Four years ago, when Nigerian juju legend King Sunny Ade last played Chicago, the show was pitched largely to the local Nigerian expat community and as such provided an experience similar to what you might get in Lagos (I doubt I'll ever see such a big contingent of sharp-dressed Nigerians at the Vic). A large portion of the concert was devoted to praise songs: fans would climb onto the stage and "spray" the musicians with cash, sticking it to sweaty foreheads or simply tossing the bills in a constant shower, and Ade would respond with improvised praise for his patrons. It was fascinating to watch for a while, but since I couldn't understand what Ade was saying I was prepared to enjoy an hour of it.

For this Ravinia gig Ade is back in Western showbiz mode, playing tightened-up arrangements of his songs without the extended spraying section. His latest U.S. studio effort, Seven Degrees North (Mesa/Blue Moon), was originally released in 2000, but the dissolution of V2 Records a few years back pushed it out of print; it's been reissued to coincide with the tour. It's a sturdy album, even given the irritating presence of electronic keyboards on a bunch of tracks, and the crisp performances contain all of the Ade trademarks: gently cooed singing, wild talking-drum explosions, interlocking guitar and percussion patterns, and pedal-steel solos galore.

King Sunny Ade & His African Beats perform at Ravinia tomorrow night with Femi Kuti, son of perhaps the one Nigerian musician who's always been more famous than Ade both at home and abroad.

Today's playlist:

Maysa, Maysa é Maysa . . . é Maysa, é Maysa (Som Livre)
Federico Ughi, Gene Janas, and Daniel Carter, People's Resonance (577)
Conjunto Sete de Ouros, Sete do Ouros (Odeon)
Built to Spill, Live (Warner Bros.)
Tortoise, Beacons of Ancestorship (Thrill Jockey)

For the past few years country music legend Charlie Louvin, who turns 82 next month, has been on a bona fide recording kick thanks largely to Josh Rosenthal, the brains behind the excellent Tompkins Square label. Since 2007 the imprint has put out four records by Louvin--the man who, along with his brother Ira, brought close-harmony singing into country's mainstream. In support of these recordings, Louvin has been rolling through Chicago more often. He's back again on Friday, when he plays the Heartland Cafe in Rogers Park.

Two of those Tompkins Square albums have come out since Louvin's previous visit, and they're kind of a yin and yang pair that mirrors the approach of the Louvin Brothers. Steps to Heaven is a gospel record, but unlike the loads of gospel material the Louvins recorded in their day, it brings in elements of black gospel too. Louvin's voice ain't what it used to be--its range is diminished, it's frayed around the edges, and its old sweetness is long gone--but he delivers spirited renditions of staples like "There's a Higher Power" and "Precious Lord." You can hear the similarities between the melodies of "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder" and the Louvins classic "Great Atomic Power," one of the greatest apocalypse songs of all time.

Louvin is backed by Nashville's McCrary Sisters--all daughters of the Fairfield Four's Sam McCrary--who also sang for honky-tonk rebel Buddy Miller on his 2004 album Universal United House of Prayer (New West). On this record they're much more active, adding thick harmonies and deeply soulful ad libs. Though Louvin's regular guitarist, Chris Scruggs, drops some tasty lines, the main accompaniment is the piano of Derrick Lee.

The yang to Steps to Heaven's ying arrived a few months later. Its title, Charlie Louvin Sings Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs, makes it plain what Louvin's doing here--the record draws some of its repertoire from the fantastic Tompkins Square box set People Take Warning! Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913-1938. The Louvin Brothers sang some beautiful tunes laced with wanton violence, and inside the CD are some gratuitous photos of Charlie fondling a pistol. He's in standard country mode here, and to my ears he fares better. There are songs about fatal train and car crashes, about loving someone so much you're driven to kill them, and about the brutality of coal mining. Louvin has such a powerful presence and is so intimately familiar with the material (and the subject matter--his brother Ira was killed in a car crash in 1965) that his weakened voice is nearly irrelevant. It's like that for legends.

On first blush, the self-titled solo debut from Toronto's Doug Paisley--released by No Quarter, a Philadelphia label best known for issuing heavy rock from the likes of Endless Boogie and Circle--is almost unnervingly plain. His music is clearly steeped in American country and folk traditions, but aside from some tasteful steel guitar he doesn't bother with twangy ornamentation or any kind of regional affectation; he seems content to rely on his original tunes, which he delivers with restrained grace.

Most of the songs are gentle and beautiful, though Paisley, who's toured with Will Oldham as part of Dark Hand and Lamplight, certainly comes out of the rock tradition. I have no idea if he's listened much to Michael Hurley, one of American music's true originals, but there's something in the timbre of his voice--especially the way it interacts with the wonderfully wobbly singing of his female foil on the album, Simone Schmidt--and in his understated but hooky melodies that makes me think of Hurley. (Paisley also imitates a trumpet with his voice on "Take My Hand," another Hurley trick gleaned, I imagine, from the Mills Brothers.)

