Live without dead time this weekend with Ava Luna, Peter and the Wolf, Laura Stevenson, Homewreckers, Christy Road, Cheap Time, Single Unit, Child Abuse, Extra Life, Silver Apples, Dinowalrus, Zs, Jeremiah Cymerman, Till by Turning, Effi Briest.

Sans Temps Morts is Nate Dorr’s daily New York City events guide.

Saturday, 22 November

Recommended::

Sleep When Dead: Benefit for Amercican Civil Liberties Union

Peter And The Wolf, Ava Luna, Draw Into Disorder, Laura Stevenson at the Silent Barn, 915 Wycoff btwn Hancock and Weirfield, L to Halsey, Ridgewood. All Ages. 7pm doors, $tba.

After almost a year of writing about Ava Luna off and on here, I finally had opportunity to see them live. What they're doing now is a little different then on their debut, focusing in on the tension between a charged post-punk drum-and-synth-bass rhythm section (Alex Smith and Nathan Tompkins respectively) and the combined vocal talents of manic frontman Carlos Hernandez and a trio of startlingly gospel-voiced backup singers. The combination is fresh and invigorating and, live, posesses a magnetic appeal. Live shows can be a bit of an acid test for bands that excel in the studio, but, tightened and focused from the older studio material, the current band actually seems even better now. Ava Luna seems poised to catch on dramatically this year so seize the chance to see them now. With languid folk-pop from Peter and the Wolf and Laura Stevenson. And it's for a great cause.

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E4E1: Christy Road book release party

Cheeky, Love or Perish, Homewreckers, Each Other's Mothers, The Measure (SA), at Death By Audio, 49 South 2nd St btwn Kent and Wythe, Williamsburg. All Ages. 8pm doors, $tba.

Brooklyn illustrator Christy Road has a keen eye for detail and knack for turning precise, clean lines to a uniquely alive punk rock grit and glamour. To launch her new book, Bad Habits, she and E4E1 have pulled together some of her favorite punk bands, as well has her own new project Homewreckers.

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Garage and punk (in maybe the last show at Asterisk):

, the Black Clouds, the Konks, Golden Error at Asterisk Art Project, 258 Johnson Ave btwn Bushwick Ave and White St. All Ages. 10pm, $tba.

Keep missing Cheap Time? One more chance, this one with the ever-excellent Golden Error opening with what will surely be a tightly coiled set balancing just enough bristling latent fury and rapid, jangled hooks.

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+ Hammock and Taylor Deupree at Monkeytown, 58 North 3rd Street btwn Kent and Wythe. 7pm and 10:30pm, $7 + $10 food minimun.
+ Halleluwah Festival of Enthused Arts with Flower Travellin' Band, Grails, Dinowalrus, and Silver Apples. At the Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard Street btwn Broadway and Church, Tribeca. 7pm doors, $25.

Sunday, 23 November ::

For some reason, it's just arbitrarily one of those Sundays when there's a pretty unusual amount of good stuff going on.

Recommended::

Avant rock/punk at Glasslands

Extra Life, Zs, Child Abuse, Single Unit, at 289 Kent Ave btwn S. 1st and S. 2nd, Williamsburg. 9pm doors, $tba.

Norway's Single Unit, with blazing guitar and drum lines somehow navigating precarious fields of electronic shrapnel to reach moments of odd beauty, is basically what I was really hoping this year's Genghis Tron album would be like. Or what I'd wished last year's 65daysofstatic album would be like. Or a suitable balm for the combined disappointment of the both of them. And that's just the start of a line-up with three more bands, any of which would independently be worth the trip. You've seen me write about all of them endlessly, by now, I'm sure, but Child Abuse merges jazz, metal, and heavy noisepunk into a controlled storm worthy of the name, while Zs, now a guitar-drums-sax trio, play what amounts to a dissonant, spastic take on classical minimalism, with a brutal precision and focus. And Extra Life takes Zs' compositional intensity (it is the current project of ex-Zs guitarist Charlie Looker, plus members of Yukon, STATS, and Little Women) and applies to semi-traditional songwriting: harrowing accounts of Prisoner's Dilemmas and avoided lives, albeit intoned in Medieval-channeled melisma and chant. The combination is unique and vital. I'm just going to seize the opportunity to link a good recent interview from Gothamist, while we're here. Anyway, this is probably my favorite line-up of the entire week, so don't let it pass you by, even despite its Sunday night slot.

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FREE: Quiet Noise

Till by Turning, Jeremiah Cymerman & Matthew Welch at Soundfix Records, 110 Bedford Ave at N. 11th St. 7pm.

Quiet Noise is a monthly experimental music series, presumably devoted to avant tendencies that won't cause your ears to bleed (very much). In this, the series' 4th program, we get Till by Turning, a quintet (including Christy and Emily's Emily Manzo, who has two shows this evening) devoted to performing new chamber music by current composer. In the past, these have included Sofia Gubaidulina, Aaron Siegel, and Sabrina Schroeder, and more recently the ensemble recorded their first album, Quotidian, a suite of pieces written for them by violist Jessica Pavone. And we get Jeremiah Cymerman, who seems able to make a clarinet sound like just about anything he'd like, especially if it is sputtersplurting alien percussion. Here, he'll be joined by Matthew Welch, best known for his bagpipe work in his group Blarvuster. These two people sharing a stage seems like a good time for something strange and excellent to happen.

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FREE: Pop at Zebulon

Katie Eastburn, Christy & Emily, I'm In You at 258 Wythe Ave btwn Metropolitan and N. 3rd, Williamsburg. 9pm.

Katie Eastburn is from Young People and plays sparse, eloquent piano pop. Christy and Emily are from various places and attempt fuse their independent folk and classical inclinations. While both are a little different from normal Zebulon fare, both should also make for pleasant listening.

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FREE: Effi Briest and Mirror Mirror at 41 Wooster (btwn Broome and Grand), Soho. 7pm.

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+Halleluwah Festival of Enthused Arts day 2 with Flower Travellin' Band, Gods & Monsters, Hard Bop, White Rainbow, Apse, Nancy Garcia, Silver Summit, Martin Bisi, The Low Suns, Max Ochs, and more!. At the Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard Street btwn Broadway and Church, Tribeca. 7pm doors, $25.