Cuddle Magic

The Brooklyn-based chamber pop ensemble weaves a kaleidoscopic tapestry of uncanny soundscapes, unconventional instrumentation, and dense note clusters on their recent self-titled album, Cuddle Magic and Phyllis Chen, a collaboration with the toy piano virtuoso. Chen’s miniature keyboard creates potent textures, and it’s no gimmick–John Cage employed the child’s plaything starting in 1948–and it adds an unfiltered sense of wonder and restless spirit to the beguiling lyrics, some of which come from Edna St. Vincent Millay. Refracted through a fun house mirror, this is what avant-pop sounds like in the mirror stage before the id gets checked by the ego of commercialism.

Sun., Aug. 3, 8 p.m., 2014