Sorry, this is going to be a very genre-specific post, but if you’re not a metal fan you’re not interested in these bands anyway, so I’m not that sorry.

I went to a tech-metal show last night at DC9, and a doom metal show broke out instead.

At least, it did for about 20 minutes, which was the time allotted to openers Salome, a local group playing slow, sludgy stuff in the best tradition of Black Sabbath, Sleep and the like. Hailing from Annandale, Salome are a three-piece of drums, guitar and vocals, and as with all good bands of this sort, are skilled in the art of finding a nice heavy riff and riding it for all it’s worth. What made them interesting was their vocalist: “Kat,” a small-statured woman whose vocals went from doomy roar to death-metal growl to black-metal shriek, often all in the same song. Virginia’s own Angela Gossow?

There’s no shortage of female-fronted metal groups these days, but almost all of these frontwomen sing in pretty sopranos. Not so Kat, whose throaty howl made a fine complement to Salome’s huge guitar sound and slow, relentless drumming. I didn’t even mention these guys in my preview of the show because I had no idea who they were, but I do now and they have my attention.

Salome were a bit of an odd choice to open this show, as all the rest of the bands play a much more mile-a-minute, complexity-obsessed brand of metal. Very few bands are as complexity-obsessed as Behold… the Arctopus, whose show featured the musicians’ fingers flying around nearly as fast as their hair. (Warr guitarist Colin Marston was wearing a Darkthrone t-shirt, which was kind of funny in that the Norweigian black metal band probably played about as many notes in their entire career as Marston fires off in a single practice session.) “Better start practicing,” a fan said to me after their set, but let’s be real: with no amount of practice could 95% of the population possibly become as proficient at their instruments as these guys.

Musicianship aside, the music was great, and the band has come a long way in recent years to write interesting compositions to match their raw technical ability. Lots of twists and turns, starts and stops, themes that fragment and recur; this was pretty heady material all in all.

Intronaut, a band distinguished by the fact that they sometimes sound like they have Jaco Pastorius sitting in on bass, did not disappoint either. Unsurprisingly, the bassist was front and center both in the stage setup and in their sound, flying through melodic leads as often as he played chordal support. The group played several new songs from their upcoming album (slated for a September release), which showcased a very technical aspect of their compositions, in contrast to the somewhat more atmospheric material on their earlier releases. We’re talking off-kilter rhythms and time changes galore, something that very much appealed to my ears, which were raised on copious (unhealthy?) amounts of prog.

I did not stick around for Mouth of the Architect, for the very good reason that I was tired. It happens.

A bunch of photos, mostly in glorious black and white, at Flickr here.

On Saturday night, Jill Scott sang at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Md. About midway up the center seating area stood a little boy. He wore a white undershirt and white basketball shorts, and he was with his mother, a petite woman in a green dress. The boy couldn’t have been more than 8—though I would guess that he was 7.

He was loving Scott. As soon as she opened her mouth, he was standing up, rocking to the beat. His finger waved above his head. His arms pounded the air. Every once in a while, he’d turn and sing a lyric to his mother, who mouthed the music back to him. Except for one time. In this instance, she gestured for him to go into the aisle and sprayed him up and down with bug repellent.

But that was the only noteworthy pause of musical bliss.

That boy was a gold-star concertgoer. He made sure every penny spent on his ticket was worth it. Come to think of it, he probably couldn’t even see Scott. There was a pack of guys standing up in front of him most of the time.

No doubt about it, this adorable little mini-fan was feeling what most others in the audience revealed with slightly less enthusiasm: Man, Jill—she’s damn good.

You get the sense that Scott treats a crowd of 40 no different than a crowd of 4,000. She laughs. She curses. She instructs. She informs: Before a series of slow jazzy love songs, she says, “This is the segment of the show I call ‘Trying to get you laid.’” Between songs, Scott says that she thinks she knows something about relationships, and she’d like to share it. In the end though, she delivers no real speeches. With emotional authority, Scott just sings her heart out, and mostly forgets about the audience mid-song, just concentrating on her sound. This was particularly true with her rendition of “Insomnia,” in which she sings about the hours passing by as she waits in bed wondering where her lover is. The woman earns her back-up singers (three, for the record). She also looked great. As the token full-figured woman, Scott was featured in Vogue’s “Shape” issue this year. But there’s no doubt, she can pick out her clothes: on Saturday, she came out in a black satiny tunic, big jewelry, black leggings, and chunky heals.

