thursday11
Thursday11
BrenmarClinic, Fresh & Onlys
Friday12
Aloe BlaccDelicate SteveGeorge Lewis, Alexander Von Schlippenbach
Saturday13
Luisa MaitaA Midsummer Night’s DreamSlink Moss & the Flying AcesSoviettes
Sunday14
Dimmu BorgirKatinka Kleijn
Tuesday16
Bosco Delrey
Wednesday17
A Midsummer Night’s DreamTunng
CLINIC, FRESH & ONLYS On their 2000 debut, Internal Wrangler, Clinic seemed to emerge from out of nowhere with a formula that didn’t need any tinkering: garage rock splashed with dubby melodica and played with the dispassion of the most robotic Krautrockers. Their four subsequent albums sensibly offered only the slightest variations on that blueprint, but now, after ten years, the group has suddenly gone far past anything you could call tinkering. If it weren’t for the distinctive nasal mumblings of front man Ade Blackburn, the new Bubblegum (Domino) would hardly be recognizable as a Clinic album. They’ve stopped writing every song to a motorik beat—some of them actually swing, which seems almost blasphemous coming from this lot. And not even the warmest moments in Clinic’s back catalog hinted that they’d ever dive into DayGlo territory and groovy, wah-wah-guitar jams, but a few tracks on Bubblegum would fit nicely next to Os Mutantes’ more acid-fried pop excursions. —Miles Raymer
ALOE BLACC I enjoyed the warped but organic electronic/acoustic arrangements and sprawling hodgepodge of hip-hop, neosoul, Brazilian pop, and salsa on Aloe Blacc‘s 2006 debut, Shine Through, so at first the streamlined approach this LA singer, producer, and MC takes on his recent second album, Good Things (Stones Throw), put me off. This time out the man born Egbert Nathaniel Dawkins III embraces socially conscious 70s-style soul, with a particular affinity for Bill Withers and Donny Hathaway. The album is a collaboration with Truth & Soul Productions—aka Leon Michels and Jeff Silverman, who also worked on Lee Fields’s killer My World—and their punchy horn and string charts help cover for the lack of range in Blacc’s reedy voice, allowing him to concentrate on his agile, expertly expressive phrasing. The elegant, hooky tunes are based on deep, simmering midtempo soul grooves, with touches of reggae and funk here and there, and though the lyrics aren’t especially profound, they’re timely—the lead track, “I Need a Dollar,” is the theme song of HBO series How to Make It in America. Blacc also gets extra points for his cover of the Velvet Underground’s “Femme Fatale,” turning it into a portrait of a wounded man who’s had a brush with the woman in question. He’ll be backed here by his band, the Grand Scheme; Maya Jupiter and DJRC open. 10 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, 773-525-2508, $12. —Peter Margasak
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sunday14