Just about everything I've read about Paisley has mentioned Neil Young, another Canadian with a strong grasp of American music, but I think a better comparison would be Gordon Lightfoot, minus his mawkishness. I realize I may not be making the strongest case for Paisley's music, but trust me--in its own quiet way his record has insinuated itself into my brain. I'm bummed that I'll be out of town this weekend, but it you're around you can check him out for yourself.

Paisley opens for New Zealand's Bachelorette Saturday night at the Hideout. You can listen to "A Day is Very Long," a track from his new record, below:

Regular readers of this blog know how much I love and admire the Scandinavian quintet Atomic--to my ears they're one of the most exciting jazz bands on the planet. Tonight the band's remarkable Swedish trumpeter, Magnus Broo, leads an excellent ad hoc quartet with trombonist Jeb Bishop, bassist Nate McBride, and drummer Frank Rosaly over at the Hideout.

Last month I got to hear Broo play in Bergen, Norway, with IPA, a quartet with three killing Norwegian players--bassist Ingebrigt Haaker Flaten, drummer Håkon Mjåset Johansen, and tenor saxophonist Atle Nymo (the latter two play together in a quintet called Motif with pianist Haavard Wiik). Last year, before Broo hooked up with the band, the other three musicians recorded a wonderful take on Don Cherry's Complete Communion album. IPA's new album, Lorena (Bolage), shares an affinity for Cherry's music as well as the work of Ornette Coleman, an energetic, bracing strain of free bop marked by rigorous improvised interplay in the front line.

Broo is one of Sweden's most skilled and flexible horn men, a guy rooted in the fundamentals of the American jazz tradition (he studied at the University of Texas during the 80s). His early work reveals a more straight-ahead sensibility, but since cofounding Atomic in 1999 and serving a stint in the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet--filling in for trombonist Bishop during the period he retired from music due to hearing issues--he's opened up his playing and become much more daring. On Lorena--which features six original pieces, including three by Broo--his bold, blustery playing seethes with a muscular melodocism, ripping through tricky, rhythmically complex themes (which set up provocative platforms for improvisation), then busting out with endless streams of lyrical elaboration.

Broo will be busy over the next four nights. Tomorrow he'll join excellent Dutch group Trio Braam de Joode Vatcher at Elastic and on Friday and Saturday he and pianist Wiik (who also plays in Atomic) will participate in the Vandermark 5 Special Edition at the Green Mill. Ken Vandermark has created new arrangements of some older V5 material and written some new pieces to accommodate these two excellent guests. The performances will be recorded for later release.

Today's playlist:

Armen Donelian Trio, Oasis (Sunnyside)
Kiko Dinucci e Bando AfroMacarrônico, Pastiche Nagô (Desmonta)
Clara Moreno, Miss Balanço (Far Out)
Daniel Levin Trio, Fuhuffah (Clean Feed)
White Hinterland, Luniculaire (Dead Oceans)

Lately former Chicagoan Greg Davis has been exploring various facets of drone music--in his duo with Zach Wallace called Sun Circle, on his brand-new album for Kranky called Mutually Arising, et cetera--but not so long ago this guitarist and electronic musician was finessing an accessible mix of abstract textures and acoustic fingerstyle patterns. For some reason he unironically embraced the tag "folktronica" at the time.

He's recently branched out in yet another direction, making relatively poppy music with Chris Weisman, a singer and guitarist from Brattleboro, Vermont (Davis now lives in Burlington). On their new Northern Songs, released only as a limited-edition CD-R for now, he reveals some skills as a producer. Weisman wrote all but two of the nine songs--Davis wrote one, and there's also a cover of the Beatles tune "It's All Too Much"--and then sent his guitar and vocal tracks to Davis, who added everything else.

Rich layers of environmental sounds, guitars, drums, tamboura, keyboards, and abstract electronics support the pretty melodies, which sometimes creates a mild stylistic dissonance. Weisman has a delicate, high-pitched voice, which reminds me of former Bread singer David Gates--yikes, I know--but the mildly psychedelic folk-pop tunes are consistently appealing.

Davis and Weisman in the midst of a tour with British guitarist James Blackshaw, and they open for him tonight at the Hideout.

Milwaukee percussionist Jon Mueller (pictured) has been active for years in rock-based bands (Pele, Collections of Colonies of Bees), but these days it's his experimental side that's really getting my attention. He recently released a stunning multiformat set, Physical Changes (Radium)--an LP, CD, and DVD, each containing different material--that displays the same rigorous level of invention as his 2008 solo release Metals (Table of the Elements), a simulacrum of heavy metal reimagined for hammering percussion.

The first thing I noticed is that almost every piece is wall-to-wall sound. On "Nothing Changes," recorded with cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and analog synth player Jim Schoenecker, and "The Only Constant Thing Is Change," made with local experimental icon Dan Burke (Illusion of Safety), Mueller lays down pummeling blastbeats that eventually start to feel like white noise; some of the other tracks achieve a similar density with hydroplaning cymbal washes and bowed metal (or at least that's what I think it is--you can never be too certain of the technique when Mueller's involved).

