September 1
Mind StateUrban Lounge (241 S. 500 East)10 p.m.$5
Hometown hip-hop group Mind State is now slated to release its first full-length album — a shining sample of local lyrics and production titled Call the Cops. With beats from veteran beat junkie Brisk One, as well as a handful of other Salt Lake-area producers, the album’s instrumentals range from Boom Bap buoyancy to slightly darker East Coast Wu-Tang style.
Go to the Urban Lounge this Saturday to witness MC Dusk One flip his well-timed first-person battle raps while DJ Honna gets open on the Technics. Mind State is the first of a slew of promising acts to rise from Salt Lake City’s now-burgeoning local hip-hop scene.
Ben Kweller and P.O.S.In The Venue (579 W. 200 South)5 p.m.$17.50
Boyish Ben Kweller is once again bringing his singer-songwriter, alt-rock ballads to Zion (don’t get too excited, girls — he’s married). Like a less introspective, more pop-centric Conor Oberst (if that’s even possible), Kweller’s brand of easy-listening indie rock draws from ’60s sunny pop a la The Beach Boys and The Beatles. Not the sort of musician you’d expect to be proceeded by opening act P.O.S., but you don’t hear this writer complaining.
The term “punk-rap” carries a wide variety of newfangled Limp Bizkit/Linkin Park connotations, but fortunately this Minneapolis-based MC fits nowhere inside that cheesy, rap-rock paradigm.
Seething political commentary over cement-breaking Lazorbeak beats describes P.O.S., one member of the Minnesota hip-hop collective Doomtree. Harboring an initial disdain for rap music, P.O.S. began his musical career in punk-rock bands, including the still-performing Building Better Bombs. While “Pissed Off Stef” and “Product of Society” are two possible solutions to his acronym, after listening to his explosive debut on Rhymesayers Records, Ipecac Neat, “Promise Of Skill” most aptly describes an emcee who’s as comfortable throwing punches in the pit as he is writing and delivering clever, antagonistic rhymes.
September 5
Dirty ProjectorsKilby Court(741 S. 330 West)7:30 p.m.
The maniacal efforts of a Yale dropout, Dave Longstreth’s Dirty Projectors is avant-garde even for its experimental genre. With an R&B quartet harmonizing amidst an orchestral wind ensemble, all held together by a drum-machine cowbell beat, Longstreth isn’t afraid to alienate his listeners.
The Dirty Projector’s strange aesthetics are complimented by its unusual album concepts. Whether scoring the animated operatic passion of The Eagles’ member Don Henley (“The Getty Address”) or reconstructing Black Flag songs from memory (“Rise Above”), its weird sound leaves a writer confused as to whom to compare them to.
Vivaldi under indie-electronic duress only partially translates.