May 24–31, 2001

music picks|rock/pop

Mercury Program

What is it about a vibraphone that soothes the savage beast? The instrument’s cool, sustaining lullaby-like tones, when present in even the jumpingest jazz or most cacophonous rock, takes the edge right off. So add the vibes to the standard post-rock configuration, like Florida’s The Mercury Program, and you’ve got yourself one heady, head-clearing elixir. On their latest release, All the Suits Began to Fall Off (Tiger Style), the quartet concocts the kind of all-instrumental soundscapes you’d expect to hear pulsing out of Chicago, like the so appropriately named "The Secret to Quiet" and "There Are Thousands Sleeping In Peace" (the title and feel of which are more than a little reminiscent of Tortoise’s sophomore album Millions Now Living Will Never Die ). But there’s a bit more terra firma to their sound, a fact which belies, or perhaps plays right into, their NASA-like moniker.

—Brian Howard

Sun., May 27, 9 p.m., with Lefty’s Deceiver, The Trouble With Sweeney and Royal City, at The Khyber, 56 S. Second St., 215-238-5888, $7.