Doveman flutters gently at Room 5 tonight

The chamber-pop sleeper band Doveman is spearheaded by Thomas Bartlett, a soft-eyed and softer-voiced musician whose pedigree is equally informed by classical training and the kind of introspection that can only be earned by wandering the streets of New York at odd hours, with the rush of taxis zipping by in the rain. A native of Vermont and in his mid-20s, he's disturbingly young for all his polyglot accomplishments, which includes studying piano in London with renowned instructor Maria Curcio, and more familiar to most, recording with an international roster of coolness, including Antony and the Johnsons, Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, the Frames, Bebel Gilberto, Arto Lindsay, the National and Yoko Ono.

Jealous yet? So are we. He will play the Room 5 Lounge tonight, and though we're not sure who's touring with him, his fellow ornithologists on record include drummer Dougie Bowne (Iggy Pop, Cassandra Wilson), banjo player Sam Amidon, guitarist Shahzad Ismaily (Rage Against the Machine) and trumpeter Peter Ecklund. We promise to quietly listen and not wrestle Bartlett to the floor to get phone numbers for Ono or Byrne out of his iPhone. Oh, yeah, and here's an odd detail: He has a legally contentious cover of the "Footloose" soundtrack floating around out there.

To stave you off till tonight, here's "The Best Thing," a Doveman song featuring the National's Matt Berninger, from the outfit's third album, "The Conformist," released last month with contributions from Martha Wainwright, Nico Muhly and Norah Jones. This little watercolor of a song is so pretty, it should probably be played only near sunrise with a furry cat in your lap and tea in hand, when you're most open to the world.

Doveman "The Best Thing"

-- Margaret Wappler

Doveman plays tonight with Javier Dunn, Matt Owens, the Golden West and Michael Doman at Room 5 Lounge, 143 N. La Brea, (323) 938-2504.

Photo: Bartlett at a New York apartment show with Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl. Credit: Blake Zidell & Associates

Get Loud & Rich at UCLA

Good tickets remain for tonight's Loudon Wainwright and Richard Thompson acoustic assault at UCLA's Royce Hall, but if this last-minute update hits you too late -- the gig starts at 8 p.m. -- we'll still have you covered. Check back to Pop & Hiss early Saturday for a review of the concert. 

Loud & Rich is the name the pair has given to occasional joint shows. Folk is really just a starting point when it comes to the two storied singer-songwriters, as both have amassed deep catalogs that explore, bend and play with traditions. They will perform sets separately and together tonight, and below, you can sample the title track from Wainwright's two-disc tribute to famed banjo player Charlie Poole, "High Wide & Handsome."

1-01 High Wide & Handsome

--A Pop & Hiss public service announcement.

Photo: Loudon Wainwright. Credit: Ross Halfin

Buraka Som Sistema tonight at the Mayan

Here's a little audio espresso to percolate your Thursday afternoon. Hailing from Angola and Portugal, Buraka Som Sistema will drop into the Mayan tonight with its deconstructed, minimalist fusing of ghettotech built on Brazilian baile funk and bhangra with kuduro, a skittering, quick beat born in Angola in the '80s.

On "Black Diamond," the group's long-player released in 2008 (and in the States earlier this year), Buraka producers Lil John, Riot and Conductor, along with MC Kalaf, find themselves flush with the kind of collaborators that make Fader magazine editors salivate at night: M.I.A., Kano and Hot Chip, to name a few. M.I.A.'s been a veritable fan girl from the start, appearing in the 2007 viral video "Sound of Kuduro," which joyfully sounds like a dredging up of every harsh beat from the streets of Lisboa.

In this remix of the Deize Tigrona-assisted "Aqui Para Voces," French DJ Brodinski, who's remixed songs for Bonde do Role and Klaxons, adds even more perilous bass drops to the mix and a metallic coating to the otherwise rustic proceedings. It's an ample preview of what these kuduro ambassadors should bring tonight: an amalgamation of global beats that'll drop like a hammer. Be sure to wear your sunglasses for the blow-back.

