Stranger Suggests: Your Agenda This Week, September 28–October 4

MONDAY 9/28

Show Me the Body, Whispers, Lip Critic, Truck Violence

(MUSIC) New York progressive punk trio Show Me the Body has always cut their art like a skater with a pen knife. Their early shows often took place under bridges, in basements, or on a whim if a kid on the internet invited them across state lines to do a flop-house show during a tour off-day. Their recorded material is equally raw collage work. Imagine heavily distorted punk played with banjo/bass/drums, spoken word ruminations surprisingly smoothly interlaced with hardcore tracks; imagine feeling fulfilled by the result. The trio has never compromised their cutting edge, even when introducing electronic elements or swapping in drummers; in fact, pushing the envelope has become a core tenet (see: Corpus I and II, their electro-punk/rap mashup duology). Their latest, Alone Together, contains all of the above and horns, breakbeats, and pigeons. (El Corazon, 7 pm, all ages)  TODD HAMM

TUESDAY 9/29

The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love

(FILM) Director and screenwriter Maria Maggenti’s criminally underrated 1995 film The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love should be required viewing for all sapphics (and everyone else, for that matter). When I first watched it, I wondered where it had been all my life, because it’s the sweet butchfemme teen romance and coming-of-age film of my dreams. If that isn’t gay enough for you, it also stars a young Laurel Holloman, aka Tina from The L Word, and Maggenti dedicated the film to her “first girlfriend … may our relationship finally rest in peace.” Holloman plays Randy, a young, hopelessly romantic masc high school student who works in a gas station and occasionally hooks up with an older married woman. When her popular, smart, wealthy classmate Evie stops by the station in her Range Rover one day, the two tumble into an innocent infatuation. The characters face realistic oppression and relationship struggles, but refreshingly, no one meets a tragic, untimely end, as is all too common with lesbian love stories. (Northwest Film Forum, 7 pm) JULIANNE BELL

WEDNESDAY 9/30

Tricky

(MUSIC) Tricky’s trip-hop classic Maxinquaye (1995) is a kind of ruins of the ’80s pop sound. Fragments of Trevor Horn are here, shards of Grace Jones are over there, and tremors of the Bomb Squad are felt everywhere—indeed, this is the “Aftermath.” One can also read Maxinquaye, which became associated with the Bristol Sound (Portishead, Massive Attack) as a kind of electronic mirror erected not towards the future but to the past, the last world. What we see by feeling this album, and also his masterpiece, Nearly God (1996), is that of the 20th century setting along the landscape of the ’80s. The song “Feed Me,” at the end of Maxinquaye, best expresses this essentially British dusk. Martina Topley-Bird, one of Tricky’s greatest discoveries, sings: “Feed me when I’m hungry drink me till I’m dry / The dream of yesterday becomes another lie / you feed me lies—distortion—the English disaster / no one is free from love for one master.” Tricky’s second album, Pre-Millennium Tension (1996) extended, to the point of utter darkness, the dusk in “Feed Me.” Tricky is a living legend. (Neumos, 7 pm, all ages) CHARLES MUDEDE

THURSDAY 10/1

Kelly Bjork: Lunacy

(VISUAL ART) Kelly Bjork’s work has always been about tenderness and the intimacy of interior spaces, but there’s another narrative threading through it: a personal reckoning. Her first solo show at J. Rinehart, Swimming Naked, marked the arrival of an imagery that was explicit, fleshy, and decidedly queer. In her new exhibition, Lunacy, that joyful, blissful raunch gives way to something darker, as Bjork dances with literal demons and confronts the spiritual, emotional, and physical disruptions of perimenopause. Her work remains rife with impeccable patterns and intimate details sprinkled throughout like Easter eggs, but now those details reveal something grittier, wilder, and more brutally intimate than what’s come before. (J. Rinehart Gallery) AMANDA MANITACH

FRIDAY 10/2

Nick Hakim, Arima Ederra

(MUSIC) Nick Hakim, the bard of the Outer Boroughs, has the voice of an angel, and most often, a vision to match. His songs, never in a rush to sensationalize his talents as a singer or guitarist, hit a sweet spot between Helado Negro, the often name-checked D’Angelo, and Bon Iver, and like those artists, his ear for slightly warped production and progressive song structures is where his soul shines through. Not everyone gets all gushy about the wispy tendrils of song Hakim provides, though—in fact, many a critic has accused him of staying too far in the pocket. “For godsakes, Nick, let your star shine!” they say. I will point you in the direction of a song called “Endlessly Waiting,” and let you decide for yourself. The track, from this summer’s I Can See, presents a haunting, dissonant piano line splashed upon itself, rolling on the ebb and flow of a hi-hat tick as Hakim’s aching lines are swallowed in a cave of reverb. If you also find yourself happily melting into each patiently stretched fiber of the song, I’ll see you there. (Neumos, 8 pm, 21+) TODD HAMM

SATURDAY 10/3

Styled by the Streets: Black Women in Hip-Hop Fashion

(FASHION/ART) When I think of the most important fashion moments in music, I think of Lil Kim’s purple pasty ensemble (and other iconic monochromatic looks), Missy Elliott’s inflatable trash bag suit, Salt-N-Pepa’s matching kufis paired with spandex bodysuits, and TLC’s fishnet tops that spell out their band name. Black female hip-hop artists take fashion risks when others won’t, and continue to innovate when other artists imitate (summed up by the Lil Kim lyric, “I used to wear Moschino, but every bitch got it / Now I rock colorful minks because my pockets stay knotted”). The Museum of Pop Culture’s newest exhibit celebrates this history, showcasing over thirty artifacts—that’s wigs, nails, clothing, and accessories—from across time, with pieces worn by icons like Mary J Blige, Lil Kim, Cardi B, and Doja Cat. (Museum of Pop Culture, 10 am–5 pm) AUDREY VANN

SUNDAY 10/4

2026 Diwa Filipino Film Festival

(FILM) The Filipino experience hardly fits within one set of borders. So it makes sense that the Diwa Filipino Film Festival also reflects this geographic boundlessness. Returning for its 12th edition, the Seattle-born, volunteer-run fest will screen a whopping 42 films telling stories from the Philippines and its global diaspora, spanning Bohol, Hiratsuka, Japan, and even 1940s Brooklyn. Across two packed days at the Wing Luke Museum, themed shorts programs explore migration, colonialism, generational trauma, activism, and that most universal of cinematic subjects: hopeless romance. Plus feature-length presentations bookend the fest, including the comedy No Room for Love, which follows artists weathering poverty and bad luck, and the closing-night film All the Things I Leave You (Patawid), in which two young men uncover a decades-old love story. (Wing Luke Museum, 10 am, 15+) LANGSTON THOMAS

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