HOUNDSTOOTH, NO LA LA
(Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water) Houndstooth's new album, No News from Home, is not the product of years of touring, or the result of hard-learned lessons taken from the snaking roads of the United States and beyond. Titles aside, it's the product of a reinvigorated confidence in songwriting. It's a commentary on adding to the continuum of music as a shared creative tradition. The band's pocket-tight grooves are indicative of their obvious sonic chemistry rather than being road warriors. RYAN J. PRADO Read the full article on Houndstooth.

MAGMA
(Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie) Drummer Christian Vander founded the French progressive rock outfit Magma in the late '60s, taking his inspiration from what he saw as the rapid degradation of the environment and, with it, man's spiritual connection to the planet. Through that lens, Vander and an assortment of other likeminded freaks and deposed jazzbos conjured up a multi-album science-fiction epic that spoke to class disparities and ecological breakdown. In their musical saga, the rich vacate Earth, leaving the lower classes to suffer the consequences—all to the tune of grinding King Crimson-esque jazz-rock capped with operatic vocals sung in Kobaïan, Vander's self-made phonetic language. The band is currently celebrating its 45th anniversary and still has a sizeable fanbase throughout Europe, but Magma never achieved much more than cult success here in the States. They've played on this side of the Atlantic before, but Magma's performance at the Aladdin Theater on Saturday will be their first time ever playing for a Portland audience. ROBERT HAM Read our primer on Magma.

ACTION BRONSON, THE ALCHEMIST
(Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell) Last time the force of nature known as Bam Bam Baklava hit Portland, he socked up security for trying to snuff out his show (and his joint). Hopefully Action Bronson can manage to perform a full set this time, but even if he doesn't, the Alchemist is opening, so you're guaranteed quality hiphop all up in your ears. BOBBY ROBERTS

ALL-AGES ACTION PRESENTS: SEACATS, OUR FIRST BRAINS, SISTER PALACE
(Parkway North at PSU's Smith Memorial Student Union, 1825 SW Broadway) A funny band that makes serious music is terminally fucked from the start. Everyone is so shallow "in this business" that your sense of humor will almost invariably eclipse your artistic abilities. You will be compared to They Might Be Giants, and critics who don't actually employ critical thinking will offhandedly label your music "fun" or "funny." (The amazing '90s power-pop band Jellyfish exemplify this better than anyone: Their "Ronald McDonald as filtered through The Brady Bunch" aesthetic is the self-destructive equivalent of Michelangelo painting a giant penis on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.) In their Bandcamp bio, Kelso's Seacats facetiously identify as "NW Rock 'n' Roll's Funny Guyz Since '09," indicating that they are clearly no strangers to the funny-band curse. And while they are truly, absurdly funny—standout examples include the music video for "Minus World" and an immaculate, 11-minute promotional infomercial for their 2013 self-titled LP—Seacats are, more significantly, terrific at writing pop songs, particularly Maladroit homage "Wrecked" and the near-perfect, anti-masculinity anthem "Firewood," both from Seacats. Maybe one day we can abandon the horrid stereotype that noteworthy art can only be made by dark, humorless assholes, because while Seacats may certainly be NW Rock 'n' Roll's preeminent Funny Guyz, they're obviously so much more. MORGAN TROPER See All-Ages Action!

DEFECT DEFECT, PRF, VIOLENT PARTY, TENSOR
(Black Water Bar, 835 NE Broadway) I started going to punk shows the year Defect Defect formed. That was nine years ago, and since then, a lot of terrific Portland punk bands have come and gone... pretty much all of them, actually. This isn't me bragging or flaunting any sort of "punk seniority" (of which, relatively speaking, I possess none), it's just illustrative of how long Defect Defect have been a fixture of the all-ages scene. You could always rely on them to be great and, more importantly, it seemed like you could always rely on them to be a band. Turns out we were mistaken: Tonight, the group play their last show ever, in what is bound to be an emotional, coming-of-age experience for virtually everyone who's been to a house show within the last decade. MORGAN TROPER See All-Ages Action!

