Music

Cleaver's Way

Arty L.A. upstarts Fol Chen seem to be attempting some kind of next-level mindfunk with their shadowy non-identities, fugly cover art and inscrutable dystopian liner-note letters. Composer/multi-instrumentalist Tim Hodgkinson's legacy of experimental quirk would be cemented if he had left off after co-founding Henry Cow with Cambridge classmate Fred Frith in the late '60s. It's a no-brainer: Peter Brötzman and Hamid Drake haven't toured together in nearly a decade, so two of the most expansive vocabularies in improvised music are bound to have plenty to talk about. Think you don't like Renaissance music? Give this vivacious band a shot. "Space Rock" conjures images of knob-twiddling excesses — long, amorphous drones punctuated by the occasional blip and bleep, a Pink Floyd (Syd years, natch) beat sometime rising from the haze. The Feelies never enjoyed the early-aughts adulation accorded to plenty of their class-of-'80 post-punk peers but lately they've started getting their due.