For "Survival Is Not Mandatory," an epic piece on the DVD, Schoenecker and brilliant German sound artist Marcus Schmickler create a harrowing synthetic space--a sort of spooky, hazy landscape, occasionally dissolving into total abstraction, that accompanies the nature filmmaking of David Dinnell. Though Lonberg-Holm's cello and Mueller's percussion show up in the credits, the acoustic elements are so thoroughly absorbed by the surrounding sounds that the whole piece feels electronic.

I'm surely giving the music short shrift because I've only listened to it once--I got the set just two days ago!--but it's as compelling as anything I've heard this year. Mueller will present variations on Physical Changes this Saturday at the Hideout, where he'll be joined by both Lonberg-Holm and Burke.

Earlier Saturday evening, mighty German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann brings his trio Full Blast to the Empty Bottle. The group's latest album, Black Hole (Atavistic), is punishing free jazz, a stark contrast to the more spacious, measured sounds Brötzmann delivered here last month with drummer Nasheet Waits and bassist Eric Revis.

The Swiss rhythm section, electric bassist Marino Pliakas and drummer Michael Wertmueller (both also play together in the group Steamboat Switzerland), can dial down their attack, but even when the volume drops the activity remains frenetic. It's not really possible to push Brötzmann around--he's one of the strongest musicians on the planet--but there's no question that in this lineup he has to push back in order to hold his ground. Full Blast makes some of the most vicious, crackling music he's played since his years in the bulldozing Last Exit.

Chicago's venerable AACM recently underwent an executive shuffle that brought in some young blood. Flutist Nicole Mitchell continues in the top spot, but drummer Mike Reed has signed on as vice chair, cellist Tomeka Reid is the new treasurer, and vocalist Saalik Ziyad has stepped in as secretary.

The revamped leadership recently announced its first new endeavor, the Nomadic Sound Experiment, a bimonthly concert series designed to bring the AACM's music to different parts of the Chicago metropolitan area.

The premier event is this Saturday, not far from the organization's Hyde Park base--the show's at the South Side Community Art Center and starts at 7 PM. Singer Dee Alexander will play the first set with her Evolution Ensemble (cellist Reid, violinist James Sanders, and bassist Junius Paul), and the second set will feature Mitchell's trio with Reid and percussionist Jovia Armstrong. All proceeds from the concerts go toward relaunching the AACM's music school, a crucial pillar of the organization.

I suppose I'm in the minority in finding Ian Svenonius, front man of bands like the Nation of Ulysses, the Make Up, Weird War, and now Chain & the Gang, basically insufferable. He's a good showman, but only so long as he doesn't have to make much sense.

I've never been too crazy about the music he makes--even the stuff that's OK seems to favor style and artifice over substance. But what really annoys me is his Internet talk show, Soft Focus, hosted by VBS.tv, the online video arm of Vice Magazine.

In late March, Svenonius rolled into Chicago for a taping at the Logan Square Auditorium, where he interviewed Steve Albini and Mick Collins (Dirtbombs, Gories).

The segment with Albini is now up, and he proves again that he's a great interview subject: witty, smart, and accommodating. He candidly addresses his own tendency to feel superior to other people, but it's clear that over the years he's become much more humble and generous. He basically saves Svenonius over and over again, bailing him out when he asks an inane, incoherent question by finding a thread of sense to respond to. His patience is impressive.

I assume Albini has some degree of respect for or friendship with Svenonius, but there are still instances when he can't abide the host's quasi-metaphysical horseshit. At one point Svenonius insists that listening to a record is like having a conversation with the band; Albini points out that this is obviously false, since the band gets no direct input from the listener.

I guess there's a chance Svenonius is being silly when, in the episode's intro, he mangles Carl Sandburg's famous description of Chicago by calling the city "The pork butcher to the world." But my hunch is he's talking out his ass, like usual.

Oakland experimentalist Gregg Kowalsky named his terrific new album, Tape Chants (Kranky), after an elaborate live sound project where he "played" several mono tape machines arranged around a room. The recording makes no attempt to capture the spatial effects produced by that setup, but it's still rich and engrossing: Kowalsky manipulates tape speed, volume, and other variables, creating mutable mixes of the droning, resonant source material on each tape: piano, analog synthesizer, contact mikes, motors, sine-wave oscillators, gongs, water, glass, electronics.

Kowalsky used to work in the digital domain but liked the challenge that analog's limitations presented; in recent years he's given a number of similar performances, using six to ten machines.

The music on Tape Chants ranges from warm, enveloping hums to tactile crackling to vibrato-heavy washes--the original source of a sound is only occasionally identifiable--but beneath the ambient murk and glow are fractured melodic patterns and a wide range of shifting densities and colors. Because Kowalsky mixes various components in and out of the pieces with such care, the drones and soundscapes never become static or dull.

Considering how good the album is with only two stereo channels, I'm sure the live experience of the project--with tape machines all over the room--will be extraordinary. Kowalsky shares a bill with Ben Bracken and Brent Gutzeit tonight at Enemy.

Today's playlist:

Beth Carvalho, Andança (Odeon, Brazil)
Albert Mangelsdorff, Solo (MPS)
Ronnie McNeir, Ronnie McNeir (RCA/Dusty Groove)
Stan Getz, At the Shrine (Verve)
Group Inerane, Guitars From Agadez (Sublime Frequencies)