> CONCERT SAMPLER
Live-music highlights for the week of Oct. 5 to 11. Moses Sumney Among this week’s impressive batch of local bows and release shows it’s tough to bypass Ghanaian-born Los Angeleno Moses Sumney, whose Aromanticism LP is surely among the dreamiest and prettiest of the year. Miscast sometimes as an R&B singer, Sumney fits better among torchy piano balladeers such as Anohni and Benjamin Clementine, possessing a tenor that can climb to an eerie falsetto. He gets sumptuous production and top-shelf backing on the record. Live, with just him at the piano, the existential questions and themes underpinning the record should make for a pretty arresting Toronto introduction and the pick of the week. (Thursday, Mod Club, doors 7:30 p.m. ) Mo Kenney Hailing from Dartmouth, N.S., Kenney has, in five years, made a name for herself with her pointed lyricism, including a SOCAN songwriting prize. Third album The Details, just out, amps up the indie-pop path for her most unified collection yet. Lyrically, she turns the sharp hooks on herself via tales of self-destruction and struggles with depression and, finally, humour and hope. There’s a fair amount of guitar shredding, too, to put some further edge on matters. With her regular three-piece band backing, she’s found the most fitting place for a plugged-in local unveiling. (Thursday, Horseshoe, doors 8:30 p.m. ) REZZ The artist hailing from Niagara Falls was born Isabelle Rezazadeh, but it all changes as REZZ when she puts on her custom psychedelic specs and gets behind her rig as one of the rising stars of EDM. “My vision has become very real, especially with these goggles,” she says. The vision goes heavy and sci-fi, layered with enough down-tempo weirdness to stand her apart from the pack, including mouse-eared mentor and fellow Falls native Deadmau5, himself in Sunday at the Enercare Centre. There’s a graphic element to it all that will play into this return after her 2016 breakthrough. Her debut LP Mass Manipulation includes a 60page comic book that accompanied the video that will play above her for the show, her latest and biggest sellout here. (Saturday, Danforth Music Hall, doors 7 p.m. ) Fara Palmer A pair of contrasting singing voices with First Nations roots take leading parts in Adizokan, a Toronto Symphony Orchestra-commissioned production with music by Toronto composer Eliot Britton, directed by Red Sky Performance founder and director Sandra Laronde. Palmer is a decorat- ed alto stylist who can swing some, most recently on her self-released SongBird record this year. Add Nelson Tagoona’s innovative throat-boxing, a marriage of Inuit throat singing and beatboxing, as well as dance, visuals and the full TSO with Gary Kulesha conducting. The piece gets its premiere for one of the most intriguing Canada 150 shows of the season. (Saturday, Roy Thomson Hall, doors 7:30 p.m. ) Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul Nowadays, Steven van Zandt is known as much for acting as music, though via a weekly radio show and his long-running DOS rock ’n’ soul revue it’s not like he’s turned away from his bread and butter. This lone Canadian stop on a tour in support of this year’s Soulfire record extends the project’s run to almost as long as his 40-plus years as one of Bruce Springsteen’s longest-running bandmates and foils. With Springsteen having just been here to bring the curtain down on the Invictus Games, and Max Weinberg here on Tuesday this week (at the Horseshoe), the E Street Band has been well represented of late. (Monday, Danforth Music Hall, doors 7 p.m. ) Man Forever John Colpitts (a.k.a. Kid Millions) is a drumming adventurist and serial collaborator. The latest recording by his Man Forever project, Play What They Want, includes Laurie Anderson and Yo La Tengo among the recruits. For the live setup here he adds three fellow percussionists, as well as bass and piano for journeys in rhythm and energy that inevitably get quite epic. Not so much pinned to any genre (except perhaps “New York”), they’re worthy opening-night headliners for the Music Gallery’s X Avant festival renewal continuing through Sunday. On this bill, they get help from Toronto’s Germaine Liu, herself an explorer in rhythm using instruments conventional and found — in this case, she goes “water-based.” (Wednesday, 918 Bathurst, doors 7:30 p.m. )