Also this issue: Nevermore Again Lou Reed remasters the master. -A.D. Amorosi Making Contact Mary Fahl’s on the rise with a brand-new project. -Nicole Pensiero Suzanne Vega -Sam Adams Dan Fogelberg -Nicole Pensiero Brother Ali -Kurt Ciliberto Elliott -Brian Howard The Fleshtones -M.J. Fine HearHere -Patrick Rapa

May 29-June 4, 2003

musicpicks

Prefuse 73/Four Tet

Scott Herren knows his way around a breakbeat and a laptop, and his collaborators/source materials come from the ultra-hip Mo' Wax, Def Jux, Ghostly International and Chocolate Industries. His debut as Prefuse 73 was the rap equivalent of the micro-sample tech house of Akufen's My Way -- for every licensed cut, there was a terse, unrecognizable one panning all over the mix. The follow-up is less glitch-hop and more cut 'n' bass. As a result, One Word Extinguisher (Warp) is more organic and accessible and, in that way, not unlike the music of Four Tet, with whom he shares the bill.

Kieran Hebden works in the rock idiom though he utilizes high-tech tools. A post-rock song like "Hands" boots up like free jazz before a repetitive groove surfaces and dissolves into the plucked banjo of "She Moves She." Four Tet likes to puncture the sheen of graceful piano and guitar lines with jabs of jarring noise and painful quiet. The ambient hiss and "natural" reverb make Rounds (Domino) as good as its highly acclaimed predecessors.

Sun., June 1, 7 p.m., $10, all ages, with Manitoba and A Grape Dope, Transit, 6th and Spring Garden sts., 800-594-8499.

—Chris Nosal