The film plays with all the tropes. Emmett Malloy, the director, seems to have a supernatural understanding about what makes the band so intriguing and why they were the sole survivors of the bloody neo-garage wars of the early ’00s.

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The most exciting thing about the show is how loud it was, almost an act of civil disobedience in an affluent department store. I watched the same salesperson from whom I made a purchase earlier now covering her ears so as not to upset her blissful unawareness.

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Even after songs like “I’m Sorry I Love You,” “Walk a Lonely Road” and “I Don’t Really Love You Anymore,” I came away from the Magnetic Fields performance at the Wilshire Ebell with a calming sense of serenity. Or perhaps it was just sleepiness. The show itself was pretty uneventful, but Stephin Merritt’s soothing baritone vocals could be extolling the virtues of flaying live puppies and I’d still walk away feeling good.

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The crowd was a surprising mix of greyhairs, baldheads, WB Network fans, some that dressed like Grunge was topping the charts, emo-kids that made me think it was an all-ages show, and, yes, those in all black. There were so many couples grinding away in corners, I thought I was in a hip-hop video. Fun for all and hopefully the dude reading a New Yorker had a good time as well.

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On the second of a two-night stand at Spaceland, the band gave fans a well-picked but fleeting review of its melancholy catalogue. MacLean’s guitar work is nearly as fascinating to watch as it is to hear: one set of fingers flailing fast to pluck the strings, the other stretching into complex chords most of us have probably never heard of, all while he shakes the entire instrument about.

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At times, the tension these two Portlanders created resembled a speed match of Jenga. The word “acrophobia” came across my mind a lot and I imagined all the famous towers throughout time—Babel, Pisa, of Terror—rising and falling through trap doors with each go.

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After at least an hour of giggling breasts and gyrating American booties, the petite blonde bombshell from off-shore bounced onto stage full of energy. Giggle and gyrate she did too, but this lady was not just a sight—she was also a sound.

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Sweden’s gift to retro rock The Soundtrack Of Our Lives leveled the El Rey last Friday in a surprise return to North America. They played the Troubadour in 2009 and usually don’t grace this continent for an eternity of another two years. That’s seven-hundred-and-thirty days, people. So this tour was a rare and delectible delicacy of an epicurean treat. Seriously, if this tour were food, it would be a black Périgord truffle.

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Make no mistake—these guys may have chosen hip hop as their genre, but hip hop is just a conduit for delivering pure, throbbing pop of the highest caliber. 

This show was a triumph. I have nothing but effusive things to say about Kid Infinity.

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He layered and looped organic sounds and harmonious melodies, seamlessly creating a hypnotic soundscape. Unlike Fake, Hebden did more than just stand next to his computer banging his head—Hebden’s usual synthesis of acoustic, electric, and digital instruments was enhanced with a lot of nontraditional improvisation, including the use of a tone-generator from his iPhone.

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