Night After Night

Playlist.

Quiet Evenings - Stork Bite (Adversary Electronics)

Yeasayer - Amen & Goodbye (Mute)

Hawkwind  - Quark, Strangeness & Charm (Atomhenge)

Belly - King (4AD)

King Woman - Doubt (The Flenser)

Kevin Drumm - May 1 (Bandcamp)

Paul Simon - Stranger to Stranger (Concord; due June 3)

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - I'm in Your Mind Fuzz (Flightless)

Flume - Flume (Mom + Pop)

Robert Fripp - World Financial Center, New York, NY, Nov. 30, 2000 (DGMLive)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 1 (Steamroom)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 2 (Steamroom)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 3 (Steamroom)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 4 (Steamroom)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 5 (Steamroom)
> String Quartet and Oscillators 1; String Quartet and Oscillators 2 - Hatano Atsuko, Chiba Hiroki, Teshima Eriko, Sekiguchi Masabumi

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 6 (Steamroom)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 7 (Steamroom)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 8 (Steamroom)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 9 (Steamroom)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 10 (Steamroom)

Belly - Star (4AD)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 11 (Steamroom)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 12 (Steamroom)

The week ahead, May 12, 2016

The week ahead: Pop & rock
Thursday, May 12, 2016

HALLELUJAH THE HILLS Boston’s favorite rocker-litterateurs have a lot to celebrate right now: 10 years of making friends and influencing people; five fine albums, including the newest, “A Band Is Something to Figure Out”; and at last a drummer who’s stuck around for two straight LPs. Hallelujah! May 12, 9 p.m. $10. Great Scott. 800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com

YEASAYER With “Amen & Goodbye,” issued on Mute in April, this whimsical Brooklyn cabal tied together strands from previous albums — Beatlesque earworms, neon electronica, fuzzy ballads, alien-world music — into a gently and generously wonky serving of art-pop gems touching on the political, the personal, and where the two meet. May 13, 8 p.m. $25. Paradise Rock Club. 800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com

TOGETHER BOSTON Opening night for this weeklong festival of technology, art, and music brings a live set from Floating Points, a.k.a. UK producer/DJ Sam Shepherd. Madame Gandhi, the fierce duo of LA drummer-vocalist Kiran Gandhi and Berklee-schooled sound designer Alexia Riner, shares the bill. (For a complete schedule, see www.togetherboston.com.) May 15, 8 p.m. $20, advance $18. The Sinclair, Cambridge. 617-547-5200, www.sinclaircambridge.com

Playlist.

Robert Schumann - Violin Concerto; Symphony No. 1 in B-flat ("Spring"); Phantasy for Violin and Orchestra - Thomas Zehetmair, Orchestre de chambre de Paris (ECM New Series)

Goldsmiths - Goldsmiths (Another Timbre)
> Sarah Hughes - A Reward is given for the Best Inframammary Fold No. 4; John Lely - First Page for Five; Goldsmiths - Improvisation; Jürg Frey - Circular Music No. 6

Lucio Capece - Awareness about - Konzert Minimal (Another Timbre)

Jürg Frey - guitarist, alone - Cristián Alvear (Another Timbre)
> 50 Sächelchen; relikt; sen 23; guitarist, alone

Tangerine Dream - Phaedra (Virgin)

Michael Pisaro - 0 (for radio) #90 _Silence molds such strangeness (0)

Napalm Death - The Showbox, Seattle, WA, May 1, 2016 (audience recording, unknown origin)

Marek Poliks - hull treader (Another Timbre)
> hull not continent - Distractfold; treader always in station - John Pickford Richards & Beth Weisser

Cecil Taylor - Incarnation (FMP)

Catherine Christer Hennix - Live at Issue Project Room (Important)

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Nonagon Infinity (Flightless)

King Crimson - Stadthalle, Kassel, Germany, April 1, 1974 (Starless CD 17) (DGM)

Tangerine Dream - Rubycon (Virgin)

Bent Knee - Say So (Cuneiform; due May 20)

John Field - Complete Nocturnes - Elizabeth Joy Roe (Decca)

Floating Points - Elaenia (Luaka Bop)

