Philadelphia Weekly

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Vic Chesnutt

Vic Chesnutt's last album was called North Star Deserter. This week he plays the North Star Bar. So is he a liar? A hypocrite? Maybe both, but the fact that he's also a mad songwriting genius more than makes up for it. Playing with Elf Power (who will also be playing their own set), Chesnutt imagines figures layered, complex and often tragic to inhabit his looping story-songs. Don't let his wheelchair fool you; these characters will jump out of the songs and walk all over you. (Jeffrey Barg)

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Marianne Dissard

French-born, Tuscany-based fille fragile Marianne Dissard has teamed up with Calexico's frontman Joey Burns for L'Entredeux, her heart-melting debut that beautifully melds Southwestern noir with the husky, unequivocal whisper of chanson. It's an intimate and amorous album that should appeal to anyone infatuated with Carla Bruni and with infatuation itself. What sets Dissard apart from the rest of the chanteuses riding the Francophile wave is her delivery--subtle, slightly spitty and the most effective aphrodisiac since Benjamin Biolay's Trash Y�y�. (Caralyn Green)

Au

Multi-instrumentalist Luke Wyland prepped his experimental pop collective for the current economic crisis the way anyone does--by diversifying. At times dreamy, others jubilant, Wyland and his rotating cast love a groove, but how it's expressed varies widely. Minimalist chanted choir elegies, shimmering pop, shambling freak-folk and puffy-shirted baroque swells all coexist in the atmospheric environs like menu items united by Wyland's supple melodic predilections. Restraint is his favored hue, as even the most soaring passages feel constrained, and reigned back into the wintery arrangements. (Chris Parker)

Joe Coffee

Hearing Paul Bearer express the virtues of good ol' R&B and soul right through the very same gullet that brought you the misanthropic musings of seminal New York hardcore band Sheer Terror is a thing of beauty. Anyone familiar with Bearer's writing and stage banter is well aware of his scathing intelligence, but you might be forgiven for being surprised to hear him actually sing (and well, at that). In part reminiscent of the Jesus Lizard's angular might, there's also plenty of horns and swagger to add a fair amount of roll. Beg them for Yazoo's "Only You." (John Cramer)

Magic Christian

Maybe you've seen The Magic Christian, that 1969 film where billionaire Peter Sellers adopts Ringo Starr and encites all kinds of havoc? The band, Magic Christian, is the same sort of deal. Cyril Jordan, who once shook some action with the Flamin' Groovies, has adopted a couple of power-pop all-stars�--Eddie Mu�oz from the Plimsouls and the dBs and Clem Burke from Blondie--plus singer Paul Kopf. They're ready to wreak some 1960s-style, garage-psyche damage, possibly covering the Who's "I Can See for Miles" or the Beatles' "Things We Said Today"--but probably not "Carry on Tomorrow," the Badfinger song from the movie. (Jennifer Kelly)

Andrew Bird

When Fat Possum record's told the New York Times Magazine they expect Andrew Bird's upcoming album Noble Beast "to transform him from cult phenomenon to pop star," they weren't lying. Why? Because Beast showcases the Chicago native's talent for violin looping and the long-lost art of the whistle solo. (Think PB&J's "Young Folk." But better!) His intellectual-folk rock has been carrying him through the obscure ever since Pitchfork got a hot nut for his 2005 opus The Mysterious Production of Eggs. Expect bespectacled graduate students working to find the deeper meaning in his nonsensical song titles. "Anonanimal" anyone? (Andy Hines)