At this point anticipation is building among certain hardy-spirited listeners for the return of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, a mysterious and powerfully evocative instrumental ensemble from Montreal. The band's sound is built on churning guitars and strings, and one could envision the act scoring the end of the world beautifully -- should Darren Aronofsky be given enough notice to film it.

They'll be at the Music Box on Wednesday, but not to be lost in that appearance is opening band Evangelista, the dark and relatively new project of Carla Bozulich. L.A. fans might remember Bozulich from the days of the industrial band Ethyl Meatplow, the skewed alt-country of the Geraldine Fibbers or maybe the many bracing shows with guitarist Nels Cline as Scarnella at the Smell. But in advance of this show and an upcoming fourth album with Evangelista for Constellation Records, the important thing for Bozulich is that she's remembered in her hometown, period.

In a long and heartfelt e-mail addressed to the Times music staff, Bozulich listed her sterling credentials from life "in the van," her love for her home city and frustration at her place in its musical fabric.

"I am a woman who has been shaped and raised by my hometown of Los Angeles," she writes. "And to have erased me from the history of your town is really odd and sort of endorses a stereotype I despise of our city."

Pop & Hiss points you to the best shows of the weekend. Attend at your own risk. Pop & Hiss is not responsible for a bad time, lost shoes, a stolen wallet and/or any fights with your significant other.

 
THURSDAY

War Tapes @ Silver Lake Lounge. Yes, the recooked Afternoons (Shadow Shadow Shade) kick off their residency tonight at the Satellite, but one will have a few more weeks to see them, and they're not the only locals who have retooled a bit. Written off by many as purveyors of the post-Joy Division gloom-and-doom rock that was so recently in vogue, War Tapes have gotten a little softer, a little sunnier and a little more dreamy. They're starting to sound like a band less interested in conquering KROQ than just having fun. Silver Lake Lounge, 2906 W. Sunset Blvd. Admission is $8. 

MEN @ Fingerprints. Late notice, but here's a chance to catch the disco-pop creation from Le Tigre’s JD Samson in a more stripped-down setting. For those who missed the act Wednesday night, a trip to Fingerprints' new digs may be worth the drive, as MEN are the rare crew that can bring politics to the dance floor. Pop & Hiss has had extensive coverage of MEN thus far. Here's a review, and a short feature. Fingerprints, 1420 E. 4th St. Long Beach. The free in-store is expected to start around 7 p.m.

George Herms: 'The Artist's Life' @ REDCAT. An influential California sculptor steeped in the spirit of Beat poetry, Herms will fuse his found object-oriented art with the free-wheeling sound of the Bobby Bradford Mo'tet and other jazz heavyweights for "The Artist's Life." A category-defying autobiographical piece billed as a "free-jazz opera," the evening's mix of percussive exploration on Herms' unique sculptures along with a live, improvised jazz score should further illuminate the artist's vivid body of work. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., Los Angeles. 8:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, $20 ($25 for Saturday). 

There’s a graduate thesis waiting to happen in exploring the strangely beatific air that surrounds the music of Sam Beam’s Iron & Wine. With poetic songs that unspool like oblique parables and a lush beard that would make naturalist John Muir proud, Sam Beam’s early recordings felt almost startlingly intimate behind whispered words and guitar that seemed near-monastic in their raw simplicity.

Now with his fifth album, Beam may not have abandoned his roots, but he’s certainly stretched far beyond them. With a band stocked with veterans of Chicago’s experimental music scene that include members of Califone and the Chicago Underground Duo’s Chad Taylor, Beam’s evocative folk has evolved into incorporating dips into soul, woozy R&B and loose-limbed ‘70s rock. Behind a buttery electric keyboard and cooing backing vocals, “Tree by the River” sounds like a new classic of the AM Gold era, while the percolating world percussion and swells of noise in “Monkeys Uptown” and the dark travelogue “Rabbit Will Run” form vivid counterpoints for Beam’s urgent melodies.

