> CONCERT SAMPLER
Live-music highlights for the week of Nov. 9-15. Kelela This D.C. native has been through here before, most recently supporting the xx in May, but this headlining turn amounts to Toronto’s first chance to catch the late bloomer’s full combination of killer voice, future beats and uncompromising stance. A couple of EPs and a guest turn on best pal Solange’s record last year got some buzz to set up thrilling debut LP Take Me Apart, which is just out and getting taken through its paces here. Paying an obvious debt to last week’s visitor Janet Jackson, she’s a big voice primed for stages to match going forward. (Thursday, Velvet Underground, doors 8 p.m.) Barbara Hannigan The acclaimed soprano has never shied away from difficult assignments, whether it’s singing on the world’s biggest stages or conducting an orchestra — on latest recording Crazy Girl Crazy she does both, tackling her favoured 20th-century repertoire while directing Amsterdam’s Ludwig Ensemble. All of that adventuring, even groundbreaking spirit gets a new backdrop with this performance, surprisingly her first at Koerner Hall, where she’ll match her pure voice with the light touch of Dutch pianist Reinbert de Leeuw. Having conquered the arduous, dancing-enpointe title role of Lulu in Alban Berg’s opera in Brussels five years ago, it should be a snap, including more Berg on the program. (Friday, Koerner Hall, 8 p.m.) The Drums and Methyl Ethel Jonny Pierce is last man standing from the New York foursome The Drums, whose mid-Atlantic party pop broke big eight years ago — he’s endured through the slow breakup since, including co-founding songwriting partner Jacob Graham’s departure and the end of his own marriage, and emerged on the recent LP Abysmal Thoughts, the fourth under the Drums’ banner but a de facto solo record. Three new touring bandmates join him, but it’s all Pierce in the spot with his own stories to tell — the whistles of “Let’s Go Surfing” will sound, for sure, but there’s a much harder edge to the songs now and all the better for it. Perth, Australia, trio Methyl Ethel set it up for him and are worth coming early for. (Saturday, Mod Club, doors 6 p.m.) Dream Theater The Berklee-trained core (John Petrucci, John Myung, Mike Portnoy) and Canadian lead singer James LaBrie are back among the fivesome of originals who will build this return visit around an updating replay of Images & Words, their 1992 LP that was LaBrie’s first with the band and plotted a course that remains on track amid the membership’s various side projects. Their proggy concern is still quite a big, even enormous thing live, and in a week where the likes of John Carpenter and the retooled A Perfect Circle come in as crosstown competition in widescreen rock, they’re the venerable masters. (Sunday, Sony Centre, 8 p.m.) Colleen Spain-based French artist Cécile Schott goes in search of beauty and open spaces in a world short on both on latest A Flame My Love, A Frequency, an album originating from the November 2015 day she arrived in her former hometown of Paris, just as it was convulsed by terrorist attacks. Such weighty material can be daunting but she’s a sure-handed and unafraid sort exploring dark themes from various angles poetic and musical, including putting away her favoured viola de gamba and going to an electronic palette of Moog pedals and pocket synthesizers for this latest phase of her career. (Sunday, Array Space, doors 8 p.m.) EMA and the Blow As EMA, Erika M. Anderson has always found fertile ground for her art on the dystopian margins — she goes there quite literally on latest Exile in the Outer Ring. Its suburban landscape of Toyota Camrys, box stores, opiates and steel-toed boots is a hellish place but as someone who came from there (in her case, South Dakota) she does come at it with empathy rather than a pointing finger, and an arsenal of industrial, freak-folk and noise-rock squalls soundtracking the visions. It’s a perspective all her own, and with a couple of band members to help her play it live, and support on the card from fellow travellers both local (Petra Glynt) and visiting (the Blow), this looks like a show with an edge so sharp it could draw blood. (Wednesday, Garrison, doors 8 p.m.)