Music Picks: Get down to the post-punk soul of JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound

Johnny Brenda's (1201 N. Frankford Ave.)
8 p.m. Friday. $15.

Noura Mint Seymali is a Mauritanian griot who plays a nine-string harp called the ardine and fronts a full band that features her husband, Jeiche Ould Chighaly, on a traditional West African stringed instrument called a tidinet and on electric guitar. On Seymali's 2014 album, Tzenna, the ululating vocalist's songs cast an incantatory spell as her harp playing and Chighaly's intricate desert-blues guitar intersect and are pushed forward by a muscular rhythm section. Seymali closed out the Crossroads music series last spring at the Calvary Center in West Philadelphia. She returns to town to headline Johnny Brenda's. -- Dan DeLuca

With rotating guests
Ortlieb's Philly (847 N. Third St.)
8 p.m. Wednesdays through February, $10.

You can tell that Justin Pellecchia (vocals, guitar, harmonica), Lucas Rinz (bass, vocals), and Keaton Thandi (drums, percussion, vocals) have a slightly wacky collection of inspirations. The New Hope- and Yardley-born Satellite Hearts cite a prefab bio that checks off some inspirations: The Clash meets unpolished 1980s brat punk times bell-bottom Sixties psychedelics. Indeed, on their two LPs, 2012's Imperial Green and last year's Desire Forces the Flow, you can hear the influence of surf rock and bands like the Legendary Pink Dots and Against Me with a touch of slimy sheen à la the New York Dolls or the Stooges.

Lucky for us, every Wednesday this month, they'll headline after a changing roster of invited guests open for them. Expect Satellite Hearts to work out new material while mixing in great new singles like "Doing Things Right" and Desire's 2:20-minute opener, "Carry Them Bones." You might need earplugs. --Bill Chenevert

With Hamish Anderson
World Cafe Live (3025 Walnut St.)
8 p.m. Wednesday, $14.

Although JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound should finally release a follow-up to 2013's Howl sometime this year, the point of a JC Brooks show is not the new music. It's the force of nature that is Brooks himself. He's an imposing, energetic presence who has absorbed the moves, both vocal and physical, of Otis Redding and James Brown, but without resorting to pastiche. Hailing from Chicago, Brooks & the Uptown Sound are part of the new-soul revival that includes Sharon Jones, Charles Bradley, Leon Bridges, and Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats. Brooks and company's self-styled "post-punk soul" is flexible enough to include Wilco (their signature cover of "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart"), veer into psychedelic guitar solos ("Baltimore Is the New Brooklyn"), or echo the slinky new wave of the Fine Young Cannibals ("Rouse Yourself"). -- Steve Klinge