Two of Bob Marley’s sons join forces, with no dearth of material to draw from. Touring behind Awake, his album from earlier this year, the London-raised Julian sticks close to the rootsy, spiritual side of reggae. Stephen, whose most recent was 2007’s Mind Control, is more comfortable behind the scenes as a producer for his brothers’ various projects, but here his presence adds considerable heft to the Marley name. – Jay Trachtenberg
Antarctica is not the first place you think of when you hear DJ Spooky, the stage name of turntable wiz Paul Miller, but anything is fair game for this postmodern scientist of sound. “Music is nothing but patterns,” he states via e-mail. “So is ice. They’re both rhythms, that’s how it fits.”
His new multimedia presentation, Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica, comes alive Friday in the University of Texas’ Hogg Memorial Auditorium. “I went to Antarctica in 2007-2008, for four weeks, to do a series of acoustic portraits of ice,” he explains. “I wanted to get away from the global city and see what would happen to my creative process. I wrote a symphony while I was there and got a chance to really think about what it means to be at the edge of the human condition. It really changed my music, my art, and my ideas about what it means to live and breathe on planet Earth.”
The project includes the input of the Golden Hornet Project, “one of those hidden Austin treasures,” he enthuses. Having worked with the Graham Reynolds-helmed collective on Richard Linklater’s 2006 film A Scanner Darkly, he compliments the GHP as “an ensemble that connects the dots between art, music, and film. They can handle any style.”
The GHP is also all over Spooky’s ambitious new Thirsty Ear album, The Secret Song. Asked to explain an earlier description of the album as “history through the lens of the sample,” he wastes no time: “I can hear the sound of the flows of financial capital, of derivatives and dark markets in it. Everything is connected. That’s the lesson we’ve learned from the influenza virus of 1917-18, the Depression, or the way the slave trade affected the 16th-20th centuries. Economics is the hidden thread holding everything together. We’re always told how rich and progressive we are but it just seems like people have moved into a really bizarre world of fictions holding together modern post-industrial life. It could fall apart at any moment.” – Jay Trachtenberg
He’s only visiting for the weekend, but Guy Clark could play Austin every night, and it would never get old. The singer-songwriter’s latest, Somedays the Song Writes You (Dualtone), maintains a masterful touch, shedding light on the human condition with a crooked smile and glint in the eye. Get there early to experience the down-home wit and beauty of Nashville songstress Elizabeth Cook. – Jim Caligiuri
A two-night gathering of bands from Texas, Mexico, and beyond, Dias de Destruccion is sort of like a U.N. summit of Latino punk. Friday, San Antonio’s Piñata Protest throws accordion into the pit along with Mexico’s no-wavers XYX and pop-punkers Porkeria, plus studded riffs from Chicago’s Ultratumbados, L.A.’s Poliskitzo, and locals the Young. Saturday, Eighties-bred headliners the Brat return from east L.A., supported by Mexico’s noise excavators Ratas del Vaticano, locals Deskonocidos, and more. – Audra Schroeder
= roadshow 
= all ages venue 
= listen to music
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