L.A. LUNGS

>>> Thursday, July 28

L.A. Lungs is the project of Nathan Markiewicz and wife Lori, and, as you might expect from a couple of steadfast oddballs (Markiewicz has a terrific track record as the booker for the Olympia Experimental Music Festival), L.A. Lungs' music is bracingly unique, unfiltered and hard to categorize. Songs like "Railcar Fracas" alternate between moments of sublime beauty and the rancor of chaotic, unbound sound. The Lungs' lullaby-esque melodies slowly warp and crackle, like the skin of a porcelain doll burning in a heap of junkyard debris, while a storm of decibels roll in over the horizon, sounding like down-tuned guitars revolting against their masters, uncoiling their own strings as a kind of sonic seppuku. - Jason Baxter

[Northern, with Derek M Johnson, KnotPineBox, 8 p.m., all ages, 321 Fourth Ave., Olympia, northernolympia.org]

THE GENTLEMEN GLUTTONS

>>> Saturday, June 30

Keeping in mind that I am well aware of how simultaneously reductive and frightening this will come off, let me just suggest that I think the Gentlemen Gluttons sound kind of like a bluegrass version of the Decemberists. No, come back! Of course, this comparison is entirely unfair. Yes, while it's true that the Gentlemen Gluttons have a love for outmoded language and a desire to spin yarns about iron strikes and ghost towns that does resemble the ethos of the Decemberists, their reliance on banjos, mandolins and fiddles, along with the lead singer's almost Calvin Johnson-esque baritone, establishes them as something stranger and more unique than such comparisons can do justice. The band's self-titled three-song EP drowns in the kind of dusty doom and dread that seems only accessible by banjo. - Rev. Adam McKinney

[The New Frontier Lounge, with Jessica Dobson, Little Penguins, The Fling, 9 p.m., cover TBA, 301 E. 25th St., Tacoma, 253.572.4020]

NUCULAR AMINALS

>>> Sunday, July 31

Writing the intentionally misspelled Nucular Aminals is an act of superhuman will on my part. The silliness and implied hostility of such a misspelled band name comes off as a first test, an opening gambit to see just how many people can stick around to hear the actually pretty conservative take on garage and psychedelia in which Nucular Aminals specialize. Even if they hadn't been recently signed to K Records, Nucular Aminals would still very much smack of that label's aesthetic: lo-fi, '60s-devoted garage-pop that glows with fuzzy hooks and organ-drenched vibes. When those vocal harmonies sink in just right, an indie prettiness settles on Nucular Aminals that helps to reinforce the light touch with which they seem to approach most everything about making music. - Rev. AM

[Northern, with the Hive Dwellers, Hooded Hags, Morgan and the Organ Donors, 8 p.m., $5, 321 Fourth Ave., Olympia, northernolympia.org]

TY SEGALL

>>> Sunday, July 31

You know those grating California tourism ads with all the celebrity cameos? You will never hear Ty Segall's "California Commercial," from his latest stellar full-length, Goodbye Bread, featured in one of those, despite the implications of its title. "Come to California / Stay inside your house / Stay inside your head" he sings, cheekily deriding sun-dazed do-nothing slackerdom over bam-bam-bam-bam-bam bursts of staccato guitar and drums. In place of a chorus, there's a squiggly guitar lick that carries the song to its abrupt finish line. At just over a minute, it's the shortest, tersest ditty on Bread, which, for the most part, is a steadier, more ramblin' and psych-fried effort from Segall, one of the West Coast's finest rock ‘n' roll songwriters and a damn good guitarist. Ty Segall shows no signs of slowing down, so it's best you keep up. - JB

[The Brotherhood Lounge, with Audacity, November Witch, 9 p.m., $5, 119 Capitol Way N., Olympia, 360.352.4153]