Intro | Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday

11 AM Claudia Cassidy Theater

Prasanna’s Electric Ganesha Land Ensemble See Tuesday 9/23.

Vasen This Swedish acoustic ensemble’s latest album, Linnaeus (Northside), is a tribute to their countryman Carl Linnaeus, the 18th-century botanist who went down in history as the father of modern taxonomy. Sometimes a string trio, sometimes a quartet with percussionist Andre Ferrari, Vasen focuses on the heavenly, haunting sound of the nyckelharpa, an intimidating-looking keyed violin of medieval origin that sounds something like a fiddle, something like a hurdy-gurdy, and a fair bit like an avenging wind whipping through a field of frozen fir trees. Viola and guitar provide gentle counterpoint, and the three lead instruments interact with intricate grace. —MK

12:30 PM Claudia Cassidy Theater 

Edmar Castaneda Quartet See Tuesday 9/23.

Etugen Certain elements of this Mongolian folk group’s sound will be familiar to fans of their Tuvan neighbors Huun-Huur-Tu and the documentary film Genghis Blues—the growling buzz of throat singing, the dry, aching timbre of the horse-head fiddle—but others, like the piercing voice of female lead Bayarmaa Nergui, will be new to many ears. Etugen play their beautifully eerie music very straightforwardly, whether singing hymns to particular sacred mountains or praising their people’s conquering past (“Chinggis Khaan-Manduul Khaany Magtaal”). Mongolia’s culture is still very equestrian, though, and occasionally they throw in more playful touches like imitations of horses and camels—which probably went over especially well when the band visited a festival of cowboy music and poetry in Nevada four years ago. —MK

7 PM Jazz Showcase $15, 21+

Edmar Castaneda Quartet See Tuesday 9/23.

7:30 PM Museum of Contemporary Art $15

Dhafer Youssef Tunisia’s Dhafer Youssef has spent his career dislocating the oud: working primarily with jazz musicians from Europe and Asia, he places its dry twang and distinctively Arabic cadences in improvisation-rich contexts, creating a richly atmospheric fabric of sound that defies easy categorization. The studio gloss sometimes gets a bit thick, which makes the music feel antiseptic and a little sleepy, but his piercing, otherworldly falsetto vocals always cut through. On his 2006 album Divine Shadows (Jazzland) Youssef collaborated with some of Norway’s most idiosyncratic musical personalities, including trumpeter Arve Henriksen of Supersilent and electronics programmer Jan Bang, and here his band includes Nguyen Le on guitar, Christian Ulbrich on electronics, and Satoshi Takeishi on drums. —PM

Prasanna’s Electric Ganesha Land Ensemble See Tuesday 9/23.

8 PM Conaway Center

[Dunkelbunt] See Tuesday 9/23.

DJ Gitana Angela See Tuesday 9/23.

8 PM Martyrs’ $12, 21+

Mor Karbasi She’s not yet as well-known as Yasmin Levy, a fellow Ladino folksinger from Israel, but London-based Mor Karbasi might change that with her debut album, The Beauty and the Sea (Mintaka Music). “Ladino” is the common name for the Judeo-Spanish language that spread throughout the Mediterranean and the Middle East when the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, and like the language, Ladino music has Jewish, Spanish, and Arabic features. With delicate phrasing and an elegant, powerful voice, Karbasi sings a mix of traditional songs and originals, and the beautiful arrangements—all by her guitarist, Joe Taylor—alternate between airy and intense, laced with bits of flamenco, Andalusian rhythms, and even Celtic music. A few tunes are burdened with a string section that’s a few degrees too precious, but that’s my only complaint—and with any luck she won’t even have a string section here. —PM

Etugen See above.

8:30 PM Old Town School of Folk Music $5 suggested donation

Son de Madera This quartet from Veracruz, Mexico, got a bit of free publicity a few years ago when Zach de la Rocha joined them for a jam at an LA museum, but their usual modus operandi doesn’t have a whiff of rock fusion about it. They play a style native to their region called son jarocho, a body of song dating back to the 18th century that has absorbed all the strains of Mexico’s colonial heritage—indigenous, African, Spanish—and that speaks vividly and often irreverently of subjects like romance, nature, sailing, ranching, and religion. The sound is dominated by the jarana, a smaller relative of the Spanish guitar that comes in various sizes, and the improvisatory twining of plangent voices. —MK

Zazhil For more than 25 years this group from Mexico City has been experimenting with cross-cultural fusions rooted in traditional Mexican son. Zazhil have a sure grasp of the melodic and rhythmic foundations of son, and on their latest album, Sones de Luna Nueva (Fonarte), they’re thrilling when they stick to those basics, buoying their wild, lusty singing with barrages of high-velocity harp and acoustic-guitar figures. But when they indulge in lofty jazz excursions, stale quasi-classical passages, and leaden hard-rock flourishes, the music gets hopelessly bogged down. —PM

9 PM Schubas $12, 21+

Vasen See above.

Jayme Stone & Mansa Sissoko See Tuesday 9/23.

Send a letter to the editor.

From the Reader blogs