THE OO-RAY, BRUMES
(Townshend's Alberta Street Tea House, 2223 NE Alberta) Ted Laderas' work under the name the OO-Ray has been, to date, lovely enough, using his multi-tracked cello and light synth tones to provide a placid feeling. You get no such calm on the OO-Ray's latest album, Empty Orchestra. The songs are built with the same unyielding, enveloping spirit as William Basinski's Disintegration Loops. They are big, swarming MIDI productions that don't let you escape from the sound. It's like standing in the middle of an orchestra as it works out a slowly dripping rewrite that stretches out the opening chords of Also Sprach Zarathustra to epic lengths. ROBERT HAM

IBEYI, FLO MORRISSEY
(Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi) Are Ibeyi the French Cuban Björk? Well, they're not quite that quirky or as well connected to some of the world's greatest electronic-music producers, but the Díaz twins (percussionist/vocalist Naomi and pianist/vocalist Lisa-Kaindé) show skewed inclinations similar to Iceland's most famous musical export. (Björk is still bigger than Sigur Rós, right?) On their self-titled 2015 debut album for XL Recordings, Ibeyi favor strange meters, stark beats, unison chants, and melodies that sometimes shimmer into the ether in odd ways. And other times Ibeyi simply sound like Starbucks-tronica—kind of innocuous and conventional. Fortunately, they mostly elude blandness and achieve a deceptively off-kilter species of torch-singer triphop. DAVE SEGAL

OUT FROM THE SHADOWS: SOFT KILL, THE ESTRANGED, ARCTIC FLOWERS, SHADOWHOUSE, UNDERPASS, LUNCH, VICE DEVICE, VATS, DEAD CULT, COMM
(Rotture, 315 SE 3rd) The little radio station that did, XRAY.FM, is a year old, and we're glad of it. Championing locally sourced content, local music, and the local-yokel kind of talk radio that makes you cry with laughter (see: the Heavy Breather show on Tuesdays at 6 pm), the station is a go-to source for what's rad in the city for lots of people. In the pursuit of perpetuating that status, XRAY DJ Dave Cantrell has organized Out from the Shadows, a festival that highlights the best that Portland's darkwave and post-punk scenes have to offer. Featured acts include the blazingly great punkers the Estranged and the murky musicality of Vice Device. RYAN J. PRADO

NOIZEMAKERS, HYPERACTIVE, DANNY THE WILDCHILD, PHIDELITY, CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF TECHNO
(Branx, 320 SE 2nd) Are 12-hour dance parties your thing? Here you go. This event starts in the afternoon and ends when the law says it's time to go. Chicago's DJ Hyperactive headlines the show and has been around for more than two decades, developing a cult following for his flavor of driving techno. For the drum-and-bass heads, Danny the Wildchild will be in the house. This guy has pumped up the jam at raves for as long as I can remember. You can be certain that a bevy of DJs with lovingly tended record crates will be holding it down tonight, so get ready to work it out on the dance floor. Bunny suits not required. CHRISTINA BROUSSARD

CJ BOYD, CONSUMER, THE BINARY MARKETING SHOW
(Mothership Music, 3611 NE MLK) The off-kilter electro-pop of Portland duo the Binary Marketing Show sounds as if it were created partly in outer space and partly underwater. Their music floats and sinks in a lo-fi haze of blissful and slightly uncomfortable textures. Imagine Yo La Tengo singing over Matmos tracks, or a more disturbed Cock and Swan, or People Like Us' sound collages being turned into pop songs. Live, the Binaries mix synths, woozy vocal effects, drum machines, samplers, guitars, and horns into a hypnotizing and playful performance. It's smart, lyrically interesting, and shares almost nothing with the barrage of clean-cut, ready-for-college-radio synth-pop happening these days. JOSHUA JAMES AMBERSON