Scott saved two of her most popular, more up-tempo songs for the end of her performance. After “finishing” her set, she sauntered—and this woman really does saunter—off stage only re-emerge a few minutes later with go-go legend Chuck Brown for her hit “It’s Love” from her debut album, Who is Jill Scott? At this point, a man stepped out into the aisle for the sole purpose of shaking his butt. He stood there for a while, back bent, cheeks out, and wiggled his tush. Then, an usher directed him back to his seat.

After “It’s Love”, Scott continued onto her latest catchy tune “Hate on Me.” Chorus: “Hate on me hater, now or later….”

No one seemed to be complying.

Four full-length records in about four years … don’t America’s indie rockers have TVs anymore?

But it’s clear that Oxford Collapse are having too much fun not to be churning out their raucous, sing-along pop tunes on automatic. The Brooklyn-based art pop trio are best known for keeping alive the poignant embers of guitar-driven ’80s college rock and “jangular” pop.

Oxford Collapse’s forthcoming album, Bits, is a departure from the trio’s past efforts. In Sub Pop-inspired PR poetry, the band’s previous work “reflected an almost preternatural awareness of the ['80s college-rock mindset] and was/is excitable and bounding against prison walls of their own device.” Um. Well that’s a charming way of saying that the new record sees the the band loosening up the creative process, overthinking things less and writing songs with greater urgency and compulsion.

In fact the band had 30 songs worth of material going into the studio for this record, forcing some spillage of the surplus exuberance onto two separate vinyl releases (the Spike of Bensonhurst 7-inch on Flameshovel Records and the Hann-Byrd 12-inch on Comedy Minus One).

If that doesn’t tide you over until Aug. 5, when Bits is released, then go see their joyous, blistering live show this Saturday, Aug. 2 at Black Cat, alongside We Are Scientists and Frightened Rabbit. Expect to be entreated with soaring melodies, frenetic guitars, and some of the noisiest heartfelt songs you’ve heard in a long time.

Here is Oxford Collapse’s video for “The Birthday Wars,” a track off of Bits:

Fairfax’s VHF Records has been around since the early ’90s, releasing the kind of fringey experimental stuff in which Aethenor — a project of Sunn O)))’s Stephen O’Malley — fits comfortably. Despite the lineage, doom or drone metal this is not; instead, Aethenor’s style is an improvised ambient music that paints vivid imagery through amorphous sound.

The visual aspect of Aethenor’s music is certainly helped on by evocative album titles. Their first album (also on VHF) was called Deep In Ocean Sunk the Lamp of Light, a title matched by the submerged, claustrophic nature of the music. This year’s Betimes Black Cloudmasses, on the other hand, starts off with an appropriately airy feel, with a solid bass pulse underlying lazily drifting electronics. Things naturally get a bit more oppressive as the song and the album progress — you’d have to be surprised if they didn’t, given the members of the band (O’Malley, Daniel O’Sullivan of noisy droners Guapo, and Vincent de Roguin of dark Swiss post-rockers Shora) — but the overall sound still manages to evoke mental scenery akin to summer thunderstorm-filled skies.

Perhaps that’s just the way titles (and album art) works when it comes to ambient music, as the only concrete visual cues in a style of music devoid not only of words but also largely of recognizable melody. But regardless of the mechanism, VHF and Aethenor have put out one of the more mysteriously compelling records I’ve heard so far this year. Probably not stuff you want to be blasting out of your car stereo, but Betimes Black Cloudmasses is definitely some sweet late-night headphone music.

