Rock Picks: Tangerine Dream, Spindrift, Robyn Hitchcock

Heartless Bastards at Spaceland

For the recording of Heartless Bastards’ third album, The Mountain (to be released on Fat Possum Records in January), Erika Wennerstrom had to go to Texas to find her dream Ohio band. The singer-guitarist left her previous lineups behind when she set up camp in Austin to work with producer Mike McCarthy (Spoon, Patty Griffin). By chance, she found a new/old rhythm section from Dayton, Ohio — drummer Dave Colvin and bassist Jesse Ebaugh — who had worked on one of her early demos. The Bastards’ trademark sound is still based on majestic blues-rock riffs over Wennerstrom’s lost-&-lonesome yowling, but there are new folk and country shadings with the occasional use of banjo, mandolin and pedal-steel guitar. “I don’t want to fall into the wicked sun,” she confides as reverb waves of roots-rock guitar ripple through an austere landscape. Even with the newfound siren wail of slide guitar, the upcoming album’s title track still rests on the mighty shoulders of Wennerstrom’s sludgy-fuzzy guitar and powerfully assured singing. What’s new is the epic, almost psychedelic way the guitars fuse together as the song marches grandly and slowly off into a Western sunset. (Falling James)

Banjee

On top of the world: Natacha Atlas

Melanie Leigh Wilbur

Spindrift: The West is the best.

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More About

• Linda Ronstadt
• Mr. T
• Flying Lotus (Musician)
• Folk Music
• New Age Music

Also playing Friday:

VAN MORRISON at Hollywood Bowl (see Music feature); JEDI MIND TRICKS at Henry Fonda Theater; COHEED & CAMBRIA at Avalon; DAVY JONES at the Canyon; BOOGALOO ASSASSINS at the Mint; THE BLIND SHAKE, WOUNDED LION, THE JINXES at Redwood Bar & Grill; THE MELODIANS at Saint Rocke; ATOMIC SHERPAS, GHIDORAH at Taix; FLYING TOURBILLON ORCHESTRA, XU XU FANG, CASTELDOOR at Fisher Gallery courtyard, USC, 7 p.m.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8

Scissors for Lefty, Killola at the Knitting Factory

A Rickenbacker bass bouncing over a back beat evokes the British Invasion while producing weak knees in nubile girls and shaky floors in old dance halls. But we’re not talking about the Fab Four, more like the Foxy Five, after Scissors for Lefty added another family member, Steven Garza, to the band. Singer-guitarist Bryan Garza told us the update has ushered them from “radical to tubular,” now that the front man is free to prance and croon like an American-born Babyshamble. Their Britpop-meets-Williamsburg disco was perfectly captured on 2007’s Underhanded Romance, issued first by Rough Trade, then by Eenie Meenie Records, but their upcoming 2009 effort will be self-released (get the teaser EP, Consumption Junction, on iTunes now). Make sure not to miss L.A.’s own Killola, because this DIY band is going places. Their new album, I Am the Messer, is totally free (www.killola.com/free) and was among the first to be released on a USB bracelet. You’ll need to brace yourself for the drool-able Lisa Rieffel, who blazes over Sparks-like tracks like she just gave Gwen Stefani a bloody nose. (Daniel Siwek)

Dave Alvin & Greg Leisz at Largo at the Coronet Theater

“I was born by a river/It was paved with cement/But I’d stand on that dry river/And dream that I was soaking wet.” So sings Dave Alvin in “Dry River,” one of the dozens of flat-out classics the founding Blaster and American song master has penned. We hear a lot about authenticity and the American dream these days, precisely because the rivers of our imagination, as well as literal ones, have been paved over by the greedy, the dumb and the governor of Alaska. Like Steve Earle, I See Hawks in L.A. and other singing poet warriors of m-m-my generation, Alvin has perfected the ability to diagnose what ails us in the language of our homegrown folk music. For strong medicine, dig The Best of the HighTone Years, the new compilation of highlights from his solo career. The Downey, California, hometown boy plays, in his words, both “quiet folk music and loud folk music,” meaning he has Woody Guthrie on one shoulder and Keith Richards on t’other. Pared down tonight — just him, string whiz Greg Leisz and surprise guests — he’ll lean toward troubadour. But that don’t mean he won’t kick ass. He always does. (Michael Simmons)

Also playing Saturday:

VAN MORRISON at Hollywood Bowl (see Music feature); COHEED & CAMBRIA at Avalon; BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA at Cerritos Center; THE WHO at Nokia Theatre; UMOVERDE, BOOGALOO ASSASSINS at the Bordello; THE CHERRY BLUESTORMS at Molly Malone’s; HUMAN HANDS, THE CRYSTELLES at Mr. T’s Bowl; SEAN WHEELER, ZANDER SCHLOSS at Redwood Bar & Grill; LETTERS TO CLEO at the Roxy; DEAD MEADOW, THE MOON UPSTAIRS at the Troubadour.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9

Natacha Atlas at El Rey Theatre

Belgian singer Natacha Atlas describes herself as a “human Gaza Strip,” and her latest album, Ana Hina, is a wondrous blend of influences, rhythms and languages. She insinuates herself breathily through the soft acoustic chords of the title track, as Louai Alhenawi’s ney melody weaves around her. Atlas duets in Spanish with Clara Sanabras amid the icily eerie acoustic-guitar plucking and ukulele strumming of “La Vida Callada,” which is based on a poem by Frida Kahlo. Elsewhere, she and her pianist-producer Harvey Brough transform the Scottish folk song “Black Is the Color” into a cool blue, jazzy ballad as watery strings well up behind her. Accordions and violins dance mischievously on swirling Arabic romps like “La Teetab Alayi” and “La Shou El Haki.” With its sideways-bending strings and solemn, funereal chanting, the closing song, “El Nowm,” is strange and haunting. Whether she’s slowing the beat down to linger delicately over a single romantic word or stirring up her full Mazeeka Ensemble to launch an epic journey like “Lammebada,” Atlas is perpetually enchanting. (Falling James)