Only the most devoted Will Oldham fans know he released a new album this year. Its called Wonder Show of the World and is credited to Bonnie and The Cairo Gang. Its a record full of calm energy, with songs that weave and waltz as elegantly as 2006s string-laden The Letting Go, but delivered with that newfound confidence and intimacy he displayed on his 2007 masterpiece Lie Down In the Light (also sorely overlooked). Here, Oldhams voice is soft and full, Emmett Kellys guitar wrapping around it like a coastal fog, with the production being the most intimate and spare of any Bonnie record. It stands apart for its grace in a discography known for shambolic folk, cracked vocals, and arrangements that teeter on the brink of collapse. BRIAN J. BARR
Mon., Aug. 9, 8 p.m., 2010
