Auktyon

Fri., March 21, 7:30 p.m., $30-$40, with Alina Simone, World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400, worldcafelive.com.

by Shaun Brady

rock

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There's something about former Soviet Socialist Republics that lend themselves to a certain gray-faced surrealist humor, a wit that hits with the bluntness and sudden thud of a cinder block dropped from a great height. That's all present in the style of Russian eight-piece Auktyon, which has been plying their unique blend of avant-rock and performance art (though it's a challenge to differentiate the two) for something like 30 years now. If punk rock could be considered folk music for dystopic urban tribes, then Auktyon's music herds the punks into a carny caravan and plunks them down into some war-torn Eastern European square for the amusement of hard-scrabble end-timers. Gritty campfire sing-alongs yield to prog-punk rave-ups or devolve into free-jazz freakouts, with rhythms creeping in from around the globe, none of them up to any good. For their latest, Girls Sing (Geometriya), the band enlisted Stateside admirers Marc Ribot and John Medeski, both of whom speak the same genre-scorning language as their Russian compatriots.

Fri., March 21, 7:30 p.m., $30-$40, with Alina Simone, World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400, worldcafelive.com.