> CONCERT SAMPLER
Live music highlights for the week of April 6-12
Pauli Lovejoy Actor Idris Elba fills the voice-of-God role to usher in the swirling and quite stunning lead track on Londoner Pauli Lovejoy’s debut EP The Idea of Tomorrow. Lovejoy only played his first solo show three weeks ago in support of fellow Brit Sampha, but he’s no greenhorn with drumming and musical director credits with FKA Twigs, Jamie xx and Damon Albarn, and tours with Albarn’s Gorillaz live show. New York’s Back to Life U.K.-themed club night is being mounted in Toronto for the first time and he’s part of it, with DJ Khalil and more along to share the drive. (Thursday, Drake Underground, doors 9 p.m.)
Alex Cuba Over the two decades since his move to B.C. at age 24, Cuban guitarist/ singer-songwriter Alexis Puentes has worked awfully hard while making this genre-melding business all sound so easy. This return visit comes at a time of great momentum for him, with new record Lo Unico Constante just out to follow up the Juno- and Latin Grammy-winning Healer. The new collection’s mélange of classic 1940s Cuban filin, gypsy jazz, flamenco and more may well crowd the trophy case some more. Perhaps the biggest boost, though, is found among the guests and bandmates on stage with Cuba for the unveiling: his father Valentin Puentes, a music teacher and musician back home who has never played with his son on a stage like this one. (Saturday, Koerner Hall, 8 p.m.)
Joel and Bill Plaskett Fathers and sons would seem to be a theme this evening — while the Puentes play midtown, the Plasketts are downtown planting their family flag on the city’s most historic stage. Call it dad folk, as Joel Plaskett, among the biggest names to come out of Halifax’s fertile music scene, joins with Bill Plaskett, longtime east-coast folk musician and Plaskett the younger’s first musical inspiration. After years of talk and occasional work together, the two have finally gone full-blown collaborative, with their new LP Solidarity neatly finding common ground between their two approaches. The union continues here in the middle of a cross-Canada tour, with T.O. roots trio Elliott Brood on the other half of the Live at Massey Hall ticket. (Saturday, Massey Hall, 8 p.m.)
Molly Burch (with headliner Sallie Ford) Out of the hotbed of Austin, Texas, everything old is new again in the hands and voice of L.A. native Burch, whose debut recording Please Be Mine shows off her jazz-schooled, whisper-to-wail range and deft retro feels. Just off a month’s worth of touring with Tim Darcy, she’s still in a supporting role here, but you get the feeling that won’t last much longer. In other words, don’t make the mistake of arriving late for this local introduction, ahead of the more rough-hewn pipes and rocking approach of headliner Sallie Ford, herself returning here off second solo record Soul Sick. (Sunday, Horseshoe, doors 8 p.m.)
Entrance Guy Blakeslee is ever the left-hander: his project has moved from bluesy freak-folk beginnings to the psychjammin’ Entrance Band (with Blakeslee shredding on electric guitar) and now comes in with his own self back in the spotlight, the volume turned down and the focus on crafting melodic songwriter’s songs on his first solo LP in a decade, Book of Changes. A Baltimore native who’s lived in L.A. for more than a decade and spent much time in Chicago and London, he’s alighted on a lush, lyrical corner that shares space with the likes of Townes Van Zandt, Fleetwood Mac and Cass McCombs. In this intimate space, it ought to come off a charm. (Tuesday, Arraymusic, doors 8 p.m.)
Tinariwen (with opener Dengue Fever) Nearly three decades on from their beginnings as guitar-centred, Tuareg desert-blues innovators, Tinariwen is at the point where they’re watching a new generation of Sahara-raised musicians advance their sound and their causes. But they remain a po- tent force whether live or in studio, and on their first big tour in five years, give the set list its most rocking edge on “Sastanàqqàm,” from latest Elwan (“The Elephants”). With L.A.-based opener Dengue Fever’s own brand of cross-cultural reinventing, this is a double bill of rare force — and pick of the week. (Wednesday, Massey Hall, 8 p.m.)