Option #1:

Mahjongg at Vera Project
Mahjongg shows are a glorious mess—on the band’s last visit to Seattle, they crowded the Rendezvous’s small stage with spray-painted computer towers and television monitors—and their music is every bit as bizarre, a chaotic mix of dance punk, electro funk, Afro pop, and militaristic noise. Their latest album, Kontpab, captures the energetic mayhem, cryptic patterns, and tense movements of their live shows. Calvin Johnson and So Many Dynamos open. (Vera Project, Seattle Center, 956-8372. 7:30 pm, $8, all ages.)
by Eric Grandy

Option #2:

Sole, Telephone Jim Jesus, No-Fi Soul Rebellion
(Nectar) From the more confounding corners of Anticon’s post-hiphop, freak-folk universe comes Sole and the Skyrider Band. Sole (born Tim Holland) began as a NY-centric, would-be battle rapper, releasing a debut called Mad Skillz and Unpaid Billz at age 16. In 1998, he founded the Anticon label along with Pedestrian and stopped spelling his plurals with z’s. Recently, Holland has fleshed out Sole’s solo productions with a live band, assembled by drummer/producer Bud Berning, aka Skyrider. On Sole and the Skyrider Band, Holland’s breathless rants are backed by Balkan brass disappearing into dub echoes, live drumming mixed with record scratches and warped samples, and electric guitars trading melodies with violins. At its most bombastic, the album flirts with rap-rock cliché, but Sole’s brooding is too densely abstract and Skyrider Band’s tracks too finessed to fall into that trap. ERIC GRANDY

Option #3:

Sly Lothario, Library Science
(ToST) Let’s begin by pointing out that the second album by the local band Library Science, The Chancellor (2007), is far superior to their first, High Life Honey (2004). Why is this the case? The first, which is not terrible, lacks the confidence and fullness of sound that is found on every track of the second effort. The Chancellor is a bold record; the timidity on High Life Honey is here completely expunged and we get a record that has an indie-rock sensibility that’s not hindered or worried but extravagantly expressed by the dub. Now, every dub is ground in one of the two founders of the form: Lee “Scratch” Perry or King Tubby. Alter Echo, a dub producer based in Portland, has, for example, his ground in King Tubby, which is a more technical approach. Library Science’s dub has its base in Lee “Scratch” Perry, which is a more experimental approach. No instrument or sound or mood is a foreigner to Library Science’s experiments. They will test anything in the dub, and on The Chancellor these tests frequently have spectacular results. CHARLES MUDEDE

Another reason to go to Option #1: So Many Dynamos are opening.

Their music is like Q and Not U with Midwest roots. They’re full of angst, but they’re not aggressive. They’re a dance band with heavy synth, but they’re ultimately a rock band. They’ve got catchy choruses that beg to be sung in unison by a huge crowd. The singer has thick-rimmed glasses, sings about girls and science, but somehow doesn’t come off like a complete nerd. And their name, if you didn’t already know, is a palindrome. (And you thought TacocaT was impressive.)

This is happening too:

The Hands celebrate the release of their new album at Neumo’s
The Kindness Kind play with Hungry Pines at Cafe Venus/Mars Bar