In 2002, when Germany’s The Notwist released “Neon Golden,” it was not only an unexpected reinvention of the previously darker and mediocre-at-best band, but also a fresh melding of influences and musical genres, a bittersweet, inspiring brew of indie-pop and electronics that pre-dated The Postal Service by a year. Six years later the band finally offers a follow-up record, titled “The Devil, You + Me,” which, to no surprise, travels farther in the pop direction, and is a bigger record than “Neon Golden” in its inclusion of various outside instruments and elements. The songs reach for a higher level of complexity as well, but, like the predecessor, the best moments are found in the subtler decisions, like opener “Good Lies,” the strangely uplifting “Gloomy Planets,” the somewhat startling acoustic lullaby that is the title track and the record’s peak, the perfect “Boneless.” Nothing quite matches the emotional delirium of “Neon Golden”’s “One with the Freaks” or, my personal favorite, “Consequence,” but it comes mighty close, and for a follow-up to a modern classic of an album, I’m not sure we could as for much more than this. Martin Dosh opens the show, whose electronic creations are hurricanes in themselves, and whose work on Andrew Bird’s “Armchair Apocrypha” helped make that record one of the best of 2007. (Tom Lynch)
October 17 at Logan Square Auditorium, 2539 North Kedzie, (773)509-5019, at 8pm. $15.
For “Want” of a Change: A Preview of Rufus Wainwright at Ravinia Park Rufus Wainwright isn’t the first singer-songwriter to reinterpret earlier work through an orchestral lens. And much of Wainwright’s third and fourth albums, “Want One” and “Want Two”—whose twentieth anniversaries are the prompt for this new tour—is fully scored. But when Wainwright hits the Pavilion stage at Ravinia tonight, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will be behind him.
Cooling It: A Preview of Colleen Green at Cole’s Bar When Green strums power chords or chiming notes on top of her backing track, you might think you’re at Ramones karaoke night and Madonna is taking her turn.
Brutal Finesse: A Preview of King Crimson at Ravinia There have been few new compositions from King Crimson these past two decades, but the live arrangements of songs from its catalog are often strikingly different than the recorded versions.