-- Margaret Wappler

"Aqui Para Voces" featuring Deize Tigrona (Brodinski Remix)

Buraka Som Sistema play tonight at Mayan Theater, 1038 S. Hill St. (213)746-4674. 8 p.m. doors. $23.

Photo, left-to-right: Riot, J-Wow (a BSS founding member), Kalaf and Conductor. Credit: Biz 3

Earthmen and Strangers land tonight at the Redwood Bar & Grill

Earthmen and Strangers brings its searing brand of psychedelic desert garage rock to the Redwood Bar & Grill tonight. The band's self-titled debut album on Philadelphia's FDH Records, released earlier this year, is a triumph of sharp musical skill and raw, almost heartrending feeling. Frontman Ryan Rousseau, whose garage rock pedigree stretches all the way back to 1998 in the first lineup of the Reatards, has a way of writing songs about matters of the heart that are both emotional and tough, a quality that makes for compelling live performances.

Anchored by the solid rhythm section of Luis Padilla on guitar, Joe Mathis on bass and Lenny DeLeon on drums, Rousseau is the creative wild card in the group. Playing upside down left-handed guitar, he sings with his eyes closed, as if transporting himself to another world. When he plays the jagged, feedback-heavy guitar solo for the epic "Desert Snow," it's like a magic carpet ride across a prickly black-lit Southwestern moonscape.

Currently on the last leg of a West Coast tour, Earthmen and Strangers will be joined by the bluesy, atmospheric Becky Lee and Drunkfoot and Orange County's own post-punk Cat Party.

-- Jason Gelt

Earthmen and Strangers at the Redwood Bar & Grill, 316 W. 2nd St. (213) 680-2600. 10 p.m. $10.
 
Photo: Earthmen and Strangers. Credit: Christy Masengarb

Inara George at the Bootleg Theater: The saddest 'Bomb'

Not every bomb looks or feels the same. We're all familiar with the crazy mushroom clouds in the sky variety, but on Inara George's new track, she woefully sings about another romantically lethal version that can steal in overnight. Over a somber thread of acoustic guitar, she sings, "Don't know where you've gone for good. I'm breaking up our house for firewood." A couple minutes into it, the song lifts off, the sadness breaking apart into the loneliest landscape outside "2001: A Space Odyssey." It's a gorgeous interlude, with synthesizers that sound like harpsichord keys chopped up over rumbling, dark drums.

"Bomb" is the single off of the new "Accidental Experimental," George's digital-only follow-up to last year's "An Invitation," her florid collaboration with Van Dyke Parks. Tonight she performs at the Bootleg Theater with Eleni Mandell, Daniel Martin Moore and Ferraby Lionheart, a bill that's something like the Los Angeles MENSA club for the emotionally intelligent. These singers know the heartbreak that they speak of -- but they make it sound beautiful.

--Margaret Wappler

Photo: Inara George. Credit: Autumn de Wilde

Wale watch: The D.C. rapper on the blog age, Twitter and his debut album 'Attention Deficit'

Wale is exhausted. Bivouacked in a lounge across the street from Interscope’s Santa Monica headquarters, the Washington, D.C., native wears a countenance of weary resignation, preparing for the first in a seemingly never-ending string of interviews. When I tell him that I’ll try not to ask the same stupid questions, he exhales a sigh a relief.

It’s enough for the dreadlocked 25-year-old to handle the rigors of opening for Jay-Z and N.E.R.D. at sold-out arenas across America (as he’s been done for the last several weeks), but he’s simultaneously in breakneck promotional mode in advance of the release of “Attention Deficit,” his official debut that drops Tuesday. Accordingly, he’s frantically checking his phone, Twittering and trying to stay sane, knowing too well that judgment day looms a week away.

