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Dan DeLuca's Mix Picks: Nick Thorburn as Islands, Sahba Motallebi, Terry Allen rereleases, Elizabeth Cook, and Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Islands. Canadian indie rocker Nick Thorburn is so prolific it's hard to keep up. He came to prominence in the mid-00's with Unicorns and has too many side projects to count. As Islands, he's put out two albums this year, Taste and Should I Remain Here, at Sea?, and has reached his largest audience by composing music for the NPR podcast Serial. Sunday at Arden Gild Hall.

Islands at Arden Gild Hall on Sunday.
Islands at Arden Gild Hall on Sunday.Read moreMELISSA TROTT

Islands. Canadian indie rocker Nick Thorburn is so prolific it's hard to keep up. He came to prominence in the mid-00's with Unicorns and has too many side projects to count. As Islands, he's put out two albums this year, Taste and Should I Remain Here, at Sea?, and has reached his largest audience by composing music for the NPR podcast Serial. Sunday at Arden Gild Hall.

Sahba Motallebi. Los Angeles-based, Iranian-born virtuoso makes melancholy, transfixing sounds on the tar, the lutelike, hourglass-shaped Middle Eastern string instrument thought to be the ancestor of the guitar. Part of the impressive Crossroads Music series in West Philadelphia. Sunday at the Calvary Center.

Terry Allen, "Juarez" and "Lubbock (On Everything)." Allen is the piano-pounding, sly songwriter and visual artist closely associated with fellow Lone Star troubadours Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Butch Hancock. He has also collaborated with David Byrne. These reissues capture his rambunctious, sardonic genius, particularly on the 1979 double album named after his west Texas hometown. Out now on Paradise of Bachelors.

Elizabeth Cook. Native Floridian country singer and Sirius/XM Outlaw Country radio host with a glorious twang in her voice chronicles personal travails on the terrific new Exodus of Venus. With Paul Thorn Thursday at the LeVoy Theatre in Millville.

"Black America Since MLK" with Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. Harvard professor and PBS host Gates speaks in advance of his new, four-hour series, Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise, which airs on WHYY-TV12 in November. He'll be interviewed by Lehigh prof James Peterson, with an emphasis on music's role in King's legacy. Friday at the Penn Museum.