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26
THURSDAY
A no-wave pioneer of the early-’90s Wicker Park music scene, ex–Scissor Girl Azita Youssefi has defied categorization with her eclectic output. The Chicago fixture, by way of Iran and Bethesda, jumped wholeheartedly into her jazzy, piano-driven pop solo work with last year’s Enantiodromia, an effort that some critics complained sounded like—gasp!—Steely Dan. Fuck ’em, Youssefi seems to be saying with her newest release, Life on the Fly, on which everything from jokers to the devil’s party to living-room furniture is worked over with all of the creepy cheekiness of the veteran keyboards-and-bass duo. But backed by Matthew Lux and boyfriend John McEntire (on bass and drums, respectively) Youssefi’s flat vocals and mad chord-changes are entirely her own. And if it all sometimes ventures into the too cerebral, at least you can always trust Youssefi to be out of her own mind. Azita plays with Sam Jayne at 9 p.m. on the Black Cat’s Backstage, 1811 14th St. NW. $8. (202) 667-7960. (Anne Marson)