The Lord Dog Bird (Wilderness guitarist Colin McCann) is sitting onstage playing an acoustic guitar, rocking back and forth with his eyes squeezed shut, singing his heart and several other internal organs out.

We’ve all seen this type of thing hundreds of times (well, I have) and we’ve become somewhat blasé about it in the 21st century. But this young man from Baltimore (who’s living in Seattle before he heads on tour in mid April and then to a house off the grid in northern California to live) imbues the ol' singer/songwriter song and stance with so much intensity and sincerity that he burns away the cynicism that’s been encrusted from countless lackluster troubadours in coffeehouses and non-profit venues. He somehow moved even “seen most of it” old fucks like your correspondent. Most of the sparse Chop Suey crowd was riveted, too, in a manner unusual for 9 pm on a Monday.

The Lord Dog Bird’s guitar tones made me think of the Velvet Underground; in fact, the first song I heard (“The Shedding Path,” I believe, off his self-titled album on Jagjaguwar) reminded me of “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” as McCann had found a way to mimic John Cale’s viola with his minimal setup (he had a box full of canned beats and two acoustic guitars). His music also carried something of Lungfish’s mesmerizing, incantatory quality about it; similarly, McCann’s vocals evoked that group’s Daniel Higgs. Both artists make you believe their words through sheer force of will and a tonal clarity that suggests a pure, honorable lifestyle. That’s not a very rock & roll thing to say about someone, but the Lord Dog Bird’s stripped-down, devotional-folk music seems built to outlive all notions of trendiness and fashion. (McCann mentioned that he was trying to get a gig at Vera April 14; stay tuned for further developments.)

The four members of headliners White Magic came on and got down to the solemnity gritty. Leader Mira Billotte radiated a Stevie Nicks aura in a black shawl/shroud ensemble and a serious demeanor as she sat at her Korg electric piano with a mug of tea and honey (one assumes; she was coughing often) and burned some sage. They began with a sideways waltz-y instrumental from Dat Rosa Mel Apibus and proceeded throughout most of the night to explore minute variations on the tumbling, somber, gothadelic-folk style with pagan-goddess vocals that has become White Magic’s unmistakable signature.

White Magic’s drummer, Ben McConnell, was a marvel, staying remarkably inventive and kinetic even as the songs creeped and lurched at a snail’s pace, but without appearing needlessly flashy or overwrought. Despite her coughing fits, Billotte was in fine voice, cooing and ululating and gravely intoning. Her pipes projected both a delicate beauty and a kind of stolid grandeur.

The first eight songs were sort of one-dimensional (however, it was a very compelling dimension), but with tracks 9 through 11, White Magic brought the rock more forcefully and cacophonously, as guitarist Sleepy Doug Shaw kneeled before his battery of effects and unleashed controlled maelstroms of gurgling electricity. The last tune of the set proper, for which Billotte left her keyboard, unexpectedly created a mossy metal tumult.

White Magic returned for a brief encore that involved Billotte and Shaw standing in the crowd, the former clacking her mug against a glass for percussion while singing in multiple tongues and the latter strumming an acoustic and matching his band mate in what sounded like French, English, and perhaps a Native American language. It sounded like a traditional song whose beauty will survive us all.