The problem is that Wale might be built for the old industry model. A complex craftsman in a fast-food rap world that rewards simplicity and prolificacy, Wale is trapped between binaries. Arguably the most buzzed-about rapper to emerge out of the blogosphere’s tower of babble, he’s acutely aware that to achieve commercial success outside of the Internet bubble, he needs a radio hit. But as he readily admits, “I’m not a radio artist yet.” So in a bid to earn visibility, he collaborated with Lady Gaga and Gucci Mane for his first two singles, alienating many of the purists in his vociferous fan base.

Compounding the disappointment was that neither cut caught fire, though the Gaga-aided “Chillin” has nearly gone gold. Moreover, “Attention Deficit” is riddled with commercial compromises that were absent on the free giveaways he made his name on: the outstanding “100 Miles and Running” and the “The Mixtape About Nothing,” a “Seinfeld”-themed opus that shifted people’s paradigm of what to expect from a mix tape. But in spite of the myriad hoops that the corporate brass forced him to jump through, Wale has delivered the strongest debut yet of XXL’s much ballyhooed Freshman 10 class (Kid Cudi, Asher Roth, Charles Hamilton, et al), one that augurs well for a lengthy and successful career.

In advance of his show Sunday night (with Jay-Z, N.E.R.D. and J. Cole), Pop & Hiss spoke to Wale about the difficulties of getting to release a major-label rap album in 2009, the negativity and fickleness of the blog age, and why he Twitters so much.

Like many of the more blog-buzzed rappers, you’ve been subject to a lot of rumors, beefs real or fabricated, and a level of media attention that rappers a generation ago may have had to face, but certainly not on as large of a scale. Has this been a difficult thing for you to cope with?

Q-Tip once told me that 15 years ago, all people had to judge you on was your album, one or two interviews, your record for the radio and the picture on the album cover. That’s it. The only way you can remain relevant is to give yourself up, unless you’re blessed to be in one of those every-once-in-a-while Drake situations. But that’s not even a once-in-a-while thing; that’s a one-time thing.

Thomas Function’s Southern garage rock hits the Five Star Bar tonight

 

When Thomas Function played Gonerfest 6 in Memphis a month ago, the band held down an afternoon slot in the rain-slick rear courtyard of the Buccaneer Lounge. Under a muggy, overcast sky, the Huntsville, Ala.-based quartet fought negligent soundboard conditions and lousy acoustics to deliver a heartfelt set of inspired garage rock. Currently in the midst of a grueling seven-week national tour, Thomas Function is due to hit the stage of downtown's Five Star Bar tonight, which most likely will be a much better showcase of its talent. Audiences can expect to hear material from the band's recently released sophomore full-length, "In the Valley of Sickness," on Fat Possum Records, with a few choice cuts from its debut effort, "Celebration," from Bomp's Alive imprint.

The band is just one of the current crop of Southern rock acts (along with Jay Reatard, King Khan, Jack Oblivian and Black Lips) currently raising eyebrows with a rigorous work ethic (six seven-inches and two albums in less than three years) and a forthright, stripped-down approach to garage pop music. Its sound is as effervescent as Champagne bubbles but grounded by a rock 'n' roll grittiness that takes its cues from such influences as keyboard-laced '60s garage, country rock and glam -- with a healthy dose of punk rock decadence tossed into the mix for good measure. Respectful of its forebears, Thomas Function is at the same time unafraid to dish out a sound that is unabashedly new and fresh.

Get an idea of what to expect from this clip of Thomas Function performing “Filthy Flowers” from its debut album:

Flaming Lips return to Hollywood on Thursday: Last gig till 2010?*

Word is the Flaming Lips will return to their whacked-out psychedelic experimentations with the release of this week's "Embryonic," and Los Angeles-area fans will get the first shot at hearing much of the album translated to a live audience. The Lips will appear Thursday night at Hollywood's Ricardo Montalbán Theatre near the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street.

But getting in won't be easy. It's a free gig sponsored by MySpace, and tickets will be made at the theater on a first-come, first-serve basis Thursday. The venue will also hold a Lips pop-up store, which promises "unique artifacts" (read: fur-encased CDs) for sale. The store is open from noon to midnight, and fans who score tickets will need to be in the venue by 7:30 p.m.

