72 Hours: Os Mutantes, Aloe Blacc and the Wu-Tang Clan top this weekend’s shows

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Because not everyone can afford to see Roger Waters.

Thursday

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Os Mutantes @ the Music Box. The off-kilter pop of Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti can, admittedly, be an acquired taste. While there’s a gentleness through much of the weirdness, there’s plenty of Syd Barrett-like jaggedness to keep the audience off balance. Yet the locals aren’t even the reason to attend this show. The opportunity to see Os Mutantes is not one that should be passed up. Brazil’s psychedelic trailblazers helped define an avant-musical landscape in which an act like Ariel Pink could thrive, manipulating and twisting long-held traditions into something wholly unfamiliar. Heavily political, the act was characterized as rebels in the ‘60s, and has only recently reunited. The Music Box, 6126 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles. Tickets are $22.50, not including surcharges.

Hosannas @ Spaceland. Los Angeles knows a thing or two about noise rock of late, with the likes of No Age and Health becoming two of the city’s acts most deserving of bragging. Similarly, Portland, Ore.’s Hosannas lay the reverb on thick, but the young band’s layers of fuzz are made for blissing out, not rocking out. Low-fi guitars are sweetened with synths, and Hosannas lives in a tug-of-war between experimentation and melodicism. Spaceland, 1717 Silver Lake Blvd., Los Angeles. Tickets are $8.

Friday

Charlie Hunter @ the Mint. Ever since Charlie Hunter first came on the scene some 15 years ago, guitar wonks and jazz heads alike have watched in befuddled amazement as the Bay Area native has split his brain to play bass and melody lines simultaneously on a custom-built, eight-string electric guitar. Now working with “only” seven strings, Hunter continues to mash up jazz, funk and the unclassifiable with a self-released trio album in 2009, ‘Gentlemen, I Neglected to Inform You You Will Not Be Getting Paid,’ and this year’s solo record of standards, ‘Public Domain.’ The Mint, 6010 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles. Tickets are $25. Also Saturday.

Aloe Blacc @ the Echoplex. The Orange County-raised rapper has taken a more soulful turn as he enters his 30s. The focus is political, and the sound is a sleek dusting-off of ‘70s funkiness. His ‘I Need a Dollar’ is everything that John Legend’s recent collaboration with the Roots on ‘Wake Up!’ should have been -- urgent, groovy and padded with recession-timed activism around its gloomy horns. The Echoplex, 1514 Glendale Blvd. Tickets are $10 in advance; $12 day of show.

Saturday

Daylong Valleys of the Nile @ the Smell. Local vets who have done time in Lavender Diamond and Young People, among others, is an intriguing concoction of sounds. A melding of ‘80s new wave and ‘70s prog, the experimental nature of the act recalls Pere Ubu, even if the keyboard lines reference lush Roxy Music and the synths tap Joy Division panic. Forgive the overuse of references in this write-up, as it’s a rock critic cliche, but the band is weird, and this writer is on a post-Grammy brainfreeze. The Smell, 247 S. Main St., Los Angeles. Admission is $5.

Sunday

Alice Coltrane Tribute @ UCLA’s Royce Hall. A who’s-who from the worlds of jazz and improvised music come together to celebrate the late giant of modal and spiritually tinged free jazz (and wife of John Coltrane). Among those on hand for the event organized by TV on the Radio’s Kyp Malone will be Nels Cline, Han Bennink, McCoy Tyner and Coltrane’s great-nephew, the atmospheric instrumental hip-hop artist Flying Lotus (a.k.a. Steven Ellison). Royce Hall, 405 Hilgard Ave., Los Angeles. Tickets range from $28-$48.

Wu-Tang Clan @ Club Nokia. So no RZA, which is a shame, as his brief appearance on Kanye West’s ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ is downright vicious. But there’s still an array of rap superstars on this bill, with original members GZA, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God and Masta Killa slated to appear. That should be enough to promise an overload of personality and hip-hop invention. 800 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles. Tickets range from $46 to $66, not including surcharges.

-- Todd Martens & Chris Barton