Experimental folk musician Marian McLaughlin has a trance-like effect on her audiences thanks to her stream-of-consciousness delivery that is at once delicate and multilayered. Her exploratory approach to music is inspired by French social revolutionary Guy Debord’s concept of dérive (also the name of her first release), where an individual sets out on a spontaneous journey subconsciously guided and influenced by her surroundings. With her second album, Spirit House (2015), the pursuit of alternate narratives is evident in cuts such as the seven-plus-minute song “Calm Canary of the Arctic Sea.” “I had read something about a beluga whale who imitated human speech in high-pitched chatter like a canary, and I wanted to write about that,” McLaughlin told the Washington Post.
Saturday 1/9. $7, 8pm. Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar, 414 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. 293-9947.