A press release teases that it will be the Flaming Lips' last U.S. show until 2010 (apparently that doesn't include festival appearances, as a commenter reminds us the band will be in San Francisco this weekend for the Treasure Island Music Festival and then later in New Orleans for the Voodoo Fest). Here's hoping the band is retooling its live show to match "Embryonic," moving away from the goofy-cute -- yet, admittedly, awesome -- live celebration that has become the norm, and bringing back a hint of edginess (the "headphone concerts" of "The Soft Bulletin" era, for example).

Sunny Day Real Estate reunites for tour, wants to make you cry again

Emerging from Seattle's heady, aggressive grunge scene in the early 1990s, Sunny Day Real Estate did the unthinkable. It made punk pretty.

It didn't hurt that singer Jeremy Enigk looked like an angel, with wide, innocent eyes and a wounded stare. His voice -- high, lilting and perfectly pitched -- was unexpectedly powerful, and his lyrics were dusted with a deep and pervasive sorrow. So was the rest of the music, with its churning, melodic guitars and heavy, pointed rhythm section.

But the magic didn't last long. Internal tensions and Enigk's desire to pursue a solo career split up the band after just a few years and two full-length albums, 1994's "Diary" and its follow-up, "LP2." Still, the group managed to amass a sizable cult following as progenitors of the emo sound.

They were a keen influence on many of today's chart-topping acts, including Fall Out Boy and Paramore; in fact, "Diary" has gone on to sell more than 230,000 copies, making it among the top 10 most successful releases in Seattle label Sub Pop's history.

Now, the original Sunny Day Real Estate lineup (Enigk, guitarist Dan Hoerner, bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith) is hitting the road on a 21-city tour that kicked off last month and includes sold-out shows at the House of Blues in Anaheim today and the Henry Fonda Theater in Los Angeles on Sunday.

"When Nate called me, I had to sit down -- I was gonna pass out," said Hoerner of the day in February that Mendel, who is also the bassist for the Grammy Award winning rock act Foo Fighters, contacted him with the idea of a reunion tour. "I was blown away, floored and very excited."

Tonight: Breakestra at the El Rey

Organic. The quintessential 21st-century trope — used to hawk everything from pesticide-free tomatoes to online viral marketing campaigns to buzz bands with aspirations of authenticity and loose limbs. Forget the whole grain, Whole Foods connotations, Breakestra is organic — a fluid and funky fusion between the city’s coffeehouse indie-rap scene of the mid- to late-'90s and the breakbeat-heavy samples they stole from their parents’ crates.

Today, the notion of another 10-piece band re-working Stax, Motown and the holy, dirty groove of James Brown and the Meters feels slightly trite. After all, everyone from the Menahan Street Band to Maxwell has paid homage to retro soul, with the sub-genre seemingly the most viable antiphony to the auto-tuned excesses of contemporary R&B. Yet, at a time when most revivalists had just parted with their New Jack Swing gear, Breakestra were vanguards, emerging as an Angeleno analogue to Brooklyn’s Dap-Kings, full of beach ball-fat bass lines, heaven-sent horns and filthy drum fills.

Quickly winning converts with legendary weekly gigs at the Breaks and its successor Root Down (the weekly hip-hop night promoted and curated by Breakestra mastermind “Music Man” Miles Tackett), the band soon received an offer from Stones Throw honcho Peanut Butter Wolf to release their debut 7', “Getcho Soul Together.”

Several EPs and a Ubiquity Records full-length later, Breakestra are back with their latest excellent slab of funk, “From Dusk Till Dawn,” released on London’s venerable Strut Records imprint. Partially a tribute to their deceased comrade DJ Dusk, the disc finds Tackett and company expanding their palette to include fuzzy Afro-psyche flourishes, Colombian cumbia and even a cello solo.

In advance of their album release party tonight at the El Rey, Tackett spoke to Pop & Hiss about the new record, the memory of Dusk and his favorite breaks of all time.