Music
Early Warnings
Find your concert, buy your ticket.
New
ANA MOURA
Old Town School of Folk Music, Maurer Hall, 2/11, 8 PM, all-ages, Of all the new wave of Portuguese fado singers to emerge in the past decade, no one cleaves to tradition like the fantastic Ana Moura. She resists the temptation to aim for a broader audience by tweaking the music's fundamentals, and her approach appears to work—last summer I saw her playing to a packed house in Vancouver, and she had the audience eating out of her hand. Last year's Coliseu (World Village) is a live album of a 2008 performance where she's accompanied by a nimble backing band of bass, acoustic guitar, and Portuguese guitar; Moura's powerful voice fills the room, its honeyed warble ever so slightly scuffed up by the meticulously pitched drama of her delivery. Her English-language banter is a bit showbizzy, but it's hard to be bothered by that when she sings. —Peter Margasak, $26-$30.
STEEP CANYON RANGERS, CHATHAM COUNTY LINE
Old Town School of Folk Music, Maurer Hall, 3/4, 7 PM, all-ages.
Updated
V-NASTY
Bottom Lounge, 2/10, 9 PM, canceled.
Previously listed
A-TRAK
the Mid, 2/10, 10 PM, Montreal-bred DJ and producer Alain "A-Trak" Macklovitch, co-owner of the Fool's Gold label, is one of the few people in electronic dance music who has equal footing in two parts of that world that sometimes seem mutually exlusive: he's beloved by the underground club scenes that defined the form's recent past as well as by the more mainstream crowd that's recently (finally) brought EDM in America to the arena-size level of popularity it's long enjoyed in Europe. His bipartisan appeal isn't hard to figure out. Macklovitch is a firm believer in the transcendent power of big, broad, dumb hooks—take for instance "Barbra Streisand," the anthemic earworm he and Armand Van Helden recorded as Duck Sauce—but because he knows that they're best used sparingly, he prefers to maintain a steady simmer rather than overload the senses like, say, Skrillex. January's installment of his monthly Fool's Gold Radio mix series is typically ebullient and eclectic, with nods to everything from swag rap to retrofuturistic acid house. —Miles Raymer Gun Love and Mayhem open. , $15-$20.
HEARTLESS BASTARDS, HACIENDA, PRECIOUS BLOOD
Lincoln Hall, 2/14, 8 PM, If you're a native Cincinnatian like me, you know two things—first, you have to like covering spaghetti with watered-down chili, and second, you're pretty much obligated to count the Heartless Bastards among your favorite bands. Cincy isn't the hottest hot spot for breakout acts, so when somebody does make the leap (the Greenhornes, for instance), the community rallies around. I hadn't yet freaked over the Heartless Bastards' bluesy and soulful bar (punk) rock when I left the Queen City in 2008, but since then the power and attitude in Erika Wennerstrom's voice—with its impossible-to-ignore, Patti Smith-like force—has won me over completely. She's remained the only constant member through several lineup changes (the band's now based in Austin), and honestly, that's all that matters. Arrow (Partisan), the follow-up to 2009's breakthrough The Mountain, comes out on Valentine's Day, and Wennerstrom owns it from the get-go. On the six-minute opener, "Marathon," she shows off an unreal range, beginning with a sultry kind of timidity and gradually climbing into an anthemic, take-no-prisoners holler. She leads the charge on the rest of the album too, whether she's singing an acoustic ditty or a plugged-in number like "Got to Have Rock and Roll"—which delivers exactly what its title promises. —Kevin Warwick Hacienda and Precious Blood open. , $15.
CATE LE BON, TALKDEMONIC, BONE & BELL
Schubas, 2/14, 8 PM, Though Welsh singer Cate Le Bon is a protege of Gruff Rhys (Super Furry Animals), her extraordinary second album, Cyrk (The Control Group), reminds me more of the great Welsh rock band Gorky's Zygotic Mynci in the irresistible way it collides woozy pop, genteel British folk, and wiggy psychedelia—it probably doesn't hurt that her backing guitarist, Sion Glyn, played in the group for a bit. Le Bon is often compared to Nico, presumably because they share a kind of exaggerated enunciation, but that's as far as the similarities go—whether Le Bon's sanguine songs sound like 60s punk (the jackhammering "Falcon Eyed") or a trippy waltz ("Julia"), there's nothing icy about them. Her lyrics often describe characters with vivid imaginations: on "Greta," a deliberately broken ballad that reminds me of early Faust, she sings, "You can realign light, but you can't tame the girl / When her eyes are the size of lagoons." Glyn routinely and magnificently punctures the tunes with fuzzed-out guitar solos, while Le Bon gilds them with ethereal, overdubbed vocal harmonies, turning the album into a series of jolts and caresses. It's still early in the year, but I've yet to hear anything I like more. —Peter Margasak Talkdemonic and Bone & Bell open. , $12, $10 in advance.
OTTMAR LIEBERT & LUNA NEGRA
Old Town School of Folk Music, Maurer Hall, 5/18, 8 and 10 PM, all-ages.
LOCK UP, GOATWHORE, STRONG INTENTION, BLACK SEPTEMBER, AUSTARAS
Reggie's Rock Club, 2/13, 7 PM, Founded in 1997 in New Orleans, Goatwhore really hit their stride in the mid-00s, finding the perfect blend of clarity and swampiness for their blackened death metal. Their Valentine's Day present, Blood for the Master (Metal Blade), is the eagerly awaited follow-up to their 2009 breakout album Carving Out the Eyes of God. With a structure and feel very similar to its predecessor, Blood for the Master doesn't fix what ain't broke: it's hardly the most radically innovative record you'll hear this year, nor does it try to be. It refines and intensifies the elements that made Carving work so well—among them Sammy Duet's distinctive guitar sound, which feels like being shredded by razor wire in a sandstorm, and the creative tension built into the songs, which crystallizes the war between the urge to write long apocalyptic epics and the urge to tear it up with punkish pithiness. —Monica Kendrick Lock Up headlines; Goatwhore, Strong Intention, Black September, and Austaras open. , $16.
HUGH MASEKELA
Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, Northwestern University, Evanston, 2/18, 7:30 PM, all-ages.
PONCHO SANCHEZ WITH TERRENCE BLANCHARD
Old Town School of Folk Music, Maurer Hall, 5/5, 7 and 10 PM, all-ages.
ARTURO SANDOVAL
Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, Northwestern University, Evanston, 4/7, 7:30 PM, all-ages.
ANOUSHKA SHANKAR
Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, Northwestern University, Evanston, 3/28, 7:30 PM, all-ages.
