Shows of the Week: Visible Cloaks’ Strange, Burbling Style Creates an Alien Environment

What to see and what to hear.

Visible Cloaks (Courtesy of Visible Cloaks)

THURSDAY, OCT. 27:

After their Fairlights, Mallets and Bamboo compilation helped bring the wonders of ‘80s Japanese ambient music to the Stateside indieverse, Portlanders Spencer Doran and Ryan Carlile decided to further explore that style with their Visible Cloaks project. This is strange, burbling stuff that creates an alien-seeming environment rather than simply evoking its predecessors—or worse, the jumble of aesthetic signifiers to which “Japan” is often reduced. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 503-239-7639, holocene.org. 8 pm. $12. 21+.

FRIDAY, OCT. 28:

The Oakland, Calif., experimental music scene tends toward the witchy and gothic—and as that scene’s breakout star, Spellling has taken the logical next step by embracing her inner Stevie Nicks. The artist born Tia Cabral loves to float around onstage with ribbon-festooned tambourines and sing of dancing aliens. And though her music is moody enough to tickle The Needle Drop’s Anthony Fantano’s typically dour tastes (he blessed last year’s The Turning Wheel with a rare 10), the strongest impression from her songs is that she’s having a blast being alive. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave., 503-284-4700, startheaterportland.com. 9 pm. $20. 21+.

SUNDAY, OCT. 29:

The music Ash Gutierrez makes as glaive is beamed in from a universe where Playboi Carti is an elder hip-hop statesman, where Panic! At the Disco is classic rock, and where formative high school experiences happen over Zoom—the world of a 17-year-old in 2022, which is exactly what he is. Yet he’s got an interesting, conservative quirk: He dresses like he just stepped off the Motown charm-school assembly line. If he brings back artists actually getting dressed up before they go onstage, he can retire knowing he accomplished something good in this world. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 503-284-8686, wonderballroom.com. 8 pm. $25. All ages.

Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office. Support WW's journalism today.