TUESDAY, AUGUST 14:

Marco Fasolo wrote, performed, and produced Jennifer Gentle’s new album alone in his mysterious Ectoplasmic Studio, an old house in northern Italy named for the stuff that supposedly oozes out of ghosts. The moniker is fitting, considering the home’s previous owner committed suicide; and listening to The Midnight Room, the band’s second release on Sub Pop, you can imagine its composer hosting nightly seances with the spirits of Syd Barrett and Frank Zappa, or perhaps just duking it out with his own inner spectres. Though 2005’s Valende conveyed a lighthearted whimsy in its relatively poppy psychedelia, The Midnight Room feels decidedly more sinister—more, well, haunted—especially with song titles like “Twin Ghosts” and “Mercury Blood.” The former is the opening track, a Gregorian meditation that sets the surreal tone for the album. “Granny’s House,” a nightmarish fantasia punctuated by piercing piano clangs and stabbing bell, is followed by the quieter, if no less disquieting, “Come Closer.” There are playful moments, too, like the deranged doo-wop of Barrett homages “Take My Hand” and “Electric Princess,” further tweaked by Fasolo’s otherworldly, helium-spiked voice, while “The Ferryman” is a fanciful fugue. With this new album, Jennifer Gentle is sort of like a friend you took acid with once in college for a laugh who, when you bumped into him again two years later, had gotten really serious about hallucinogens—on a different plane, maybe, but it still somehow makes those tabs sound like a pretty good idea. (HCL)

WITH SPINDRIFT, DODO BIRD AND DJ GREG NELSON AT THE 6TH STREET WAREHOUSE, 1269 6TH ST., LOS ANGELES. 9 PM / CONTACT VENUE FOR COVER / ALL AGES. MYSPACE.COM/ALCOHOLACAUST.