Other welcome touches include drunken New Orleans horns on “Big Burned Hand” (spiked by a rare bit of profanity from Beam that feels weirdly jarring, like some breach of ecclesiastic etiquette) and the driving funk of “Yr City Is a Sucker,” which features high-pitched choruses and jazzy brass reminiscent of early Chicago that builds to Beam ranting like an end times prophet who can see the walls crumbling. It’s not always the stuff of angels, but it’s something far richer.

—Chris Barton

Iron & Wine
“Kiss Each Other Clean”
Warner Bros.
Three and a half stars (Out of four)

With Best Coast's Saturday and Sunday gigs loooong sold-out, Pop & Hiss looks at some of this weekend's other top shows.

Thursday

Tim Kasher @ the Bootleg Theater. Perhaps it was the pained vocals, or the deliberately choppy collision of guitars, but Tim Kasher's Cursive was often the Saddle Creek act that received second billing to the label's emo hero of Bright Eyes. A shame, as Cursive albums such as "Happy Hollow" turned a sharp and caustic eye toward suburban life, and did so with increasingly complex and ornate orchestrations. On his own with "The Game of Monogamy," the concept has turned to a shredding of societal's view of relationships. The worldview is smaller, but the sound is bigger, as Kasher slows things down to give his pop ambitions time to breathe. The Bootleg Theater, 2220 Beverly Blvd. Tickets are $15. 

Greetings, gentle Pop & Hiss-ians. We interrupt your conspicuous consumption of music coverage with the following announcement.

If you're a jazz fan or even someone with omnivorous tastes, you're going to want to adjust your sights (and your browsers) to the L.A. Times terrific arts news and reviews shop, Culture Monster. Starting Friday I'll be over there as part of what promises to be an expanded take on jazz coverage in L.A. and beyond, while also rubbing elbows with the latest word on theater, dance, art, architecture and classical. It's a fine, classy bunch, but we promise not to change just because we're running with a new crowd. 

Come along, won't you? Today I've got the rundown of last night's show with terrific young trumpeter (and recent Blue Note signee) Ambrose Akinmusire at the cozy Cafe Metropol downtown. A great young crowd packed the place, and it was a beautiful night -- the kind of night filled with such energy and imagination that it makes you want to take anyone who thinks the music is dying and slap them about the head and shoulders. (We all know better.)

Read all about it here. I'll still be dropping in here from time to time, and you can also follow me on Twitter @chrisbarton. See you on the other side.

-- Chris Barton

Photo: Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times

In 10 years of recording, pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson and drummer Dave King have practically become figureheads for a genre-blind mini-movement in jazz, earning perhaps as much attention for their skewed takes on such modern rock figures as Nirvana and Aphex Twin as they have for their deadly cohesive, virtuosic interplay.

Yet for all the trio’s fondness for giddily unpredictable reinterpretations (culminating with last year’s impressive, all-covers collaboration with vocalist Wendy Lewis, “For All I Care”), its members’ eclectic songwriting styles seemed in danger of being overshadowed. Enter “Never Stop,” the Bad Plus’ eighth album and its first dedicated to all-original compositions. The shift in focus suits them.

King’s martial stomp anchors a spring-loaded piano melody indelible enough for the pop songbook on the title track, while “2 p.m.”  and “You Are” show the trio can still twist through an adventurous workout. But the album’s more spacious excursions such as “People Like You” and “Snowball” may offer the greatest treats, with Iverson and Anderson weaving around King’s feathered percussion for some of the trio’s warmest, most delicate moments yet. There may not be a familiar hook for rock fans to lean on, but odds are they won’t need one, either.

--Chris Barton

The Bad Plus
“Never Stop”
Three and a half stars
E1 Entertainment

There’s a modification of an old joke that came to mind on Wednesday night. “What does a 70-year-old jazz legend get to play on his birthday at the Hollywood Bowl?” The answer for the great Herbie Hancock is, of course, anything he wants.

Not that this would be anything new for Hancock, who has always gone his own way. Starting his career at only 21, the pianist has zigzagged through an array of musical high points that have included eye-opening bandleader, sideman to Miles Davis in a historic jazz combo and innovative cross-pollinator, first with the raucous jazz-funk fusion of the Headhunters and later helping launch both the hip-hop and music-video eras with 1983’s “Rockit.” And that doesn’t even cover an album of the year Grammy in 2008 for “River.”

