New England-based Kris Delmhorst took a literary approach to her new album, Strange Conversation (Signature Records). Picking from a grab bag of poets like e.e. cummings, Lord Byron and Walt Whitman, Delmhorst has set the bards' words to original music, either verbatim or with some dismantling. The result is hardly academic, and surprisingly upbeat and cohesive. Opener Devon Sproule will test-drive songs from her own upcoming CD, Keep Your Silver Shined.

—Nicole Pensiero

If Akira Kurosawa could define the Japanese samurai film by transposing elements from Hollywood Westerns, why can't Tetuzi Akiyama sit in a Tokyo club finger-picking John Fahey-style and singing "Driving down south" as if he got there via Route 66? For Monday's show, the guitarist promises a set of his minimalist boogie, wherein his close-miked guitar becomes all fuzztone and repeated-into-abstraction riffs, as if Steve Reich had fallen in with a Texas house-rockin' crowd.

—Shaun Brady

Not to take anything away from Asya and Chloe, whose keys-and-drums sister act is justifiably adored by their fellow tweens and men of all ages. But anyone who's shocked by Smoosh's emotional depth, brooding melodies and intuitive rhythms has been seriously underestimating little girls.

—M.J. Fine

After 35 years of making music together, The Holmes Brothers—biological sibs Wendell and Sherman Holmes and drummer Popsy Dixon—show no signs of slowing down. With an unmistakable "fire in the belly," as guitarist/singer Wendell puts it, the trio specializes in a distinctive brand of Southern roots music that melds gospel, blues and country and Western. They're fiery and fun onstage, plowing through their own funk-flavored original songs, and covers like Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and Gillian Welch's "Everything Is Free."

—Nicole Pensiero

"Recorded in the rolling prairies of the South Bronx" reads the liner notes to Prairies (Lucky Kitchen), the duo CD by guitarist Mary Halvorson (pictured) and violist Jessica Pavone. And the windswept urban plain, litter rolling across the horizon in place of tumbleweeds, is exactly the aural landscape they conjure. The pair's mutual apprenticeship with Anthony Braxton shows through in their restrained but structurally intricate miniatures, by turns haunting, playful and cerebral.

—Shaun Brady

Mondo Topless is Philly's Rasputin, or its other Rocky, I guess. They cannot, they will not stop. That said, Sam Steinig's keyboard-driven rock band is not what you call prolific; their latest—the aptly titled Take It Slow (Get Hip)—is only their fourth since they started in 1992. The title track is a catchy, classic-rocky jam, and "Stupidity" is a sweet shoutalong barroom brawler. And damn if they're not still writing songs about rebelling against Mom and Dad.

—Patrick Rapa