The ticket: Pop music, May 8, 2016

Justin Bieber, by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

The ticket: Pop music
Sunday, May 8, 2016

JUSTIN BIEBER The process of a juvenile pop phenom’s maturation into an artist of staying power (or not) is never less than fascinating. If the jury’s out on where Bieber will land after his occasionally too-public growing pains, there’s no denying his 2015 LP, “Purpose,” and subsequent collaboration with Skrillex and Diplo have displayed real potential. May 10-11, 7:30 p.m. $50.50-$126. TD Garden. 800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com

PROTOMARTYR An unflinching observer of society’s sad, fraying edges, Joe Casey taps into the same kind of plainspoken rant-sing that’s made Pere Ubu and the Fall compelling for decades. On “The Agent Intellect,” issued last October, Casey’s bandmates provide unfailingly apt settings, whether cool and snappy or jagged and tart. May 8, 9 p.m. $12. Great Scott. 800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com

HALLELUJAH THE HILLS Boston’s favorite rocker-litterateurs have a lot to celebrate right now: 10 years of making friends and influencing people; five fine albums, including the newest, “A Band Is Something to Figure Out”; and at last a drummer who’s stuck around for two straight LPs. Hallelujah! May 12,  9 p.m. $10. Great Scott. 800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com

CHELSEA WOLFE Doom-metal viscosity, gothic vapors, and industrial clangor are among the base elements this Los Angeles singer-songwriter alchemizes on her latest album, “Abyss,” producing a mix of ethereal vocals and Stygian din that eerily evokes David Lynch’s squalid urban hellscapes. A Dead Forest Index, a compatibly skeletal New Zealand duo, initiates the ceremony. May 10,  7 p.m. $20. Royale Boston. 800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com

Album review: Anohni, "Hopelessness"

Anohni, by Alice O'Malley

A very, very brief post this Friday evening, simply to call attention to my review of Hopelessness, the surprising, seductive, and harsh new album released today by Anohni – best known as the lead singer of Antony and the Johnsons, and recently in the news for an Oscar-related snub.

The new release, a politically charged protest album that ditches this remarkable vocalist's characteristic chamber-pop backing in favor of boldface electronic soundscapes by Oneohtrix Point Never and Hudson Mohawke, is worth taking the time to hear, and I'm glad to have had some time to ponder and some space in which to elaborate.

The week ahead, May 5, 2016

Mr. Lif, by Pat Greenhouse/Boston Globe

The week ahead: Pop & rock
Thursday, May 5, 2016

MR. LIF Storming back from a lengthy, unplanned hiatus, Boston MC and Def Jux survivor Mr. Lif celebrates the release of “Don’t Look Down,” his first solo album in seven years and a compelling testament to his artistic resilience. May 5, 10:30 p.m. $15, advance $13. Middle East Upstairs, Cambridge. 617-864-3278, www.mideastclub.com

PROTOMARTYR An unflinching observer of society’s sad, fraying edges, Joe Casey taps into the same kind of plainspoken rant-sing that’s made Pere Ubu and the Fall compelling for decades; on “The Agent Intellect,” issued last October, Casey’s bandmates provide unfailingly apt settings, whether cool and snappy or jagged and tart. May 8, 9 p.m. $12. Great Scott. 800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com

CHELSEA WOLFE Doom-metal viscosity, gothic vapors, and industrial clangor are among the base elements this LA singer-songwriter alchemizes on her latest album, “Abyss,” producing a mix of ethereal vocals and stygian din that eerily evokes David Lynch’s squalid urban hellscapes. A Dead Forest Index, a compatibly skeletal New Zealand duo, initiates the ceremony. May 10, 7 p.m. $20. Royale Boston. 800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com

Playlist.

