Halifax, Nova Scotia’s Matt Mays and his mates in El Torpedo are well on their way to Canadian rock stardom. The group’s self-titled CD is one of the year’s biggest selling rock albums in the True North, and the band’s swaggering brand of country-rock has won over even the most derisive critics. The band’s memorable Buffalo debut at one of this past summer’s Thursday At the Square nights found them a local audience enthralled by a wonderfully ragged set that was glorious enough to bring a smile to grizzled ol’ Neil Young’s face. The after-hours show at the Mohawk Place that night proved even better as Matt and members El Torpedo showed up and were coaxed to take the stage for some impromptu covers with friend and headliner Sam Roberts. Matt Mays and El Torpedo return to the scene of that particular crime/triumph on Friday for a headlining show. The group is supported by The Novaks (think Tom Petty playing with Sloan).

Art school rock they call it. We’re talking about bands who make music with that certain unabashed intellectualism, studied use of contrasts, challenging levels of experimentation while often times doing all of this while wearing black clothes. Art school rock has got a strong lineage: The Who, Talking Heads, Sonic Youth, Mogwai, etc. Could the next in line be Buffalo’s Besnyo? The band certainly proves to be art school not only in form and function but also in name, borrowing their moniker from an obscure Hungarian-born photographer. Their music lacks pretension (often the Achilles heel of lesser art rock combos) while managing to be mysterious and thoughtful. Besnyo’s debut, the dark and lush Look Alive (Harvest Sum) offers up moody world of guitar and synth soundscapes that are like paeans to the tempered, rhythmic abstractions of Joy Division and the swirling melodics of My Bloody Valentine. Besnyo celebrate the release of the new album at Buffalo’s art rock HQ, the esteemed “music space” Soundlab with support from Vera and Fourem

Chinese installation and video artist Yang Fudong worked on his film Estranged Paradise for seven years. The end result is an intense psychological drama that follows the life of a man named Zhuzi over the course of a mid-summer rainy season in the beautiful city of Hangzhou. Estranged is an introspective film that focuses on one of the underlying ironies of life: the things that make us happy and comfortable—love, peace, simplicity—can be the source of restless dissatisfaction. Known primarily for photographic irony and his short art films, the 34-year-old Yang is a rising star of Shanghai’s contemporary arts scene. Estranged Paradise is the first in a series of three films that will be shown in conjunction with the exhibition “The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art.” The other two films, In Expectation and Xiao Wu, will be shown on Nov. 18 and Nov. 25 during Gusto at the Gallery Fridays.

Leave it to the singer-songwriter with the clarity of vision and insight to write the tune “Southern California Wants to Be Western New York” to also help out a local charity. Since first emerging on the New England folk scene over a decade ago, Dar Williams has remained a critical favorite and developed into an increasingly polished songwriter. Her latest recording, My Better Self (Razor & Tie), exhibits an artist who is very comfortable in her own creative skin. Offering a clutch of new originals (plus a cover of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” sung with Ani Difranco), My Better Self seems to contain the themes of both self-awareness and community-awareness. In keeping with her new record’s theme of “paying it forward,” Williams’ has created The Echoes Initiative to coincide with her current tour. Designed to help raise understanding and funds for local charities on each stop of the tour, Williams has selected Buffalo-based emergency shelter Compass House (an organization that provides counseling and housing for runaway and homeless youth) as the benefactor of her local performance.

If the mainstream emergence of hip-hop in the late ’80s and early ’90s has any historical counterpart, it’s probably the British Invasion, simply because both periods produced a staggering number of important flashes in the pan. For every Gerry and the Pacemakers or Peter & Gordon, there’s a Black Sheep or Digable Planets. This makes it even more remarkable that De La Soul is still around, making top-notch, relevant hip-hop records—16 years after the group’s watershed debut, 3 Feet High And Rising. This week, the legendary trio of Posdnuos, Dave and Maseo comes to Buffalo in support of its seventh LP, The Grind Date (Sanctuary). This is a rare chance to see a rap group that has evolved over time, spitting rhymes about getting older and how that changes their views on life, love and music. These guys used to just dance and sing about “Me, Myself and I”—now they’re pondering their own existence.