Aloha

Ohio-based quartet Aloha makes experimental music nice and easy. Lilting and melodic, there’s a whimsical aspect to the music that differentiates this band from typical post rock dramatists. Their latest release, Light Works (Polyvinyl), is being hailed by critics as the best yet, taking the minimalist song structures to elegant new heights (and thankfully, some say, losing the vibraphone). Lest this makes Aloha sound too upbeat, rest assured they’re planted firmly in progressive experimentalism, only with a striaghtforwardness and sense of integrity that’s often lacking in modern music’s ongoing quest to brave new terrain. Aloha plays at Soundlab on Sunday (March 30) at 9pm with Chicago band Anathallo who, like Aloha, are considered “Sufjanesque” but are much, much noisier, bringing horns, guitars, drums, piano, bells, chains, velcro strips and pipes to the stage.