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AUGUST 29
WHFS is sponsoring tonight’s show, but don’t let that discourage you. The lineup features radio-friendly bands that mainstream programmers have yet to fully embrace or, for that matter, ruin. The Dambuilders are a tautly wired Boston band that sets riff-bliss against various sonic structures to strike a cagey genre balance—stretch the tunes one way and they’re prog-anthems, rein them in and they’re precious pop nuggets. The band’s latest, Against the Stars, finds Joan Wasser frequently setting her violin down in favor of the guitar and, more significantly, the microphone, which reduces the music’s shape-shifting and replaces it with pure density and texture. Swedish duo Cinnamon recalls lounge-era Everything But the Girl and scores of lesser-knowns who’ve sculpted orchestral pop as if they were handling finely cut glass. “And Suddenly Clarity,” from the band’s debut, The Courier, is currently one of pop’s choice moments. Singer Frida Diesen comes close to fulfilling the promise of the song title, and the tune supports my hunch that musicians other than Prince Be actually absorbed Spandau Ballet. Fan Modine and local boys Poole open at 9 p.m. at the Black Cat, 1831 14th St. NW. $7. (202) 667-7960. (Brett Anderson)