Secretly famous veteran of D+ and Phil Elverum collaborator and Kelp Lunacy music subscription creator and subterranean legend of Anacortes Karl Blau comes to Seattle tonight to play the Vera Project opening for Mt. Eerie (also on the bill is Your Heart Breaks and Madeline Adams).

Blau records and tours with Laura Veirs, but also creates fucked uo folk rock masterpieces like his current full-length Nature's Got Away (sic) on the always awesome and amazing K label. He can create several layers of wonderful vocal melodies for a song like "Before Telling Dragons" (third track into Nature's) and then splash cheap keyboard all over it like pink neon paint on a Rembrandt print. "What is this fiery furnace?" he sings on "Nothing In The Way" like a backwoods Pac NW Arthur Lee. Actually, a basement recording Love would be a really good comparison for the uninitiated. Blau has the vocal charisma and slack confidence to pull this beautiful mess off.

How Blau will put over this charming madness off LIVE and IN PERSON remains to be seen, but I have the feeling the attempt will make the Vera tonight the place to be. (After checking out the FREE early KEXP-sponsored Jesse Sykes concert across the Seattle Center at the Mural Amphitheatre of course!).