...you might like to go see Goran Bregović and His Wedding and Funeral Orchestra. They're playing at the Moore tonight. You've probably heard one thing or another by Bregović: His music has appeared in the Borat soundtrack. Here's video of the Orchestra in concert from a few years ago:

On their website, Orkestar Kirkonium lists Bregović as an influence. I think the Balkan sound is about three minutes away from someone Pogues-izing the genre—mushing a folk music tradition with punk rock and creating a totally different kind of sausage—and it's always good to get some background before it breaks. If you're up for it, I think this will be a great show.

In this week's issue, Dave Segal profiles Flexions, the dark dub punk duo of Past Lives guitarist Devin Welch and photographer/musician Robin Stein:

A month and a half after forming, Flexions cut a 7-inch single that reflected their burgeoning psych and dub proclivities, and then in May issued Leisure Time, an eight-track EP available on vinyl and MP3 via the Journal of Popular Noise. Tracks like "Fetal Horses" (not to be confused with John Vanderslice's song of the same title, both of which draw from Oliver Sacks's Musicophilia), "Leisure Time," and "Underneath the Bank" exude a vital tension. Welch's guitar slashes at unexpected angles and clangs and ripples with a fluid intensity like some combination of Television's Tom Verlaine and Gang of Four's Andy Gill, though he declares Sonic Youth and the Slits' Viv Albertine to be a bigger inspiration. ("I like people who are amateurish but doing really creative things within their skill level.")

Flexions play the Comet tonight, 8pm, $6, 21+, with the Present & Queens and Sockai Stilhed.

Dave Segal previews Sixto Rodriguez:

Rodriguez, Arthur & Yu

(Triple Door) Sixto Rodriguez should've been at least as big as Leonard Cohen and Phil Ochs, if not quite in the same stratosphere of pop-culture prominence as Bob Dylan—or even Donovan. Coming up in late-'60s Detroit when that city was at its zenith of dominance in soul, rock, and funk, this Mexican-American street poet should've been swept up in the record industry's Motor City mania. He even had Motown rhythm-section ringers and session guitarist Dennis Coffey playing on and producing his debut LP, the 1970 cult classic Cold Fact.

In Up & Coming:

The Present & Queens, Flexions, Sokai Stilhed

(Comet) Brooklyn-based producer/musician Rusty Santos has earned low-key kudos as a behind-the-boards savant for Animal Collective, Panda Bear, and White Magic. As excellent as those artists are, they don't quite delve into the real weirdness like Santos does in his current trio, the Present. The group's debut full-length, World I See, explodes traditional song form into a miasmic mosaic of tones and textures, resulting in a bizarre new form of ambient unrock that makes Black Dice's beatless passages sound new agey (and I'm the Dice's number-one fan). On first listen, the new The Way We Are is another surreptitious reality-eraser on the lofty level of Biota, Vas Deferens Organization, and early Deuter. This record will fuck your mind so it stays fucked for a long time. Mental contraceptives are powerless. DAVE SEGAL

Cursive, Mt. St Helens Vietnam Band

(Neumos) Cursive's latest album, Mama, I'm Swollen, is not their greatest work—most would say that's the bitter breakup opus Domestica, though I'm partial to the reflexive brooding (bordering on dark comedy) of the Burst and Bloom EP and The Ugly Organ. Still, Swollen contains some classic Cursive moments, with Tim Kasher shredding his throat and his soul in equal measure, and his band backing him with perfectly bombastic arrangements of distortion, rhythm, and brass. Best of these is "I Couldn't Love You," whose subtle double entendre—I couldn't love you enough; I couldn't keep on loving you—Kasher belts out over a rousing chorus of brightly harmonious organ, brass, guitars, and big, volatile drum rolls. Live, Cursive swerve from uncomfortably quiet to painfully loud with aplomb, their already dramatic songs delivered with such exaggerated force that it seems like the band might just tear themselves apart. ERIC GRANDY