Live Music This Week: D'Angelo, Sufjan Stevens, Christopher Owens & More

Live Music This Week: D'Angelo, Sufjan Stevens, Christopher Owens & More

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Do yourself a favor and listen to the new Jamie xx. TRUST. It’s probably the best thing since Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories. Start with "Gosh" and, well, see you next week.


Wednesday: Miami Horror at The Independent

Let’s face it. Disco is the zombie genre — it cannot be killed. So you might as well embrace it, buy a white leather jacket and the latest Miami Horror record (2015’s All Possible Futures, the band’s second proper album) and get weird. The band follows in the large footsteps of fellow Aussies Cut Copy, favoring sunny melodies and spazzy guitar hooks and dance-able beats at every possible moment. Rest assured, bandleader Benjamin Plant will be a party-leader this summer at festivals across the country, spreading the disco zombie gospel.

Wednesday: Christopher Owens at The Chapel

I have no idea what Christopher Owens is thinking breaking up beloved San Francisco band Girls (forgive the sentimental drama but DAMMIT that band was incredible), so I’ll let him explain his latest solo venture in his own words: “Lysandre could easily be mistaken as an album about a love affair and the girl I fell in love with. But it's much more than that. While love inspired me to write Lysandre's Theme — and the album closes with this encounter — it also tells a story: the story of a writer in a band who suddenly finds himself facing the reality of a first tour and everything that entailed; from writing alone at home, to suddenly being in a band preparing for their first out of town shows.” Fine. WHATEVER. Play “Hellhole Ratrace” and we’ll call it square.

Friday and Saturday: Sufjan Stevens at Fox Theater

Sufjan Stevens makes music that begs for essay-level contemplation and analysis. Regardless of the instrumental depth, he’s seemingly incapable of telling stories that don’t wrap themselves around your mind, heart, and soul. He is hyperbole’s ultimate foe — the songwriter whose ambition deserves every superlative in the book. To borrow a phrase, his latest album Carrie & Lowell is "a staggering work of heartbreaking genius," a journey into his own biography and youthful, fantastical impressions of the world and his place therein. Anyways, do whatever you can to see this show. Word is the acoustic ditties take on an entirely new, full life on this tour.

Saturday: Matthew Dear at Public Works

Maybe you didn’t ask for a six-hour Matthew Dear set, but I sure did. At this point, the Ghostly Records co-founder can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. Particularly after the buzzsaw 2012 album Beams. I’d complain about no new recent albums, but that album hasn’t come close to aging or feeling old. Somehow it feels more current with age. Is that even possible? What the hell have you done to the time space continuum, Mr. Dear?

Sunday: D'Angelo at Fox Theater

You’ve been waiting basically forever — ok, eight years, minimum...FOREVER — to see D’Angelo, the man/myth/legend/the please-don’t-call-me-a-sex-symbol sex peddler. His long-awaited, universally beloved new album Black Messiah has by now entered the part of your salacious subconscious and bedroom-jams playlist. Lordy, is, it, goooooood. And now he’s starting his new tour at THE FOX THEATER, by far the smallest venue he’ll play on the tour. That reminds me, I’ve gotta light some candles and dim the lights brb.


Follow @ChrisTrenchard on Twitter.

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