Jarboe/Larsen

Rock/pop

In the Young God Records universe, Michael Gira's cosmos of brutal beauty, Jarboe is queen and Larsen its jesters. As the vicious vocal team behind Swans, Jarboe and Gira made isolation and irritation a joyful art form, one bathed in industrialized morass and guttural howling, which formed a wretched aesthetic that, for better or worse, has gone unequaled in music. Since Swans' demise in the late '90s, Jarboe's forged a frantic series of jarring solo CDs (Warm Liquid Event, Sacrificial Cake, her music-mix Dissected) and collaborative experiments with PanSonic and Bill Laswell that blend her pain-soaked vocals with aggressive music (even the ballads) of piercing, collaged electronics and cave-dwelling percussion. This is her first tour since Swans. That Larsen -- the Italian avant act, rumored to be unseen even by producer/label boss Gira -- is out and about should make this show double trouble. Larsen has worked with Lydia Lunch, Damo Suzuki and made two CDs -- No Arms, No Legs: Identification Problems and Rever -- filled with frenetic layered guitars, arching, complex chord changes and stammering rhythms that hammer home their Hammer-Horror stories. Put these acts together, and a tense nervous happy headache is guaranteed.

Thu., Aug. 21, 7:30 p.m., $8, all ages, with Myles of Destruction and Abiku, First Unitarian Church, 22nd and Chestnut sts., 800-594-TIXX.

—A.D. Amorosi

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