Philly music this week, with Khruangbin, Playboi Carti, Folk Bitch Trio, Wednesday, Steve Earle, and the Exit Zero Jazz Festival

This week in Philly music features hip-hop in Playboi Carti in South Philly, the Exit Zero Jazz Fest down the Shore, Folk Bitch Trio at PhilaMoca, Khruangbin and Wednesday at Union Transfer, Steve Earle and Jerry Douglas in Sellersville, and record-release parties for Philly acts Sug Daniels and Wax Jaw.

On Thursday, the action starts with Flock of Dimes, the solo project of Jenn Wassner, the indie songwriter from Baltimore who made eight albums with Wye Oak and has also been a member of Bon Iver. Her folktronic new The Life You Save pairs her well with fingerpicking guitarist Natalie Jane Hill, who will open at Johnny Brenda’s.

Lera Lynn plays 118 North in Wayne on Thursday. Known as a the mysterious lounge singer in HBO’s True Detective: Season 2, the Nashville singer-songwriter is touring behind her ninth album, Comic Book Cowboy.

Philly folk songwriter Sug Daniels celebrates her upbeat and empathetic debut album, I Believe in You, at PhilaMoca on Thursday. The Delaware-born artist tops an all-local bill with Grace Vonderkuhn and Moustapha Noumbissi.

Jerry Douglas is widely regarded as one of the world’s best — and most in-demand — dobro players, having appeared on more than 2,000 recordings with artists including Phish, Ray Charles, Elvis Costello, Garth Brooks, Alison Krauss, and Dolly Parton. His new album, The Set, features an elegant rendition of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

Douglas has played on Steve Earle’s records, too, so it’s too bad that after playing the Sellersville Theater on Thursday, he can’t stick around to sit in with his buddy, who’s playing the Bucks County venue Friday. The Texas troubadour, who recently became a member of the Grand Ole Opry, is almost as good of a talker as he is a songwriter, and he’ll be bringing his Solo and Acoustic: 50 Years of Songs & Stories show to town.

Folkie supergroup I’m With Her — the trio of Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, and Sarah Watkins — play the McCarter Theatre in Princeton on Friday and Appell Center for the Performing Arts in York on Sunday. Irish duo Ye Vagabonds open both shows.

There’s a lewd- and crude-sounding quadruple bill of Philly punk and indie glam bands at Nikki Lopez on South Street on Friday, featuring Rentboy, Nympho, Cry9c, and Sidewalk Pussy. Nympho describes itself as “equal parts bratty and brilliant” and “the sonic equivalent of making out behind a 7-Eleven while the world burns.” To which we can only ask: Not a Wawa?

Philly quintet Wax Jaw celebrate the release of their top-shelf full-length debut It Takes Guts!, which carries on the band’s winning streak from 2024 singles like “Boy’s Life” and “Attitude.” The 11-song set chronicles singer Shane Morgan’s experiences as a trans person with jagged, kinetic, and tightly constructed tunes that connect back to early 1980s New Wave in the best way. The band tops a quadruple bill at the Ukie Club on Saturday with Slomo Sapiens, Friend, and Kelsey Cork & the Swigs, the latter fronted by the multi-instrumentalist who also plays with Low Cut Connie.

Kelsey Waldon, the Kentucky songwriter who John Prine signed to his Oh Boy record label a year before he died in 2012, has a superb new album of clear-eyed and sober country songs called Every Ghost. She’s at 118 North on Saturday with her band the Muleskinners. She Returns From War opens.

Houston trio Khruangbin have carved out their own unique identity as a psychedelic groove band that has put fashionista bassist Laura Lee’s instrument front and center while building a festival headliner-size following. The band has sold out multiple shows at the Met. This month’s intimate club tour marks the 10th anniversary of their 2015 debut album, The Universe Smiles on You. Delco local hero Devon Gilfillian opens the show at Union Transfer on Sunday.

Now Would Be a Good Time, the new album by Australia’s Folk Bitch Trio — singers Jeanie Pilkington, Grace Sinclair, and Heidi Peverelle — is impressive both for the close harmony grace of the group vocals and the songwriting smarts about navigating adulthood. Comparisons to the Roches (high praise) are warranted. The band makes its Philly debut at PhilaMoca on Sunday.

If it’s Monday, it must be Wednesday. Karly Hartzman’s North Carolina country-flavored rock band released one of the best albums of the year in Bleeds. The raw and pungent collection is at least partly inspired by the singer’s breakup with band mate MJ Lenderman, who has turned up on another of the year’s best, the self-titled debut by Snocaps, the indie supergroup featuring formerly Philadelphian sisters Katie and Allison Crutchfield. Wednesday will be joined on Monday by Daffo at Union Transfer.

When last seen in Philadelphia, Atlanta rapper Playboi Carti was opening up for The Weeknd at Lincoln Financial Field this summer and then joining the headliner for an R&B-hip-hop team up on “Rather Lie,” the lead single from the Playboi Carti’s sprawling 2025 album, simply titled Music. On Monday, he brings his “Antagonist” tour to Xfinity Mobile Arena.

The Bad Plus started out as a jazz piano trio and for a short time included Philadelphia pianist Orrin Evans before shape-shifting in 2021 into a quartet featuring guitarist Ben Monder and sax player Chris Speed. Last year, the band released Complex Emotions, its second album in that configuration, and plays two shows at Solar Myth on Monday.

Down the Shore, it’s Exit Zero Jazz Festival weekend. The biannual fest takes place at the Cape May Convention Center and a number of cozier venues around town. Headliners are bassist Stanley Clarke’s 4 Ever on Friday, trumpeter Roy Hargrove’s Crisol on Saturday, and vocalist Cassandra Wilson celebrating the 30th anniversary of her album New Moon Daughter on Sunday.

Other acts of note include New Orleans piano man Jon Cleary and his band the Monster Gentlemen, NOLA-based vocalist Gabrielle Cavassa, Detroit bassist-composer Endea Owens and the Cookout, teenage jazz guitar phenom Marel Hidalgo, and the quintet of 215 upstarts who call themselves New Sound Philly. Info at exitzerojazzfestival.com.

Cool show announcement: On Dec. 4, the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History will host a star-studded tribute to “Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh” song parodist Allan Sherman.

Bringing to life an idea conceived by Philly native music producer Hal Willner, the show will feature Laurie Anderson, Terry Adams of NRBQ, Philadelphia novelist and performer Wesley Stace, Low Cut Connie’s Adam Weiner, Marshall Allen of the Sun Ra Arkestra, Robert Smigel of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog fame, Eric Bazilian of the Hooters, Rodney Anonymous of the Dead Milkmen, and more. Tickets are available at theweitzman.org.