Nico Muhly is at the Triple Door tonight. Kurt B Reighly interviewed him for this week’s music section. An excerpt:

As scattershot as his processes may seem, he does not eschew structure. Even his most disorienting pieces are carefully scored. He just sifts through tons of ideas before he gets to that stage; when composing the percussion piece “Pillaging Music,” he created far more content than the piece required, then stripped parts away, sometimes with jarring results. “The idea is you’re left with these husks of music,” he explains.

His new album, Mothertongue, slices, stretches, and stratifies language and the human voice. “The Only Tune,” featuring folk musician Sam Amidon, explodes a woodsy murder ballad. At first, the lyric is splintered, Amidon teasing out words one at a time. But as his banjo comes in, the singer finds a center of gravity, and a more traditional song, some mystic Appalachian air, takes shape… only to disintegrate and regenerate in other configurations, as wind and rain mingle with piano and viola.

Read the whole piece here. Also tonight…

“Looking Glass” by the Raggedy Anns

Club Pop: Jeremy Jay, the Raggedy Anns, DJs Recess and Reflex
(Chop Suey) Jeremy Jay is a lanky (six foot three) young singer and songwriter from “Angel Town,” California, whose album, A Place Where We Could Go, was released this spring via Olympia’s K Records. His bio cites the French New Wave, art deco, Buddy Holly, Peter Pan, John Hughes; it also notes that Jay, who plays guitar and piano, likes to “drive around with the moonroof open listening to music with his friends.” K is a good fit for Jay, not just because of the above preciousness, but also because his music is spiritually and sonically a direct descendant of Beat Happening’s sleepy-headed-yet-coy dream pop, equal parts lo-fi and tuneful, updated with occasional synth touches. “Breaking the Ice” and the appropriately weightless “Airwalker” are especially convincing prom-night dance jams. Local outfit the Raggedy Anns mix rock, blues, jazz, and old-timey affectations into suspiciously studied shambles. ERIC GRANDY

Saviours, Titan, Treetarantula, Sandrider
(Comet) Saviours are a rare metal band that are doing everything right. They’ve got huge riffs, impeccably tasteful solos, and galloping beats that make you feel like you’re riding a trusty steed into an evil fortress. They’re a mix of Black Sabbath, early Metallica, and Motörhead refined into a modern metal juggernaut. The best part of their record Into Abaddon: The LP’s inside sleeve has the same image as the front cover, except with a pile of weed and some rolling papers on top. This is a band that understand their fans. Opening is Sandrider, a new side project from Akimbo drummer Nat Damm. There is a 100 percent chance you will wake up the morning after this show with a serious bangover. JEFF KIRBY

Nellie McKay, Fences
(Neumo’s) The last time I saw Nellie McKay was at the dearly departed/potentially reanimated Crocodile, where an odd-duck crowd of NPR lovers and cabaret fans stood in a crush before the stage, while the adorable McKay sat at her piano, rolling out her postmodern comedy over the score for the musical that exists only in her big, weird head. Tonight, McKay plays Neumo’s—another stand-and-gawk rock club (when does she get her night at the Triple Door?) but the quality of the art compensates for any venue discord. DAVID SCHMADER