Rock Picks: Quantic and his Combo Bárbaro, Elvis Costello, Rock & Roll Summer Circus

Also playing Monday:

Babyland: subverting expectations since 1989

The Icelandic singer Emiliana Torrini

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DEPECHE MODE, PETER, BJORN & JOHN at the Hollywood Bowl; TSUSHIMAMIRE, RED BACTERIA VACUUM, OMODKA, 6% DOKIDOKI GIRLS, OTHERS at the Roxy; LOWER HEAVEN, NIC JAGO, MIRANDA LEE RICHARDS at Silverlake Lounge; HATEBREED at the Ventura Theatre; THE GROWLERS, XU XU FANG, MATT ISRAELI COOL & HIS EXPERIMENTAL RUGS, DOGWEED at the Echo; LOVERS, THE BLACK KITES, THE CARTOGRAPHERS at Echo Curio; THE KEVIN KANNER QUINTET, J-LOGIC, FELICE HERNANDEZ, THIA SEXTON at the Mint; LOCAL NATIVES, VOXHAUL BROADCAST, SOKO, THE LONELY H at Spaceland.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 18

Elvis Costello & the Sugarcanes, Lucinda Williams at the Greek
Has Elvis Costello ever met a genre he didn’t feel compelled to put his own spin on? (Dude was pulling Kanye moves before Kanye was born.) On Secret, Profane & Sugarcane, his speedy follow-up to last year’s garage-rocking Momofuku, Costello teams up with a roots-music A-team headed by producer T Bone Burnett for a set of old-timey string-band fare perfect for folks still spinning their worn-out copies of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. Those players (minus Burnett, but including Dobro maestro Jerry Douglas and guitarist Jim Lauderdale) are out on the road with Costello as the Sugarcanes; hopefully they’re rocking a little harder onstage than they did in the studio. Just in case, be sure to arrive early for an opening set by Lucinda Williams, whose excellent Little Honey, from last year, closes with a shit-kicking cover of AC/DC’s “It’s a Long Way to the Top.” (Mikael Wood)

Also playing Tuesday:

JAY REATARD at Amoeba Music; T.D. LIND, LEFTOVER CUTIES at the Bordello.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19

Emiliana Torrini at El Rey Theatre
Fresh from a tour of festivals hosted at various European castles, Emiliana Torrini brings her Icelandic castle magic to town. The songs from her recent CD, Me and Armini, may seem simple and delicate at first, but they’re imbued with a radiant glow and artful arrangements, which give them a cumulatively engrossing power. Torrini coos sweetly like the namesake title through the first half of the delicate ballad “Birds,” before gentle strokes of acoustic-guitar paddling downshift into a funky Pink Floyd space jam, which comes out of nowhere and somehow makes perfect sense. She rocks it up on the European hit “Jungle Drum,” buoyed by new love and a kicky Bo Diddley beat. Things grow ominous on the shadowy “Gun,” as Torrini icily intones a tale of revenge over a simmering guitar riff that never quite boils over: “Maybe you’ve been living lonely ... Your kids keep telling jokes that ain’t that funny/and you’ve failed in everything that comes to mind.” She’s equally persuasive whether she’s walking on sunshine or swimming into darkness. (Falling James)

Also playing Wednesday:

GREAT NORTHERN at Pershing Square; MAX TUNDRA at Spaceland; ATMOSPHERE at the Hollywood Palladium; DAWES, MISSISSIPPI MAN, THE ROMANY RYE at the Echo; HARPER SIMON at Largo at the Coronet; DAUGHTRY, DAVID HODGES at the Henry Fonda Theater; PATTI LABELLE, MIKE FARRIS & THE ROSELAND RHYTHM REVUE at the Hollywood Bowl; DEPECHE MODE, PETER, BJORN & JOHN at the Honda Center; TRACY CHAPMAN, GABY MORENO at the Wiltern; AGENT ORANGE at the Key Club.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 20

J. Tillman at the Echo
J. (Joshua) Tillman is probably best known for being one of the Fleet Foxes, despite his local solo success in the Seattle area, and having toured extensively with the likes of Damien Jurado and Jesse Sykes. Hired as an arranger and drummer for live performances just before the release of 2008’s Fleet Foxes, Tillman somehow escaped implication of the juggernaut success of the album (I recently heard “White Winter Hymnal” piped in as background music in the airport), and retained his identity on his new LP, Year in the Kingdom, out next month. The ghostly, goose bump–inducing harmonies and windswept acoustical resonance of Fleet Foxes are slightly muted in Tillman’s work, but the breathy struggle of Tillman’s voice and glimmers of baroque mysticism in his delivery are prominent, and exactly what one would expect from a cat associated with the band. An author of short stories in his own right, Tillman can weave a sad, earthy yarn like some world-weary granddad on a rickety old rocking chair, then whip up the banjo, handclaps and piano into a jangling, ecstatic frenzy. (Wendy Gilmartin)

Jedi Mind Tricks at El Rey Theatre
Philly indie-rap unit Jedi Mind Tricks stars prolific bigmouth Vinnie Paz, who’s been fronting this emphatically hahdcoah set with DJ Stoupe for lo these past 13 or so years, and earning much prop-age for their violent-by-design words and beats along the way. Lately, though, Paz’s had an itch to stretch out, so alongside his underground rap supergroup side project, Army of the Pharaohs, he has just done a solo thing, titled The Assassin’s Creed, and quite a shocker it is, with guest raps from Beanie Sigel, Clipse, Freeway and Paul Wall, and two tons of ingenious production badassery by the likes of Madlib, MoSS from Ghostface Killah, and 4th Disciple and Bronze Nazareth of Wu-Tang. Real tasty, wicked stuff, but come down tonight for JMT’s “Hell Awaits” summer tour, where you’ll get a heavy slam of thee original sound that only Paz & Stoupe can conjure. Also: MC Esoteric and Reef the Lost Cauze. (John Payne)