MONDAY 5/25
Chapterhouse, the Asteroid No. 4
(MUSIC) Chapterhouse aren’t shoegaze GOATs, but they’re in the convo, flying high enough to sniff the exhaust of My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Lush, and Slowdive. The Reading, England, quintet burned brilliantly but briefly, releasing but two albums and a handful of EPs from 1990 to 1993. Their best songs carry a beautiful wistfulness at their core, even as they deliver a burning groove and ferocious riffs—see “Falling Down,” “Sixteen Years,” and “Something More.” Chapterhouse’s 1991 debut LP, Whirlpool, flaunts a dense, swirling production that highlights the power of three guitars tuned to the key of AAAHHH, with Stephen Patman and Andrew Sherriff singing in that doleful, sensitive-guy style common during shoegaze’s first wave. By the time of 1993’s Blood Music, Chapterhouse were changing into a more trip-hop/ambient-house proposition, even working with Global Communication on a “retranslation” of said album titled BloodMusic (Pentamerous Metamorphosis). But this show’s all about getting lost in Whirlpool’s distortion-heavy nostalgia vortex with some of the planet’s most mesmerizing ‘gaze OGs. (Crocodile, 8 pm, 21+) DAVE SEGAL
TUESDAY 5/26
(MUSIC) Vundabar is as fun to see as it is to say. When taken live, the exuberant Boston three-piece slathers the stage with aura in the form of punchy surf guitar, impromptu asides, and chummy informalities. Such sunny presentation is only a handshake introduction to all that is Vunder-ous, though. At their best, the band rides a frenetic pacing, highlighted by Drew McDonald’s skittering hi-hat and tumbling tom rolls that brace Brandon Hagen’s distorted guitar lines and wailing Brit-poppy melodies. Hagen’s cryptic hooks about death and societal ills also add a depth to the mix seldom heard on this shimmering side of indie. This tour finds the band taking on all 10 tracks of their exquisite 2015 cult classic Gawk front-to-back to celebrate its 10th(ish) birthday, along with a range of favorites from across their catalog that should amount to a rollicking good time. (Neumos, 7 pm, all ages) TODD HAMM
WEDNESDAY 5/27
(VISUAL ART) The veil is thin in Drie Chapek’s work—the surreal and mystical breaking through the oil paint, where landscapes are ground for bodies to grow. At least, that’s one way to read her explosive depictions of limbs and land bursting with analog glitch and the churn of frothy, murky, incandescent white, cobalt, rust, and PNW-coded greens. Chapek is the kind of artist for whom legibility becomes a game of hide-and-seeking the sublime, leading us down a path where obfuscating the thing is as meaningful as the thing itself. In her latest solo show at Greg Kucera, this impulse intensifies, as the narrative element in her work continues to be subsumed by abstraction and love of the mark for its own sake. And what love! The body of the paint is as much a character as the demi-bodies emerging from it. (Greg Kucera Gallery) AMANDA MANITACH
THURSDAY 5/28
(MUSIC) By flashy celebrity standards, Curren$y has flown under the radar for most of his run, but the Pilot Talk rapper has nonetheless worked with (and routinely outshined) some of the biggest names in the biz. The New Orleans rapper and intrepid builder of model cars has stayed high, putting out dozens of albums, mixtapes, and collaborative projects since 2006—a seemingly endless flow of butter-smooth stoner musings shot through with laser-sight punchlines. What this all amounts to for Seattle fans, then, is that we have an opportunity to catch one of the most talented rap artists in the game play a (delightfully) grungy venue under I-5 on a weeknight for a modest price. (El Corazón, 8:30 pm, 21+) TODD HAMM
FRIDAY 5/29
Brandi Carlile: Echoes Through The Canyon
(MUSIC) Brandi Carlile hosted the inaugural Echoes Through The Canyon weekend at the Gorge in 2023, bringing Joni Mitchell to perform her first headlining show in over 20 years. By all accounts, the festival was truly magical, with additional headlining sets from Carlile herself and her country supergroup the Highwomen. This year, the 11-time Grammy Award winner curates another lineup of badass women and folk-rock legends; Carlile headlines Friday and Saturday and the Highwomen close out Sunday night, but fans will find intervening performances from the likes of the Indigo Girls, Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, I’m With Her, Sara Bareilles, Wynonna Judd, and Brittney Spencer. I’m hoping we can channel all that feminine power under the light of Saturday night’s full moon into solving the world’s problems—you in? (Gorge Amphitheatre, 8 pm, all ages) SHANNON LUBETICH
SATURDAY 5/30
(FILM) What better to watch in late spring than Late Spring? Yasujirō Ozu, one of the great directors, shot intimate family dramas that were always thoughtful of the social forces that constrained women. Late Spring, the story of a widower marrying off his cherished only daughter in the tumult of post-war Japan, is considered one of his best. It was actually shot in post-war Japan and subject to censorship from the occupying Allied powers. The film is the first of Ozu’s Noriko trilogy, in which actress Setsuko Hara plays three different young single women named Noriko. (So if you like what you see, check out the next two installments, Early Summer and Tokyo Story.) What set Ozu’s stories of ordinary life apart was his eye. The director kept the camera low to the ground and the shots tight, so the viewer feels as if they are sitting in the room with the characters. (Northwest Film Forum, 4 & 7 pm) VIVIAN McCALL
SUNDAY 5/31
14th Annual Seattle Asian American Film Festival
(FILM) Seattle has a lot of film festivals, which is an amazing problem to have. Because what do you mean we have fests representing all sorts of different communities, and they’re all incredible? But before I get too far into that tangent, if you’re going to check out any other film fest besides SIFF, make it the Seattle Asian American Film Festival. Dedicated to uplifting Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander voices, this fest brings together a thoughtful mix of feature films, shorts, and filmmaker conversations as much about community and culture as they are cinema. The festival will close on Sunday with a screening of Third Act, a documentary about the life of pioneering photographer and filmmaker Robert A. Nakamura, as told by his son, director Tadashi Nakamura. (Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, 2 pm) LANGSTON THOMAS
