Weekly Music Picks: Labor Day Edition

This short work week is long on music. The small show battles the bigger venue this week as the students invade the city. When they come back it seems the shows start up with vigor. Lots of 18+ hit the mark – and they've still got summer money in their pockets. What's this mean? Quite possibly there will be a few more sell outs than usual as the concert funds still run high. Fair warning music fans.

Tuesday 9/5
Cat Power
Chan Marshall played Berklee a little while back. She's back in the Hub for a stripped-down solo go at a performance. We've heard good things about what this quirky, jazzy muse can produce while solo. The performance takes place at the MFA. The show is advertised as one of the most intimate Cat Power has played in some time. Tickets may or may not still be available.
MFA Remis Auditorium
$30 non-member, $24 members. Two shows: 7:30 p.m. and 10
Cat Power: myspace | I found a reason.mp3 | Lived In Bars.mp3

Junior Boys
One of the year’s most talked about acts, Canada's Junior Boys craft "supple, stylish electro-pop so cool it makes glaciers jealous," that sounds like "Talk Talk produced by Timbaland." Their new album So This is Goodbye drops next week. Experimental electronica outfit Ensemble, straight outta Montreal, opens.
Middle East upstairs
18+, $10, 9pm
Junior Boys: website | myspace
Ensemble: website | myspace

Thursday 9/7
Tartar Lamb (Toby Driver & Mia Matsumiya of Kayo Dot)
The prettiest members of Jamaica Plain's most complicated prog-metal band play electric guitar and violin in "60 Metonymies," a long ass duet that premiered summer at John Zorn's art space in New York. Maine's Fence Kitchen and Dilly Dilly open.
PA's Lounge
18+, 8:30 pm, $7-$10
Kayo Dot (formerly Maudlin of the Well): web site | myspace | Bostonist review
Toby Driver: web site | myspace
Mia Matsumiya: myspace

CO3
Morphine's Dana Colley and Bourbon Princess's Monique Ortiz pull together a psychedelic low-rock music and a fantastic show. They did a stint at Toad last month – now they're taking the music on the road. Just feet closer to Boston proper this time they'll be playing the Lizard Lounge.
Lizard Lounge
9:30 pm

Friday 9/8
Christina Carter
Half of Charalambides, Texas's loveliest psychadelic folk noise band, plays dreamy acoustic guitar with occasional singing.
PA's Lounge
21+, 8:30 pm, $8
Christina Carter: web site | Silhouette .mp3

Ron Carter Quartet (also Saturday)
Ron Carter is one of the best know and most beloved bass players in all of jazz. He first came to prominence as a member of Miles Davis mid-'60s quintet. In addition to his dizzying output as a leader, Carter has worked with a who's who of post-bop jazz (not to mention the fact that he appeared on A Tribe Called Quest's landmark The Low End Theory). Carter also has some Beantown ties, having served as artistic director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Studies while it was located in Boston. Catch this living legend with his quartet featuring Stephen Scott (piano), Payton Crossley (drums), and Rolando Morales-Matos (percussion).
Regattabar
$26, 7:30pm & 10pm
website | wikipedia

Band of Horses
Our pals in Austin told us that we should really check out Band of Horses next time they rode through town. This weekend is our chance. They'll be playing the Rock Club to what we fear might be a similarly chatty crowd (it being back to school and all). But polished, solid showmanship is what we like in a live show. Band of Horses provides.
18+, 8pm doors, $16.50
Paradise Rock Club
Band of Horses: myspace | Great Salt Lake.mp3 (we'd give you the Funeral – but go see it live)

Ben Harper (also Saturday)
Ben Harper plays the Pavilion with special guest Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley for two shows. Our friends in Chicago dropped us a line urging us to take to our feet and make sure that Ben comes out for the second encore. In fact, we've been told, if you go with a date you will make out.
Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals: website

French Kicks
Headlining downstairs at the Middle East are the French Kicks. The Brooklyn based quartet makes occasional appearances in our neck of the woods. It's been only a few months since they took stage at Mayfair in Harvard Square. They're back on stage as headliners again after a summer of playing the early sets. We're sure they'll thrill us again.
18+ $10adv/$12dos
Middle East Downstairs
French Kicks: website | myspace

Saturday 9/9
Birdmonster/Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin/Catfish Haven/The Shills
Two from the middle and one from each side. Birdmonster comes to us from the west coast – San Fran to be exact. Someone Still Loves you Boris Yeltsin (a long name that we inexplicably have to say in it's entirety each time) comes from Missouri, Catfish Haven from Chicago. The Shills from right here at home. All these bands are touring on new releases (SSLYBY due out in October) – and from what we've caught off of them this is going to be a good live show. The evening holds itself as a CD release party for The Shill's new EP PUSH. Four sets of great indie pop from all over the country.
18+, 9 pm, $10
The Shills: myspace
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin: myspace
Birdmonster: myspace | website
Catfish Haven: myspace

Sunday 9/10
The Claremont Trio
For over a century, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has been putting on recitals in its pleasantly intimate Tapestry Room. This Sunday, the young women of the Claremont Trio return for the third installment in their Beethoven piano trios series. Since the programme includes the extraordinary and extraordinarily popular "Archduke" Trio, Opus 97, and since the space is on the small side, reserve your tickets early and bring your jostling elbows (that is to say, there's no assigned seating in the cheerful jumble that is the Tapestry Room).
1:30 p.m., $5 to $23
Music at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
The Claremont Trio's blog (may contain strapless cocktail dresses)
Free, downloadable audio of the "Archduke"

Serena Maneesh & Evangelicals
If indierock blogs were kindergarten teachers, Norway's shoegazing angels Serena Maneesh would get gold stars every day and share their extra cookies with Evangelicals.
Middle East Downstairs
18+, 8 pm, $12
Serena Maneesh: web site | myspace | Un-Deux .mp3 | Drain Cosmetics .mp3
Evangelicals: myspace | Hello Jenn I'm A Mess (live on KEXP) .mp3

DJ Krush
Japan's DJ Krush is one of Bostonist's favorite turntablists & hip hop producers. His trademark sound has been described as "warped turntablist constructions and hip-hop that's subterranean yet somehow connected to the genre's golden age." Often dark and trippy, Krush's downtempo soundscapes and beats are typically infused with jazz sensibility and have a lot in common with DJ Cam's mid '90s work, as well as that of fellow former Mo' Wax label mate DJ Shadow. Krush's solo albums mix his experimental instrumental hip hop side-by-side with tracks featuring cream-of-the-crop emcees. His latest joint, Stepping Stones, released last month, finds Krush remixing tracks from his entire catalogue and includes appearances by the likes of Mos Def, Mr. Lif, Aesop Rock, and (the Roots') Black Thought. With DJ Reazon and visuals by the Zebbler/Glitch crew.
UnderBar, 275 Tremont St.
21+, $15, 9pm doors, tix avail at Karmaloop, 160 Newbury, info
DJ Krush: website | myspace | dig this vibe.mp3 | mixed nuts.mp3

C. Fernsebner, Matt Durutti, and Christina Linklater aided and abetted in putting together this week's picks. Stuck at your computer? Need some local listens? Check out Exploit Boston Radio. All local, all the time.