The Wrong Shapes Record Release Show with The Grownup Noise, Patrick Coman | Club Passim | 18 June

We referenced it last week at the tail end of our review of The Wrong Shapes' delightful full-length debut, but it bears repeating: the Boston chamber-pop duo perform tomorrow night at the legendary Club Passim in Harvard Square. We'd venture to say that we haven't seen a show there in, oh, 15 years, but our recollection is the club retains a feel of old Cambridge, you know, ivy, cigarettes, berets, counterculture, counter-counterculture, horticulture. But we digress. We think you will find The Wrong Shapes every bit as enjoyable in the flesh as you do in the MP3, and so we recommend the show to your attention. You will see plenty of the distaff portion of the pair tomorrow, as cellist Rachel Barringer also abets the also-billed The Grownup Noise, the Boston folk-pop quintet most famous (not really) for distressing us with a cover of an early '90s hip-hop song (okay, that actually happened).

Fortunately, The Grownup Noise's top-shelf songwriting, and said songs' potent emotional payload, make the band very easy to like. Exhibit A is the thrilling final two minutes of "Six Foot Solemn Oath," which features a cracking vocal arrangement winding around a brushed shuffle and amid gentle piano. It's perfection, and it is the sort of thing that makes us ask The Grownup Noise when it will have new music to hear; it's most recent collection This Time With Feeling was released in 2011 (which, now that we look, was also the last time we saw the band). Americana artist Patrick Coman rounds out the bill tomorrow night, and full details of the evening are available right here at this Facebook event page. Spend some time with the embeds below, and then consider making the scene. There is, of course, no shortage of great shows tomorrow, so if you can't drag your ass to Harvard Square or if Passim sells out, consider checking in on Boston dream-pop veterans The Hush Now down the road at TT's, or anxiety-pop titans Chandos across the river at Church. On to the streamable music, indie rock aficionadoes!

Review: The Wrong Shapes | Reverse The Phase

The unlikely but bewitching pop sounds of Boston duo The Wrong Shapes endlessly blossom across the 10 songs of this full-length debut, like a fractal opening into perpetuity. The evocative music wrought by wife-and-husband unit and city scene veterans Rachel and Bo Barringer may be limited in their capacity to illustrate infinity only by their minimalist framework. But even so the collection's thrilling aural reach exceeds its grasp, and taken in sum its songs are much more than an illumination of thousands of small gestural iterations. While touchstones such as the music of Arthur Russell and certain solo work of David Byrne feel obvious, there is nothing obvious about Reverse The Phase. The charming set's mystery, beauty and even sedate pageantry distinguishes The Wrong Shapes' work even within the exceedingly rich Boston music ecosystem.

The Wrong Shapes weave hypnotic compositions from resonant bowed cello, skeletal guitar leads, hand and canned percussion and gentle vocal arrangements. From these elements the pair conjures stirring pop moments, as in the buoyant (and obliquely Jim Morrison-referencing) album highlight "Alright, Alright." But the pair's greater achievement may be the thrumming ambience that cloaks the entirety of Reverse The Phase -- particularly its brilliant instrumental "Actual Girls" and transcendent closing title track -- in a bright and optimistic psychedelia. Perhaps it is the feel conveyed by the attack of the bow across the cello string, but there is a physical dimension to certain of the playing, as well, which firmly roots songs like "My Laugh Is Simple, Your Hips Are Complicated" to a more distinct reality. Ms. Barringer's cello work, in particular, suggests a laborer's craftsmanship, despite an overall soft affect to the music of Reverse The Phase. The Wrong Shapes, fortunately, do not make the listener choose between pop or psych or ambient or rooted: the aesthetics co-exist -- even seamlessly merge -- in a way that suggests, well, the ideal of a marital partnership. Such an abstracted assessment may overlook the humor in the act's music (the song title "My Aim Is Terrible," of course, is a winking riff on the Elvis Costello lyric from "Alison.") and minimize the duo's brilliant composing and arranging. Indeed, there is much to hear in this record, which seems to find new ways of revealing itself with every listen.

The Wrong Shapes self-release Reverse The Phase today as a digital download. The duo fetes the new collection with a release party June 18 at the legendary Club Passim in Cambridge, Mass. The show includes sets by Boston folk rock leading lights The Grownup Noise, for which Ms. Barringer also plays cello, as well as Patrick Coman and the Lo-Fi Angels. Complete details can be found within this Facebook event page. Reverse The Phase is available for purchase right here, and you may stream the entire set via the Bandcamp embed below.