Billed as “Seven Decades — The Birthday Celebration,” the L.A. Philharmonic realistically needed two or three nights to adequately capture Hancock, who is in his first year as its Creative Chair for Jazz. In a lineup full of high-wattage guests, the program was split into two parts, the first consisting of Hancock’s groundbreaking, mostly acoustic ’60s work and the latter dedicated to Hancock’s equally influential electric period and his new album, “The Imagine Project.”

Though most of the near-capacity crowd knew to arrive early, it was easy to pity the few stragglers hustling to their seats through Hancock’s first set. Opening with a weaving, breezy take on Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage,” the wealth of experience onstage was awe-inspiring as the pianist was joined by longtime collaborator Wayne Shorter on saxophone, Jack DeJohnette on drums, trumpeter Terence Blanchard and, briefly, electric bassist Nathan East.

There’s no way to talk about the Portico Quartet without first talking about the hang drum. A UFO-shaped oddity that looks like two welded-together woks after a couple of well-placed whacks with a ball-peen hammer, its percolating, chiming pulse provides an exotic focal point to the unique saxophone, bass and drum instrumentals by these East London twentysomethings, whose 2008 debut was nominated for a Mercury Prize in the U.K.

For the follow-up, the group has teamed with producer John Leckie, who previously worked with the Stone Roses and Radiohead. And while the quartet's sound gains a new richness with a few well-placed flourishes of strings and electronics, its unclassifiable core remains intact. With Nick Mulvey’s hang drums variously recalling a thumb piano, steel drums or even a vaguely electronic-feeling sonic backdrop, Portico Quartet’s bewitching mix can sound like a noirish jungle cruise scored by Wayne Shorter and Steve Reich.

Rising out of an insistent bass line, the moody “Dawn Patrol” boils over into a flurry of saxophone and percussion acrobatics, while the hypnotic maze of ringing hang drums in “Line” recalls the widescreen sweep of Moby's early ambient days. Blending an almost futuristically elegant sense of atmosphere with flashes of raw, flesh-and-blood expression, Portico Quartet isn’t the first to carve out such a pan-global sonic world, but it's created one that's welcoming to visit.

-- Chris Barton

Portico Quartet
“Isla”
Real World
Three stars

 

At this point in Bill Frisell’s career, you pretty much know what you’re going to get. Sure, there’s the occasional foray into his unhinged past with John Zorn’s Naked City and the string-heavy Richter 858 project, but for the most part Frisell has carved out a comfortable -– and, let’s be honest, quite lovely –- niche that finds his alternately stinging or soothing guitar tone stirring up a gorgeous and unique mix of rustic Americana and slow-boiling jazz.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. For his latest record, his first for Savoy Jazz, Frisell has assembled an unconventional trio with experimental-minded violist Eyvind Kang and drummer Rudy Royston, who has backed frequent Frisell collaborator Ron Miles. Frisell isn’t a stranger to string accompaniment in a small ensemble given his recent work with Jenny Schienman. But Kang is given ample room to put his distinct stamp on the proceedings, most notably with his gruff, sawing interplay with Frisell on a twilit reading of “It’s Nobody’s Fault but Mine.” Frisell’s taste for mining the classic songbook remains intact with lovely, understated takes on “Beautiful Dreamer,” “Tea for Two” and the ever-jaunty “Keep on the Sunny Side,” but these add up to a rather inescapable feeling that Frisell has been here before.

Originals such as the churning and surprisingly upbeat Vic Chesnutt dedication “Better Than a Machine” and the elastic “All We Can Do” certainly show there’s plenty for both longtime fans and newcomers to enjoy here. It’s just hard not to wish for more surprises.

