Also this issue:

Bad Is Good
There’s a reason for the sudden success of The Bad Plus.
-Nate Chinen

Minister of Information
This is Al Jourgensen’s United States of Whatever.
-A.D. Amorosi

suitespot
Peter Burwasser on Classical
-Peter Burwasser

Litmus Test
Clayton the Chemist-Sean O’Neal

Philomel
-Peter Burwasser

My Morning Jacket
-Brian Howard

Cousteau
-Nicole Pensiero

Strawbs
-Nicole Pensiero

May 1- 7, 2003

musicpicks

The Mercury Program

Taking the name of an early NASA project aimed at putting a man in space, The Mercury Program has been intent on forging headlong into that seldom-charted corner of space where prog, jazz and improv sometimes meet in harmony. Working from the over-used blueprints left by Tortoise, Miles Davis and Steve Reich, the Gainesville, Fla., quartet has been making maximum use of minimalism to great effect over the course of three full-length albums. The whole indie-jazz experimental thing is a tough road, though, filled with wankery and leaden tones. Thankfully, The Mercury Program seems self-aware enough to stay on the good side of self-indulgent. A Data Learn the Language, their latest for indie cabal Tiger Style, finds the band working past the theories of their role models and developing a more concrete and versatile vision of their music.

Fri., May 2, 9:30 p.m., $8, with June Panic and Chin Up Chin Up, Doc Watson’s, 216 S. 11th St., 215-922-3247.

—Paul Burress