Not really fitting into any established genre, ambient experimentalist Cages has spent the last few years developing a totally original form of deconstructed dream pop. The solo project of Nola Ann Ranallo (formerly of Elad Love Affair), with contributions from working partner David Bailey, Cages explores eerily constructed sonic universes that morph between narrative song and avant-garde tone poem. Eschewing traditional instrumentation, Ranallo sings, plays a variety of unusual strummed instruments and manipulates field recordings (of wind chimes, bells, waves, running water) to create brittle soundtracks draped in shadowy romanticism. Most distinctive are Ranallo’s vocals, which deliberately resist functioning as a seamless harmonic element, exhibiting an organic elasticity that goes far over the top. Typical Cages melodies explode from precocious, singsong intimacy into hyper expressive atonality, like the private musings of a teenage girl who has been locked alone in her bedroom for the last five years. Live, the experience is mesmerizing. Cages is performing in support of the new CD Folding Space. Rounding out this eclectic bill are heavy rockers Sonorous Gale and free improv duo Steve Baczkowski and Ravi Padmanabha.

Friday, June 8 at 9pm. Soundlab, 110 Pearl St. (440-5907) www.bigorbitgallery.org/soundlab