A couple of months ago – just before Britain’s Nightmares on Wax, led by DJ/producer and Warp Records veteran George Evelyn, announced its first-ever U.S. tour – I revisited 1999’s Carboot Soul (in truth, I found it while rummaging through a box of long-forgotten CDs in my spare bedroom). A decade later, its mix of ambient/downtempo soultronica and playful, Plaid-style IDM seems a little dated, naturally, but at the same time it’s a rather easy, appealing listen, and certainly significant as one of the more valiant efforts to escape trip-hop’s established boundaries post-Portishead’s Dummy before the whole genre dissolved into pure parody. Then I downloaded NoW’s recent Thought So… and realized that sonically, Evelyn hasn’t really progressed much from that point (if I’d purchased a CD copy, it probably would’ve ended up in that box to be forgotten until 2019). But again, Evelyn’s lazy, hazy chillectro is hardly unpleasant on the ears, and hopefully he can crank up the interesting with the full band he’s bringing along on this inaugural American jaunt.

Sat., Feb. 7, 9 p.m., 2009