Z'EV

Fri., May 25, 8 p.m., with Sikhara and Dave Smolen, International House

by Shaun Brady

Before there was industrial music, there was Z'EV, banging on scrap metal and found objects and creating harsh but lovely mechanistic sounds. Born Stefan Weisser, the Los Angeles-born percussionist worked with many of the Fluxus artists in the early '70s while cultivating his personal style, inventing metal machine music well before Lou Reed got cantankerous. He later combined his industrial sounds with audio collage and tape manipulation, less musique concrete than musique forged-steel. An innovator, as well, Weisser has been a philosopher from the start, formulating a Kabbalah-based theory long before that school of thought became a Hollywood fashion statement. His 1992 tome Rhythmajik, which the artist provides as a Word doc to anyone who writes him, lays out a dense numerology-influenced theory of the healing power of rhythmic processes. The influence upon the influential, Z'EV makes one of his first stateside shows in more than 20 years with Friday's performance.

Fri., May 25, 8 p.m., $8, with Sikhara and Dave Smolen, International House, 3701 Chestnut St., 215-387-5125, www.arsnovaworkshop.com.