WEDNESDAY 3/11
(MUSIC) The Daptone label’s most out-there act, saxophonist/flautist/bass clarinetist Cochemea creates humid, psychedelic roots music that vibrates in its own lane. Before the Yaqui/Yoeme artist went solo, he played sax for Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings and worked with Quincy Jones, Amy Winehouse, Archie Shepp, and others. However, Cochemea’s own recordings skew more toward Budos Band and Antibalas, of whose touring bands he was a member. On his 2010 debut LP, The Electric Sound of Johnny Arrow, Cochemea fused spiritual jazz, funk, and boogaloo into gripping sonic panoramas. His next three albums broadened the palette to include cumbia, Moroccan gnawa, blues, and his ancestral Indigenous music. Tangy percussive timbres—Asian Indian and Latin American drums figure heavily—combined with Cochemea’s electrified sax and chants from his tribe result in songs that sound at once ancient and otherworldly. This show promises, if only briefly, a primal trip out of our national political nightmare. (Sunset Tavern, 8 pm, 21+) DAVE SEGAL
THURSDAY 3/12
Mt Fog, Iroiro, DJ Martin Douglas
(MUSIC) If a Washington rainforest started a band, it would sound something like Mt Fog—Carolyn B.’s playful whispers are like a sprite luring you into a mossy forest. The percussion, like raindrops plopping into a mushroom. And the electronics, like a ray of light shimmering through the trees. The Seattle-based trio whimsically marries the vocal stylings of Kate Bush, Björk, and Siouxsie Sioux with sparse electronics, evocative of CAN and Mort Garson. They will celebrate the release of their new album, Every Stone Is Green, which they describe as a “Gothic tale (in the Brontë sisters’ sense) about finding happiness, which is human-ness.” They will be joined by the psychedelic instrumental band Iroiro and music journalist/DJ Martin Douglas. Read more about the making of the new album in our interview with Mt Fog. (Tractor Tavern, 8 pm, 21+) AUDREY VANN
FRIDAY 3/13
Scott Broker with Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
(BOOKS) Scott Broker’s first novel, The Disappointment, starts where so many stories do: a man trying to sneak his mother’s ashes into his suitcase without his husband noticing. The book is described as a surrealist vacation through this couple’s desperate, disconnected trip to the Oregon Coast. And no one could be better to interview him than Seattle’s own Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (who recently released Terry Dactyl, if you somehow haven’t gotten your hands on it yet). The conversation promises to be brilliant, funny, and very, very queer. (Elliott Bay Book Company, 7 pm, free) HANNAH MURPHY WINTER
SATURDAY 3/14
(VISUAL ART) The soft sculptures of Eric-Paul Riege aren’t quiet objects—their presence inscribed in space is monolithic and monumental, and when brought to life through movement, they become instruments of sound. Riege, who is Diné, has built a practice of collaging and reworking elements drawn from Navajo weaving and jewelry-making traditions, ultimately constructing large-scale, hanging installations that sway, ripple, and jingle when touched. For this exhibit—his largest solo show to date—Riege researched collections of Navajo artifacts held by Brown University’s Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology and the University of Washington’s Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. What emerged is an immersive environment that envelops the viewer while quietly unsettling institutional narratives of Indigenous culture. (Henry Art Gallery) AMANDA MANITACH
SUNDAY 3/15
(FILM) Todd Haynes’s Safe is a horror movie cloaked in pastel colors, plastic tarps, and unsettling silence. Julianne Moore, the master of tension and nuance, plays Los Angeles housewife Carol White, who comes down with a debilitating illness that doctors cannot diagnose. After becoming self-convinced that the illness is caused by extreme environmental allergies, White flees to a retreat in New Mexico led by a New Age guru. Perhaps the most fascinating element of this film is the numerous ways it can be interpreted: a critique of suffocating suburban life, an allegory for the queer experience, a metaphor for the AIDS crisis, or a commentary on self-help culture—the more time that passes since its release, the richer the text gets. Don’t miss the chance to see it on the big screen this month for its 30th anniversary. (NW Film Forum, 4 pm) AUDREY VANN