Of the three members in Washington, D.C.’s Imperial China, only drummer Patrick Gough can claim to be an ex-member of the early-’90s rock quartet Pitchblende. As a whole, though, Imperial China derives more than its fair share of inspiration from Gough’s critically acclaimed, criminally under-appreciated former band. To describe Matt Johnson’s guitar work as “angular,” Brian Porter’s bass lines as “guttural,” and Gough’s drumming as “propulsive” would be entirely accurate—however, it would also mislead one into thinking that Imperial China is a straight-up rehash of its musical forebears, which is far from the case. From a dynamics perspective, the three instruments constantly change allegiances, occasionally veering off in three different directions at once. But the end result is always cohesive—and, more importantly, contemporary. Imperial China performs with Len Bias, Bound Stems, and Seeing Eyeballs at 10 p.m. at the Velvet Lounge, 915 U St. NW. $8. (202) 462-3213. —Matthew Borlik

Allow me to step away from my increasingly bitter self and, you know, praise local music for a minute.

Well, partly local, because more than half the members of Deleted Scenes live in Brooklyn now. After four days in the studio with J. Robbins, months of over-dubbing, and eons of mixing, Deleted Scenes have finally posted some new songs from their recently completed record Birdseed Shirt.

And they’re really good. Seriously. Stepping away from the tight but relatively straight ahead folksy indie-pop of their older songs (at least the ones that I listened to in 2007), here Deleted Scenes embrace rhythm. “Ithaca” and “Fake IDs” chatter with extra percussion and dubby texture.

See Deleted Scenes live at either of these two local dates:
Tonight: Jul 10 2008 at Iota (w/Solar Powered Sun Destroyer, Gary B & The Notions!)
Aug 4 2008 at Black Cat (w/The Bee Team, The Never)

From the Tuesday night show at the Rock and Roll Hotel.

Abe Vigoda

High Places

No Age

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Whoops! Turns out the DC Party Pit isn’t such a great place to check out house shows these days…since it just closed.

Tenant/show organizer Dennis just posted this MySpace message regarding the end of the house’s 8-month run.

“Dear Friends,

This morning our neighbor showed up to our house with the landlord and the real estate agent for the house. Complaints about our “crazy parties” and all of the noise, some shit being stolen and a fire hydrant opened (neither of which I was aware of until the neighbor talked about it) and just some other stuff has lead the landlord to saying that if they get anymore complaints, they will be moving towards trying to get us out of the house.”

Oh well. Anybody want to volunteer their living room for a Turboslut show?

If you’re old, like me, you’ll remember Kansas house as the place where you saw bands like Black Eyes, Japanther, Early Humans, Love of Diagrams, The Creeping Nobodies, and Dada Swing.

If you’re ancient, like Jason Cherkis, you probably saw the Dismemberment Plan play there.

At any rate, Kansas House—a small stand-alone house which is located on 900 N Kansas St. in Arlington—was long the preferred spot for all-ages house shows. But a few years ago it went dormant, probably because the tenants were tired of having their living room torn apart on a semi-regular basis.

But now it looks like the house is back in action. A few local bands along with a group from San Francisco will be putting on a show Thursday night at 7:30. Full line-up below:

high castle (from san francisco)
buildings (ex sentai)
troll tax (1st show ever also mem of partyline/mess up the mess)

Not that the D.C. area has been devoid of house shows while Kansas house has been MIA. If you’re itching for some basement show action you might also check out The Lighthouse and the DC Party Pit, and a few others that I can’t remember offhand.

Fela Kuti’s youngest son, Seun, headlines the 9:30 Club tonight, with dad’s sensibility pretty much intact: On the evidence of the video below, he’s inherited the same taste for politicized chanting, dynamic stage shows, and extended Afrobeat grooves. Not as extended as the ones Fela dealt in, though. As he told the Boston Globe over the weekend:

“Only Fela could make songs 35 minutes long and have them published!” he says from a tour stop in France. “But me, basically, I feel like I have to bring Afrobeat into the future. People move so fast these days, you need to make shorter songs to get inside their head.”

This video comes from a show in Dakar in 2005. I haven’t spent enough time with Femi and Seun’s output to handicap a son-versus-son matchup; heck, I still haven’t gotten through all the Fela reissues that came out stateside in the late ’90s. If you have strong opinions on the matter, leave them in the comments. Regardless, tickets are still available for tonight’s show; doors open at 7 p.m.