There's something about the glimmering, simmering days of summer that gives soul music an even deeper pull and emotional heft. Perhaps it's the way the sun warms everything up from within, igniting summer romances and crystallizing the mad idea that life will somehow last forever. You can feel the sunlight glowing in the groovy passages of Chicano Batman's latest album, Cycles of Existential Rhyme, where the local band fuses Latin soul with old-school R&B. Carlos Arévalo's guitar flutters, flickers and soars like a bird over Bardo Martinez's pumped-up organ, while bassist Eduardo Arenas and drummer Gabriel Villa shuffle and mix together a series of subtly shifting rhythms. The slippery, funky wah-wah guitars of “Bilbao” soon segue into the restfully dreamy balladry of tunes like “Stoned Soul Picnic.”

Sat., July 12, 6-9 p.m., 2014
(Expired: 07/12/14)

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