-- Chris Barton

Bill Frisell
“Beautiful Dreamers”
Savoy Jazz
Two and a half stars

In some respects, 1998 seems like a lifetime ago. Cellphones were still brick-shaped novelties, the iPod was just a twinkle in Apple's eye and Stanton Moore, the hard-hitting drummer for New Orleans funk ensemble Galactic, released the solo album "All Kooked Out" on the tiny San Francisco imprint Fog City.

Teamed with the Bay Area's eight-string guitar virtuoso Charlie Hunter and saxophone madman Skerik from the deliriously unhinged ambient-art-jazz ensemble Critters Buggin, the record marked a supergroup of sorts for a wildly fertile mini-movement in the late '90s, one that curiously spiraled out of the improv-happy jam-band scene led by Phish. While the mere mention of the "J" word -- much less Phish -- causes many music fans to leave the room, Moore's album, along with records by San Diego's Greyboy Allstars and Medeski Martin and Wood, also picked up a number of longtime jazz fans in the process, as well as forming a gateway of sorts into the music for a new generation (this writer included).

I had the pleasure of speaking with jazz pianist Vijay Iyer a short time ago in advance of Sunday's performance with his trio at Pasadena's Levitt Pavilion (which is free, by the way -- seriously, if you have any curiosity about jazz or jazz piano, this would be a good show to catch).

We talked about the effect of the avalanche of critical acclaim he received since his 2009 album "Historicity," his impressive new solo piano album coming Aug. 31 and his genre-blind view of music, particularly with regard to his cover choices. In the past he has reinterpreted John Lennon, Stevie Wonder and M.I.A., and his diverse track record continues on "Solo" with a reverent take on Michael Jackson's "Human Nature," which fits rather nicely against a cover of Monk's "Epistrophy" and Iyer's inventive originals.

And while you'd expect any number of famed solo jazz recordings acting as his inspiration, there was one album in particular he found a kinship with during the making of this album: Janelle Monáe's genre-hopping "The ArchAndroid."

"I listened to that the day that we were mixing, which was pretty interesting because it’s obviously very different sonic landscape. It’s kind of just good to get a blast of something else, just some other dose of creative expression that’s not yours when you’re holed up in this kind of thing," he said.

"And maybe that’s just who I am because in a way my role in this music has never been some sort of insular thing, it’s always been kind of leaking into other areas of music and contingent on what’s around it."

Read the whole story here.

-- Chris Barton

Photo: Vijay Iyer in concert. Credit: Hans Speekenbrink

---

Clicking on Green Links will take you to a third-party e-commerce site. These sites are not operated by the Los Angeles Times. The Times Editorial staff is not involved in any way with Green Links or with these third-party sites.

---

In only its second year, L.A.'s own Angel City Jazz Festival was one of the highlights of 2009, with a two-day blend of rich, forward-thinking jazz at the John Anson Ford Amphitheater last Labor Day Weekend. Yet this is a tough time for music festivals, and despite the overwhelming feeling that a beautiful musical tradition was coming into its own, it was easy to wonder if the brainchild of longtime local promoter Rocco Somazzi and Cryptogramophone Records' Jeff Gauthier could sustain itself after such an auspicious leap.

Luckily for jazz fans, the festival is not only continuing, it seems to be growing. Though the actual "festival" component at the Ford has been scaled back to a single day on Sunday, Oct. 3 (with performances by the Ravi Coltrane / Ralph Alessi Quintet, Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet and others), the festival overall has expanded to a full week, with shows planned across the city.

Partnering with Cryptogramophone and the L.A. County Arts Commission as well as REDCAT, L.A. Film Forum and the still-itinerant Jazz Bakery, the events planned for Oct. 2-8 indicate that the festival's taste for adventure remains undiminished. Among the highlights include avant-garde bassist Henry Grimes in a group with Wadada Leo Smith and Alex Cline at REDCAT, the John Abercrombie Quartet at the Musician's Institute Theater and an event at LACMA's Bing Theater celebrating the release of "Dirty Baby," a book that chronicles the meeting of the music of Nels Cline with the poetry of David Breskin and the art of Ed Ruscha.

Tickets are available separately here, as well as a five-night pass to every show for $75. Full details of the lineup after the jump.