Concert Previews

Though Canada's Broken Social Scene is the name atop the marquee, this is truly a co-headlining bill when you consider that The Sea and Cake singer Sam Prekop contributed vocals and guitar to the new Scene album (

Forgiveness Rock Record

), which happened to be produced by TS&C drummer John McEntire. Plus the two bands are working on a seven-inch EP, on which they will split the tracks. Incestuous, no? The chamber-popping Broken Social Scene collective would have it no other way, what with its solo successes Leslie Feist, Emily Haines (Metric) and Kevin Drew playing on one another's multitude of recordings yet forming a perfectly orchestrated union when joining forces, as they have on their most recent, cleverest album. Think of BSS as a more ramshackle Arcade Fire and you get the pretty picture.

Then there's Chicago's The Sea and Cake, itself bound together by snazzy solo sensations Prekop (whose edgy yet pastoral new CD, Old Punch Card, is his brusque, jazzy best), Archer Prewitt, and heroically innovative instrumentalists such as McEntire (also a member of Tortoise, who just played its own Philly show Sept. 8). TS&C has its own recent record to hawk (Car Alarm), and it, too, has a chamber-pop feel but is more urgent, more nervous, and greasier than anything in the band's more preciously arranged past. So, we've got two bands playing beyond their aspirations and audiences' expectations. Nice.

- A.D. Amorosi

Corinne Bailey Rae has a light touch even when dealing with heavy subjects.

The Sea

, the British soul singer's winning album from early this year, is a love letter to her husband, Jason Rae, who died of an accidental overdose in 2008. While only "Paris Nights / New York Mornings" approaches the breeziness of her 2006 hit "Put Your Records On," ruminative ballads like "I Would Like to Call It Beauty" dig deeper, but they're tender, not maudlin. The funky "The Blackest Lily" describes conflicted desires but also celebrates the Black Lily shows that were the heart of Philly's neo-soul scene. Opening for Rae at the Electric Factory Saturday will be Harper Blynn, the jaunty, harmony-rich quartet from Brooklyn that features two Philly transplants, J. Blynn and Sarab Singh.

- Steve Klinge

Pianist Vijay Iyer, whose trio recording

Historicity

was, according to many listeners and critics, the best jazz album of last year, collaborated with filmmaker Bill Morrison on an art installation running this year at Eastern State Penitentiary. (

Release

, a film by Morrison, uses newfound footage from 1930 of a crowd outside the prison awaiting Al Capone's release.) Iyer comes to the Penitentiary Saturday night as part of the Live Arts / Fringe Festival to play a show in commemoration of

Solo

, his first solo album. On it, Iyer mixes covers of Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Steve Coleman and Michael Jackson (!), with originals that pay tribute to Sun Ra and Andrew Hill. Iyer is a deeply inventive player: intellectual, percussive, angular, equally prone to lyricism ("Black and Tan Fantasy"), dissonance ("Autoscopy") and humor (

Historicity

's cover of M.I.A.'s "Galang").

- Steve Klinge