Erik Blood performs at Chop Suey tonight, celebrating the release of his first upcoming solo record called The Way We Live. Dave Segal profiled the local musician in this week's paper and had this to say about his upcoming album:

The 10-track album reflects Blood's love of MBV and the Jesus and Mary Chain's clangorous melodic efflorescence, but it's enriched by a patina of romanticism that evokes John Hughes's '80s films. The album—mastered by Shockabilly/Bongwater legend Mark Kramer—exudes a grandiloquent cinematic aura. Nearly every cut aches to be set to crucial scenes in quality Hollywood fare, especially the climactic "Better Days," a rapturous, string-laden ballad that practically glows. "Birch Effect," which actually may appear in a small indie flick, possesses an understated buoyancy that recalls Modern English's "I Melt with You," before blooming into an epiphany of a chorus. "Broken Glass" rampages and blisses out with Loveless-like (b)luster.

Blood's songs bear elegant contours, and their hooks stick in your mind like a nutritious goo while avoiding cloying obviousness. Crafted with care and expertly produced, The Way We Live seems destined to attain pop-classic status.

Also happening tonight, per this week's Up & Comings:

Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death, Scout Niblett, TacocaT
(Tractor) On the Triumph of Lethargy song "RC and Whiskey," over an acoustic guitar, an echoing snare, and a cheap, faded organ line that sounds like it might have been lifted from a karaoke version of a Neil Diamond song, Spencer Moody bellows and moans, heartsick, "We were drinking RC and whiskey in the van/Driving to Portland listening to 'Her Jazz'/'Her Jazz'/'Her Jazz'/'Her Jazz'/'Her Jazz.'" The subject of this fine song is an even finer song by UK riot-grrrl squad Huggy Bear, who Triumph of Lethargy cover, along with Bikini Kill, on a new tribute to the two bands, a split 12-inch with TacocaT and Baby Control titled This Is Happening Without Your Permission. TacocaT cover "Her Jazz," and if their live version is any indication, it probably sounds perfectly riotous. ERIC GRANDY

Louis Logic, the Let Go, Tulsi, Waves of the Mind
(High Dive) The reputation of Louis Logic, a Brooklyn-based rapper and former member of the Demigodz, rests heavily on 2003's Sin-A-Matic, which offered a new direction or possibility for New York's underground hiphop scene—then dominated by Definitive Jux. Instead of the relentlessly dark, postapocalyptic, Blade Runner—like moods designed and promoted by El-P, Def Jux's founder and architect, Louis Logic presented a lighter and more playful style of hiphop. Indeed, his storytelling and sense of humor made him a part of a hiphop tradition that began with the ruler Slick Rick, in the modern period (1984 to 1988). For these types of rappers, it all comes down to wit and skills, and beats that match the wit and skills. Sin-A-Matic is a fine example of the lyrical and musical comic approach to underground hiphop. CHARLES MUDEDE

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Erik Blood photo by Brian O'Shea.