Rasputina

Monday, March 23

The brainchild of Kansas-born, Brooklyn-residing singer-cellist Melora Creager, Rasputina is like one of Edward Gorey’s wet dreams come to life: a captivating combination of chamber music, doomy goth-metal textures, corsets lifted from a Victorian boudoir and loads of twisted black humor. An in-demand session cellist who’s worked with the likes of Nirvana, Bob Mould, Belle & Sebastian, Marilyn Manson and the Goo Goo Dolls, Creager founded Rasputina as an all-female, all-cello group in 1992. Since then, the band has evolved to include percussion and male members. More than a dozen people have come and gone over the years; longtime drummer Jonathan TeBeest left at the end of 2008. As Creager once told me, “Often people think it’s such a great project that it’s about to get big, and they’re gonna be there when it gets big, but it just doesn’t go like that, and then they get disillusioned.” Still, as long as Creager wants to keep Rasputina going, the shows should remain visually arresting and musically captivating.

Mon., March 23, 8 p.m., 2009