Friday 21
THE JUAN MACLEAN John MacLean (aka the Juan Maclean) first met James Murphy, now of the production team the DFA, in the late 90s. MacLean was a member of Six Finger Satellite, Murphy was their sound man and producer, and they were both tiring of the conventional rock-band grind. MacLean retreated from music altogether after 6FS broke up, but was egged on by Murphy and his production partner, Tim Goldsworthy, to record something for the label they were starting. After a few superb singles, MacLean recently made his full-length debut with the DFA-produced Less Than Human (Astralwerks). The album has definite traces of the sociopathic junkie-cyborg aesthetic and Krautrock vibe that 6FS embraced, but their whole band-as-machine image is reversed: the Juan Maclean is techno forged from a rock impulse. You can hear it in the phonetic digital buzz standing in for a punk singer, the rubbery synth played like an electric bass on “Love Is in the Air,” and the mutant Phil Collins tom bursts on “Tito’s Way.” LCD Soundsystem headlines, the Juan Maclean plays second, and Shit Robot opens. a 7:30 PM, the Vic, 3145 N. Sheffield, 773-472-0449 or 312-559-1212, $19.50 in advance, $22.50 at the door, 18+. –J. Niimi
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31KNOTS When I was a young sprout I loved it when my mom made those little cocktail wieners, until the day I discovered what was in the special sauce she served them with: chili sauce and (gulp) grape jelly. Recently I had a similar revelation about the band 31Knots, a band I’d always liked: they’re “emo-prog,” the overwrought style exemplified by groups like Joan of Arc, and one I usually can’t stomach. It didn’t strike me that this is how a finicky kid might pigeonhole them until their third and most recent CD, Talk Like Blood (Polyvinyl)–maybe song titles like “A Void Employs a Kiss” gave it away–but I’d probably never noticed because they always manage to keep the prog parts interesting and the emo parts in check. The Planet The, the Get Hustle, and Green Milk From the Planet Orange open. 10 PM, the Note, 1565 N. Milwaukee, 773-489-0011, $8. –J. Niimi
JESSICA RYLAN While many electronic and noise-music artists embrace the coldness of their equipment, sound artist Jessica Rylan works to find the organic qualities in them. Her aesthetic is appealingly homespun, from the analog synthesizers she designs and builds herself to the packaging of her releases. The recent New Secret (RRRecords), released under her Can’t moniker, is a picture disc that includes photos of her garden, a dog frolicking in a New Hampshire field, and her making pies with her friends. But her music isn’t touchy-feely or hippie-ish, even when she coos little vocal melodies that sound like a child’s spontaneous singing; her “songs” are wrapped in splattery feedback and analog squelches that ripple as if only slightly disturbed by a mild breeze. She doesn’t sing on a recent split CD with 2673 on Kitty Play Records, concentrating instead on synth manipulations that produce low-end throbs, stuttering static bursts, storm-cloud rumble, and the occasional aural whiteout. Here she’ll be playing what she calls her natural synth, which she recently described in an interview as producing sounds “more like a plant–more wavery sounds and swishes, and there are time frames that you kind of hear in the world, burbling water, whatever.” 9 PM, 6Odum, 2116 W. Chicago, 773-227-3617, $12. All ages. –Peter Margasak
Tuesday 25
OPETH These Swedes have always loved to wriggle through classifications, and sometimes even seem hell-bent on outsmarting themselves: their 2002 and ’03 releases, Deliverance (the evil, heavy one, to oversimplify) and Damnation (the delicate, pretty one) broke their sound in two. But on the new Ghost Reveries (Roadrunner), the first album they’ve made in years without Steve Wilson of Porcupine Tree producing, they draw both sounds together again, like some kind of giant jumping spider gathering its legs in for a leap. Their mining-blast explosive heavy side interlaces with their feathery light one more effectively than it has since Blackwater Park, and “Atonement” condenses it all into a sort of gorgeous aural manifesto. Nevermore and Fireball Ministry open. 6:30 PM, House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn, 312-923-2000 or 312-559-1212, $17 in advance, $19 at the door. All ages. –Monica Kendrick
UP-TIGHT As the title suggests, Up-Tight & Makoto Kawabata (on local label Galactic Zoo Disc, a principality of Steve Krakow’s psychedelic empire) is a collaboration between the leader of Acid Mothers Temple and the 13-year-old Japanese trio Up-Tight. There are more than a few up-front early-Velvets elements (starting with the title and cover, both lifted from The Velvet Underground & Nico), but it’s certainly not slavish. Instead it sounds like VU if they’d never bothered with pop songs at all and gone with a droning, Fluxus approach by way of primal scream therapy. But it also branches out into grandly meditative passages, with shamanistic chanting and hypnotic repetition, and at its best–“Rainy Day Girl #12 & 35,” for example–the album develops a stark and otherworldly beauty. Up-Tight headlines, Plastic Crimewave Sound plays second, and Dark Fog opens. 9:30 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401, $8. –Monica Kendrick