The Wrong Shapes: Bandcamp | Internerds | Facebook

25 Years Of On The Town With Mikey Dee with Butterknife, Corin Ashley, The Wrong Shapes, The Rationales and The Shods | TT The Bear's | Tonight

A great number of things conspire to hold the vibrant Boston music scene aloft like Lando Calrissian's Cloud City. Sure, people and even institutions do come and go, but certain of them endure, and constitute a superstructure that lifts all of us invested in the music community here. A key piece of it all is local radio -- often college radio, but we can't forget our friends that have festooned the commercial spectrum past and present. We're, of course, talking about our beloved Pipeline on WMBR, Anngelle Wood's Boston Emissions on WZLX, and even the upstart VanyaRadio. And we simply can't have this conversation without talking about WMFO and its long-running program On The Town with Mikey Dee. The show, which sadly lost its namesake due to illness in 2003, tonight celebrates at TT The Bear's Place a quarter-century of providing a platform for local acts to perform live on the air and cast their sizzle across the airwaves to the rock and roll people, the kids, and the occasional interested hound dog, even. Sound engineer and polybandist (we just made that up) Joel Simches has curated tonight's bill, which features the classic power pop of Corin Ashley, the dreamy and tribal ruminations of The Wrong Shapes, the anthemic emo of Class of 2014 Rock And Roll Rumblers Butterknife, the ready-steady rock of The Rationales and punk rock from the nearly-as-old-as-the-show The Shods.

As part of the anniversary celebration, the audio vaults were raided and the result is a two-CD compilation of songs recorded live on the show; not coincidentally that collection, titled Live From Studio Dee: The Very Best Of On The Town with Mikey Dee, is available starting today. Rock fans can stream selections from the set via the Bandcamp embed below. Proceeds from the sale of the CDs get poured right back into the coffers of WMFO, which in turn will pour more music right down your earholes daily, so everyone wins, right? Right. Here's the Facebook event page for the show, which we heartily endorse. Those interested in receiving extra credit are directed to the second embed below, via which you can stream an electrifying, cello-fied 2009 live set performed for on On The Town by Clicky Clicky faves Varsity Drag.

Radio Ensuring You Will Be Rocked Almost Beyond Reason This Weekend: Acts Include Future Carnivores, Travels, Varsity Drag, Age Rings, Eldridge Rodriguez

You know who owns you for the front half of Memorial Day weekend -- and will be largely responsible for your inability to do anything the second half -- assuming you are unable to escape the gravitational pull of the greater Boston/Cambridge/Somerville triangle? No, not this guy. Radio in Somerville, that's who. Starting on Thursday (and we're assuming you are still banned for life from River Gods, because, you know, this), the new-ish little club that could is just killing it with non-stop rock 'n roll. It all kicks off with an evening of rock headlined by pop adventurists Future Carnivores and featuring support from slow-core stalwarts Travels. We've weighed in on recent releases by both acts, calling Future Carnivores' self-titled debut "the first refreshing surprise of 2012" here, and we reviewed Travels' most recent maxi-single here last October. Also performing Thursday are Dirty Virgins and The Wrong Shapes. The latter act features Future Carnivores' Bo Barringer along with Rachel Arnold on cello and vocals; the pair parleys sensuous pop that will please fans of same. More deets at the Facebook event page yonder.

Clicky Clicky faves Varsity Drag occupy the center square Friday night in their first performance in who knows how long. Too long. According to legend, if the trio doesn't play its hit "Summertime," we're all doomed to another six weeks of this treacherous spring we've been having (oh, it's actually been kinda nice...?), so let's keep our fingers crossed. As an added treat, 'Drag drummer Josh Pickering is also banging the cans strapping on a guitar and crushing out chords as part of power-pop purveyors Peter Buzzelle & the Soul Clinic Bible School's set, making a characteristically sweaty evening for Mr. Pickering doubly so. Unless it is, like, weirdly cold that night? Not gonna happen, right? The evening is rounded out by a set from BirdsMakeBirds, whose name proposition seems air-tight, and another from Black Fortress of Opium. Here's the Facebook event page; join the army.

You will hopefully have something remaining in your proverbial gas tank for a huge Saturday night at Radio, as that is the latest entry in Midriff Records' reliably awesome monthly residency. This month's event features a set from recent Midriff signatories Age Rings, who will be feting the release of their upbeat new Midriff EP AM/PM (which we wrote about here earlier). Also on the bill is one of the label's flagship acts, Eldridge Rodriguez, who are fresh from a much-discussed appearance on Clicky Clicky's own NOFUCKINGWHERE compilation (download here), as well as guitar pop act Cooling Towers and a tandem performance from Midriff-friendly Sarah Borges and Midriff's own Greg Lyon. Mr. Lyon, of course, among other things is also a notable solo artist on Midriff as well as the latest addition to the label's legendary founders, The Beatings. And those other things: Lyon's ethereal re-imagining of RIDE's "Paralyzed" graced the aforementioned NOFUCKINGWHERE, which compilation's art and layout were also executed by Mr. Lyon. Let's just go ahead and say it: renaissance man. And how about one more Facebook event page?

All that stuff above? All that is happening over the course of three consecutive nights this weekend at Radio. It's mind-blowing. Get into it. We're dropping some song embeds below so you can limber up your ears. Dig.