Rock Picks: B.B. King, Matmos, Coldplay

Also playing Saturday:

HIEROGLYPHICS, NOBODY, PRINCE ALI at El Rey Theatre; THE WHO, THE FLAMING LIPS, PEARL JAM at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion; CUTE LEPERS, SUN TRASH at Alex’s Bar; BRAND NUBIAN, 2 MEX at Crash Mansion; JEN CHAPIN & THE ROSETTA TRIO at Genghis Cohen; KY-MANI MARLYE at House of Blues; KEPI GHOULIE at the Knitting Factory, 7 p.m.; LEVI DEXTER at the Redwood Bar & Grille; BABYLAND at the Smell; RTX, BAD DUDES at Spaceland.

AJ Farkas

Candied knights: Matmos

Rocksusto

Inara George & Van Dyke Parks put on their sailin’ shoes.

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• Mr. T
• Tangier
• Mavis Staples
• Rachid Taha
• Leon Russell

SUNDAY, JULY 13

Matmos at the Echoplex

Matmos made their initial mark with music that sampled and rhythmatized sounds that emanated from the body, these great pulpy, surgical masses edited and looped into very clever dance tracks. Following the ambitious album The Civil War, they did The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of the Beast, which comprises tributes to 10 people they admire, including William S. Burroughs, Darby Crash, Joe Meek and King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Both discs offered incredibly clever programming and some wonderfully strange textures — teeth grinding, flesh being burned by cigarettes, cows eating or having their uteri pumped full of air with a vacuum cleaner and played like a bagpipe. But now Matmos are back with the kitschy-cool Supreme Balloon, where they’ve used nothing but vintage analog synths and sundry ancient electronic devices — no mikes, no vocals, no sounds of cigarettes burning flesh — to thump, toot, whoosh and squeal in six-layers-thick irony that says, “Why, yes, of course, it does sound like video-game music, and that’s a good thing.” (John Payne)

Also playing Sunday:

Rocksusto

(Click to enlarge)

Inara George & Van Dyke Parks put on their sailin’ shoes.

SLIPKNOT, MASTODON, MACHINE HEAD, UNDEROATH at Hyundai Pavilion; FATSO JETSON, CARNAGE ASADA, THE PROBE at the Airliner; JAMES WILSEY at the Echo, 5 p.m.; PAULA FUGA at Malibu Inn; BONEBRAKE SYNCOPATORS at Safari Sam’s, noon; SECRET SOCIETY OF THE SONIC SIX, APE HAS KILLED APE at Spaceland.

MONDAY, JULY 14

Coldplay at the Forum

Coldplay are tremendously popular yet vilified (“You know how I know you’re gay? You like Coldplay”). Providing comfort music for the easily rattled, Coldplay have grown from an apologetic, unfun British band into one marked by timid revelations and domestic lamentations. Their aggressive flaccidity has again been confirmed with Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, the new Brian Eno–produced record. Even though it’s their most esoteric and interesting release, they’re still clawing at the air for something better than heretofores. Most of all, Coldplay are a band that struggles for cool rather than free-falls into it. Their struggle is founded in that overwhelming nerd need to Talk and Think instead of Do or Act, and the middling sad-sack histrionics on a stadium level makes comfortable the notion of rock music as consternation rather than apocalypse. Repent! Also Tues. (Kate Carraway)

Also playing Monday:

JAIL WEDDINGS, MORIS TEPPER at the Echo; NICK OLIVERI at the Hotel Café; LIZ PAPPADEMAS at Mr. T’s Bowl; UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF GIANTS, PAUL DILLON at Spaceland.

TUESDAY, JULY 15

Playing Tuesday:

COLDPLAY at the Forum; TOM JONES, SHEILA E. at Pacific Amphitheatre; THE BINGES at Safari Sam’s; JOSEPH ARTHUR, ANNA TERNHEIM at the Troubadour.

 WEDNESDAY, JULY 16

Inara George with Van Dyke Parks at Tangier

“Want to find the bottom of my heart?” Inara George sings at the beginning of her extraordinary forthcoming album, An Invitation, and goes looking for it on a dozen tracks examining the joys and vexations of romance. “It’s my own private musical,” says she. George conveys the gamut of emotions without vibrato and with minimal coloring through impeccable tonal control, intelligent phrasing, and pipes that are indeed connected to her heart’s bottom. The record was created in tandem with legendary composer/arranger and lifelong family friend Van Dyke Parks, whose sweeping string sections nip at atonality and match the affective peaks and valleys referenced by the singer. Joined by Grant Geissman on guitar, Joe Karnes on upright bass and Parks on piano, George performs An Invitation sans violas in Tangier’s restaurant room. “Sort of like dinner theater,” she cracks. Also Wed., July 23. (Michael Simmons)

The Bowmans at the Hotel Café

Sister act the Bowmans create their own little oasis of beauty and tranquility every Wednesday this month at the Hotel Café, just a few feet from the constant river of traffic rushing urgently down Cahuenga. It’s a neat trick these two Iowa natives learned when they moved to Brooklyn: finding the inner heart of things by taking the time to linger on and give in fully to feelings of loneliness, joy, restlessness and homesickness. Sarah Bowman has played cello with Rasputina, and there are some graceful string and horn arrangements blended with the rustic, understated instrumentation on the Bowmans’ 2007 CD, Far From Home (Mother West), but her harmonies with sister Claire are most spellbinding when they’re backed by little more than an acoustic guitar. It’s beyond lovely how their voices quiver together on “Williamsburg Bridge” and the austere title track, and the way a delicate, extended note soars marvelously through the break in the aptly titled “Make It Last.” (Falling James)