MONDAY 10/19
(LITERATURE) What can’t Barbara Kingsolver do? The bestselling author never misses, from her historical fiction classic The Poisonwood Bible to her 2022 Pulitzer Prize-winning sensation Demon Copperhead. Her most recent novel, Partita, follows piano teacher Livia Cable, who lives a peaceful, unassuming married life in the Tennessee countryside until an unexpected call from her ex-lover dredges up memories of trauma, tragedy, and her abandoned ambitions for a musical career. The book borrows both its name and format from a musical composition made up of dance movements. See Kingsolver discuss her lyrical work, her writing process, and the connection between art and life at Benaroya Hall, and don’t forget to bring donations for Ballard Food Bank’s food drive in the lobby, such as boxed mac and cheese, ramen, granola bars, oatmeal packets, cereal, and jerky. (Benaroya Hall, 7:30 pm, all ages) JULIANNE BELL
TUESDAY 10/20
(MUSIC) The son of legendary experimental saxophonist Anthony Braxton, Tyondai’s anything but a nepo baby. He’s earned his lofty status in underground music through his exploits in former best band in the omniverse Battles, who took math rock to rarely matched realms of rhythmic complexity, melodic whimsicality, and electronic tomfoolery. Braxton departed Battles in 2010 and since then has been focusing on a solo career that’s veered from vaulting orchestral and electroacoustic composition to abstract electronic music that could discombobulate Autechre fans’ neurons. On Braxton’s mind-bending new album, Splayed Werks, he conjures alien sound worlds that expand the vocabulary of electronic-music composition. This is a rare seated show at Vera, so STFU and listen. (Vera Project, 7 pm, all ages) DAVE SEGAL
WEDNESDAY 10/21
Debt Rag, Miscomings, DJ Martin Douglas
(MUSIC) Astute local music critic and DJ Martin Douglas has coordinated another strong bill for his Trick Bag series. Olympia’s premier experimental-rock band, Debt Rag, puts punk and no wave in a cyclotron, resulting in concise, idiosyncratic songs that send diabolical heat and sparks through your sensorium. The trio’s music and lyrics possess the urgency and righteous rage that this perilous timeline demands. Check out their latest album, It Is Clear What’s Going On, for proof. Seattle’s Miscomings seemingly have absorbed the harsh lessons of the legendary No New York comp and transformed them into tracks that come at you like a herd of amphetamine-spiked porcupines, with bonus doses of Minutemen-like funk. Exhilaration awaits you. (Sunset Tavern, 8 pm, 21+) DAVE SEGAL
THURSDAY 10/22
MOPOP’s Icons of Pop Culture Gala With Salt-N-Pepa
(MUSIC) MOPOP’s Icons of Pop Culture Gala is probably your only chance to see the queens of hip-hop, Salt-N-Pepa, at a venue this tiny (unless you time-travel back to 1986). The duo, with DJ Spinderella, of course, will perform classics like “Whatta Man,” “Shoop,” “Let’s Talk About Sex,” and “None of Your Business” at the 250-capacity Sky Church. I really hope they also play a few songs from their criminally underrated 1997 album Brand New, which is rich with wordplay and glossy ’90s production, in the same vein as Lil’ Kim’s Hard Core. And look, I recognize that the $250 ticket price is no small thing, but if you’ve ever paid Ticketmaster/Live Nation hundreds of dollars, don’t think twice about supporting the MOPOP with their future exhibitions, youth education programs, and community initiatives. (MOPOP, 8:30 pm, 21+) AUDREY VANN
FRIDAY 10/23
(VISUAL ART) Melissa Messer describes her practice and work as “if Rothko’s daughter were obsessed with form.” I might add Albers to the mix: her approach to color is technical and clever and makes the eyeballs vibrate with a kind of ocular orgasm. But she’s right about Rothko, because her use of hue is almost spiritual in its ability to overwhelm. She is also a preeminent figurative painter, using the human body as an armature upon which to drape shades of deciduous greens, burnt orange, and acid gold. Beneath all that color, however, the figures hold their own. Messer paints to convey intimacy—the kind that comes from knowing the closeness of a body from innumerable hours of holding, caring, carrying, or resting. That feeling is palpable in the heavy limbs of the mothers, friends, and others who populate her canvases. They loom, stark and monumental, bodies dissolving into the color fields that surround them. (Spectrum Fine Art, 12–5 pm) AMANDA MANITACH
SATURDAY 10/24
Mourning Sickness: ‘Elvira: Mistress of the Dark’
(FILM) Until recently, I had never seen Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, but rest assured I am making up for lost time. The 1988 cult classic revolves around everyone’s favorite goth horror hostess, Elvira (played by the iconic Cassandra Gay Peterson), who discovers her great-aunt Morgana bequeathed her a crumbling mansion in a small-minded town named Fallwell (likely a reference to conservative televangelist Jerry Falwell). The result is a delightful fish-out-of-water story, featuring relentless innuendos, a pink-dyed poodle named Gonk, a himbo love interest, a villain named Chastity Pariah, Tic Tac pie, and a bacchanalian picnic scene. This film was made in a lab for the gays—the slut-shaming and moral panic of the townspeople; Elvira’s fabulous drag; the film’s dedication to Peterson’s late best friend and makeup artist Robert Allen Redding, who died of AIDS; and of course, the fact that Peterson herself is sexually fluid and has been living her best queer life in Portland with her partner of 24 years, Teresa “T” Wierson. Who better to present this campy masterpiece than local queen Monday Mourning? (Northwest Film Forum, 8 pm, all ages) JULIANNE BELL
SUNDAY 10/25
(MUSIC) Ken Ishii was the first Japanese solo electronic-music producer I got hip to, thanks to his 1995 album Flare dazzling me with its ingenious textures and dynamic rhythms. Throughout the ’90s, Ishii released a grip of phenomenal records in which IDM, techno, funky breaks, and ambient converged into fascinating hybrids. Shamefully, I lost track of him in the ’00s, but, whoa, Ken’s still creating and DJing like a madman, including a 2019 collab with Detroit techno legend Jeff Mills. Whether he’s performing his own cuts or spinning others’ in his wide-ranging sets, Ishii manifests a distinctive brand of dance-floor hypnosis. At Substation, he’ll be DJing, along with Cory Simpson, a prime mover in Seattle’s techno scene who heads the Depth crew. (Substation, 7 pm, 21+) DAVE SEGAL