Tony Oxley & Derek Bailey - The Advocate (Tzadik)

Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Volume II (Warp)

Dead & Company - DCU Center, Worcester, MA, November 10, 2015 (Archive.org)

Cecil Taylor - The Tree of Life (FMP)

Peter Brötzmann, Albert Mangelsdorff & Günter "Baby" Sommer - Pica Pica (Unheard Music Series/Atavistic)

Christian Fennesz & Jim O'Rourke - It's Hard for Me to Say I'm Sorry (Editions Mego; due June 24)

Pita - Get In (Editions Mego; due May 13)

Derek Bailey - Lot 74 (Incus)

Derek Bailey - More 74 (Incus)

John Luther Adams - The Far Country of Sleep (New Albion)
> Dream in White on White - Barbara Chapman, Apollo Quartet and Strings/JoAnn Falletta ; Night Peace - Cheryl Bray Lower, Nella Rigel, Michael Cebulski, The Atlanta Singers/Kevin Culver; The Far Country of Sleep - Cabrillo Festival Orchestra/JoAnn Falletta

Spontaneous Music Ensemble - Summer 1967 (Emanem)

Einojuhani Rautavaara - Rubáiyát; Into the Heart of Light (Canto V); Balada; Four Songs from the Opera "Rasputin" - Gerald Finley, Mika Pohjonen, Helsinki Music Centre Choir, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra/John Storgårds (Ondine)

Horatiu Radulescu - Piano Sonatas & String Quartets 1 - Stephen Clarke, JACK Quartet (Mode)
> Piano Sonata No. 2 ("being and non-being create each other"); String Quartet No. 5 ("before the universe was born"); Piano Sonata No. 5 ("settle your dust, this is the primal identity")

Derek and the Ruins - Saisoro (Tzadik)

Live review: JACK Quartet + IRCAM at the Institute of Contemporary Art, April 29, 2016

"Jack Quartet, IRCAM prove electric company at ICA"
Boston Globe, May 3, 2016

It's always good to catch up with the JACK Quartet, whose name I'll render here in its preferred all-caps-as-acronym form even if the newspaper declined to do so. (The group's fans know "JACK" = John Pickford Richards, Ari Streisfeld, Christopher Otto, and Kevin McFarland.) Nitpick as I'm inclined to do, I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out, and the concert itself was a gift. If you're interested in the subject matter, you should also read the Globe review of the previous evening's Sound Icon + IRCAM performance, which Zoë Madonna reviewed and I edited.

I'm very much looking forward to hearing the JACK Quartet recording of Hidden, the Chaya Czernowin piece that had its U.S. premiere on this program, even if no stereo version could do complete justice to the live event's spatialized sound. Sooner than that, I'm eager to hear a newly released disc that was cited by Alex Ross over the weekend, initiating a Mode Records series devoted to the quartets and piano sonatas of Horatiu Radulescu, for which JACK recorded the String Quartet No. 5 ("before the universe was born").

The Globe didn't send a photographer to the JACK performance, so my own meager efforts will have to suffice. Above, the room just before the concert, with my present home turf visible across the water; below, JACK accepts a long, rousing ovation with IRCAM's Serge Lemouton and Ms. Czernowin.

The ticket: Pop music, May 1, 2016

Santigold, by Donald Bowers/Getty Images

The ticket: Pop music
Sunday, May 1, 2016

BOB MOULD “Patch the Sky,” released in March, finds this punk-rock veteran swinging for the fences with his customary mix of buzzy guitars, bubblegum melodies, and ferocious drive. Ted Leo, another indie-rock perennial, raises the curtain. May 1,  7 p.m. $25. Paradise Rock Club. 800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com

PARKER MILLSAP When a relative newcomer elicits comparisons to Elvis Presley, Robert Plant, and Steve Earle, you perk up. Listening to his new LP, “The Very Last Day,” you realize those comparisons sell short the distinctiveness of this Oklahoma troubadour’s quavery voice, and the empathy in his richly wrought tales. May 3, 9 p.m. $15. Great Scott. 800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com

SANTIGOLD You might not know this Philadelphia electro-pop singer, songwriter, and producer by name, but you’ve heard her instantly catchy tunes on TV shows and in ad campaigns. Her newest album, “99¢,” packs empowering sentiments in bouncy, lilting, irresistible day-glo candy-pop shells. May 3, 7 p.m. $25-$35. House of Blues. 800-653-8000, www.livenation.com

MR. LIF Storming back from a lengthy, unplanned hiatus, Boston M.C. and Def Jux survivor Mr. Lif celebrates the release of “Don’t Look Down,” his first solo album in seven years and a compelling testament to his artistic resilience. May 5, 10:30 p.m. $15, advance $13. Middle East Upstairs, Cambridge. 617-864-3278, www.mideastclub.com