Music Picks: Demdike Stare, A Musical Tribute to Gil Scott-Heron, Natalie Merchant

Chicha Libre, La Chamba

BOOTLEG BAR

PHOTO BY MARION ETTLINGER

Natalie Merchant: See Wednesday.

PHOTO BY DREW REYNOLDS

Los Lobos: See Saturday.

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More About

• Claude VonStroke
• Tomas Barfod
• Kenny Garrett
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media
• Latin Music

Comprising French, American, Venezuelan and Mexican musicians, Brooklyn postmod mongrels Chicha Libre merge Latin rhythms, surfy psychedelicisms and chicha, the late-'60s Peruvian electric cumbia style. OK, that sounds good, but then they mix all that up with choice Cuban son (a style that had already cannibalized Congolese rumba) and throw in cumbia slants on '70s pop standards and some stuff from Satie and Wagner. Let's just say their new album, Canibalismo!, jumbles all this disparate stuff without merely pastiching the parts, combining Mellotrons and vintage synths with African guitars, treated percussion and fuzztone like it's the most naturally freaky and funky thing in the world. Openers La Chamba represent Blender Rock L.A. with their own chicha variations. —John Payne

Off!, FIDLAR, Spider Fever

WHISKY

Back to the roots for Off! at the Whisky, where singer Keith Morris (and a dozen other randos) saw Iggy and the Stooges at a circa-1973 daylight matinee show just before they broke up. Now it's 2012, and the Stooges are back in the big rooms, and Morris' Off! are working on reclaiming a little bit of the old wild Westside with an all-punk-no-junk bill with L.A.'s FIDLAR and San Diego's (and Mario Rubalcaba's) Spider Fever. Every band here's got great records at home, and they learned a lot of great things from 'em, and so the spirit of the Raw Power Stooges will be reinforced with high-energy inspiration from worldbeaters like the Saints, the Kids, the Wipers, Radio Birdman, the Testors ... you know the drill, and if you don't, you'll find out what the drill feels like. —Chris Ziegler

wed 5/9

Hitomi Oba

BLUE WHALE

This former prodigy could have been simply an amazing saxophonist. But she refuses to be limited to a single instrument or genre, and her focus has turned to composition. Her jazz pieces, postmodern or otherwise, embody emotional beauty and enlightened gravitas. She even has a jazz opera in the works, featuring the poems of Walter de la Mare. Now, she has decided to vocalize, and her electronic group, Nova, is a stunning departure from everything else. The girl can flat-out sing, with a voice pure and strong, eerily reminiscent of another former jazz protégé and electronica genius from Iceland. Her band features her old Berkeley High School classmate (and current sensational guitarist for Stanley Clarke) Charles Altura, possessor of endless chops and creativity. —Gary Fukushima

Natalie Merchant

YOST THEATER

You might think you know Natalie Merchant, but you really don't. Whether you're a die-hard fan who's been hanging on every syllable uttered by the Jamestown, N.Y., singer since she was in 10,000 Maniacs in the early '80s or an unrepentant cynic who finds her unique vocal style to be mannered, you probably weren't ready for her strangest and most ambitious project yet, the 2010 album Leave Your Sleep. In making what was ostensibly a collection of children's music, she took the words and nursery rhymes of mostly dead, white, male British and American poets and infused the prose with an inventive and impressively varied set of musical shadings, which ranged from traditional Chinese folk instrumentation to jaunty reggae, bluesy dirges and grand, orchestral soundscapes. At tonight's acoustic set, Merchant will blend selections from Leave Your Sleep with her solo recordings, backed by bassist Jesse Murphy and guitarists Erik Della Penna and Gabriel Gordon. —Falling James

Also playing:

JONATHAN WILSON, ALLAH LAS at the Troubadour; NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC at Walt Disney Concert Hall; HAZEY JANE at the Baked Potato; OTMARO RUIZ at Vibrato.

thu 5/10

Kenny Garrett

CATALINA JAZZ CLUB

Saxophonist Kenny Garrett first came to major prominence as a member of Miles Davis' bands between 1986 and 1991, but his professional career had actually begun eight years earlier, at the age of 18, in the big band of Mercer Ellington. Since Miles' death, Garrett has gone on to become one of the most respected saxophonists in jazz, winning a 2009 Grammy as a member of the jazz superstar Five Peace Band, including Chick Corea and John McLaughlin. Garrett's music as a leader is inventive, challenging and never at rest. His trips to Los Angeles usually find him surrounded by a talented mix of players from both coasts, and tonight's show begins a four-night run. —Tom Meek

Also playing:

DRAGONFORCE at Troubadour; NICK WATERHOUSE at Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock.