Featured pop shows: Matt and Kim, Oliver Mtukuzidi and the Waterboys

The Brooklyn dance pop duo of Kim Schifino and Matt Johnson have been so cute together since 2006 no one would blame you for thinking their giant grins are pasted on and their sound is getting just a bit darling. But their just-released album, New Glow (even the title is so winning), is an engaging mix of synth pop and a teensy, tiny bit of hip-hop full of zealous optimism, Chic-like chants, and odd air horns ("Hey Now"). They make trap hop ("Stirred Up") and wiggly EDM ("Make a Mess") so bright you'll need a visor to get through them. But think about how long, dark, and cold winter was, how fiscal and racial inequality are numbing the collective consciousness, how tax time is bringing you down. Just stop. Now, how much of a sweet and welcome tonic is Matt and Kim? How nice their smiles look and how engagingly addictive their new album is? Not so miserable anymore, huh?

- A.D. Amorosi

Besides being Bonnie Raitt's favorite African songwriter - she's recorded several of his songs - Zimbabwean singer Oliver "Tuku" Mtukuzdi has a musical resumé a mile long to qualify his rare club appearance at Johnny Brenda's as an event. Since the late 1970s, when he performed with fellow great Thomas Mapfumo in Wagon Wheels, Mtukuzdi has recorded more than 60 albums, applying his gruff, giant-size voice to the percolating rhythm driven by the West African thumb piano known as a mbira. Singing about love and injustice in Shona, Ndebele, and English, he's created his own hybrid form fans have deemed "Tuku music." On Wednesday at JB's, he'll play with his band, the Black Spirits.

- Dan DeLuca

Mike Scott's Waterboys have gone through many permutations since "The Big Music" of the early 1980s and great songs like "In a Pagan Place" (recently covered by Philly's War on Drugs) and "The Whole of the Moon." 1988's

Fisherman's Blues

is their classic, a stirring exploration of traditional Irish music. Since then, the Waterboys have been a fluid band, basically Scott and whomever he drafts into the recording studio. The new

Modern Blues

was recorded in Nashville with mostly American players. It's a rock and soul album that continues Scott's penchant for poetic storytelling and homage to musical heroes - Sun Ra gets name-checked in "Used to Be Hip." The tour, with stops in Glenside and Wilmington, includes

Fisherman's Blues

fiddler Steve Wickham and the legendary Muscle Shoals bassist David Hood, on his first tour with anyone since 1972.

- Steve Klinge