By John Schacht, Jordan Lawrence and Bryan Reed

HOPSCOTCH: SEPT. 8-10, RALEIGH

Earth

Hopscotch offers plenty for just about every music fan, but it’s a music geek’s Valhalla, with headlining sets from the Flaming Lips, Superchunk, the Drive-By Truckers and the last-ever Guided By Voices reunion set. The latter, especially, is a no-brainer, but we’re also super revved-up about these gems:

Rhys Chatham’s Guitar Trio  — Rhys Chatham’s Guitar Trio is an avant-garde landmark. It relies on a single chord that builds into an army of guitars to create a wondrously rhythmic drone. Chatham will be assisted by an all-star local cast including Polvo’s Ash Bowie and Horseback’s Jenks Miller, as well as William Tyler and David Daniell. Hearing it reverberate through Fletcher Opera Hall should not be missed. (JL)

Earth — Don’t wander into Earth’s Hopscotch set unless you plan on staying for a while. Started in 1989 by Dylan Carlson, the band paved new ground for heavy music in the 90s, stretching bruising sludge into a vast, engrossing musical expanse. It’s music that you must get lost in to enjoy. But it’s worth taking the time. (JL)

Steve Gunn — New York guitar wizard Steve Gunn performs three times at Hopscotch, which makes missing him difficult. Gunn’s work flows into husky acoustic blues, transcendental raga, blistering drone and territories between. Whether he’s meditating on modal explorations with percussionist John Truscinski, building walls of sound from solo acoustic overtones, or adding his smoky vocal to re-imagine Lou Reed as a Piedmont bluesman, Gunn’s music is always otherworldly and imaginative. (BR)

The Men — Leave Home, the sophomore LP from New York’s The Men, is the most compelling punk album of 2011. The Men are are just as confident steering through murky shoegaze as they are riding intense, metallic swells; as prone to psychedelic goofiness as they are to dead-serious hardcore. That this band is still playing basements is one of the world’s great mysteries; the sound is fit for arenas. (BR)

Swans — For two hours, Swans will fill Fletcher Opera Hall with their far-flung palate of dark, oppressive sound. Their most recent LP, 2010’s My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky, finds them exploring big, blackened rock that ranges from outsized garage outbursts to drawn-out bouts of foreboding electronics. As they boom through the recesses of the city’s best-sounding venue, you’ll be able to explore Swans’ intricacies in all their grandeur. (JL)

William Tyler — During his solo sets, Lambchop’s guitar wunderkind will occasionally break out a bow and have at his guitar’s strings. But it’s no self-indulgent arena-rock stance — the luminous looped textures provide an experimental context for guitar playing as grounded in Americana tradition as Charley Patton or John Fahey. As he’s said, the songs may not have words, but they all have stories. (JS)

The Edward McKay Used Books & More Artist & Author Series — For anyone with even a passing interest in how the sausage gets made, these panel discussions can be true eye (and ear)openers. Thursday, Rhys Chatham, William Tyler and Xui Xui’s Jamie Stuart discuss Honoring and Outstripping Influences; Friday’s topic, Simple Words: The Power of Narrative Songs, features Patterson Hood (Drive-by Truckers), John Vanderslice, and Heather McEntire (Mount Moriah/Bellafea); finally, on Saturday, Flaming Lip Wayne Coyne headlines The Bubble: The Limits of Pop Music talk. (JS)

MOOGFEST: OCT. 28-30, ASHEVILLE

Battles

Strategically scheduled on a weekend that has been a cause for bacchanalia and extravagance since pagan times, Moogfest is a celebration of retro-futurism with displays of color and sound. Bob Moog, the synthesizer pioneer who gives the festival its name, would be proud. You’ll have something to be proud of, too, after witnessing these:

Amon Tobin — Amon Tobin’s lush and complex compositions are compelling on their own; this year’s ISAM is a polyglot collision of musique concrète, glitch-pop and contemporary electronica. But it’s more of a headphones record than a dancefloor banger. So to perform ISAM, Tobin and a team of engineers built a towering structure designed to incorporate real-time projection mapping, generative art, and reactive technologies to add a grand visual component to an already exciting soundscape. (BR)

Atlas Sound — Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox has been seeding his hyperactive blog with “unofficial” ambient pieces from his Atlas Sound solo project, mostly through the Bedroom Databank Series, Vols. 1-4. Also showcased on two strong official releases, Cox’s digitized beats, anodyne tempos and plush oscillating textures are the perfect chill-out cloud to slow your roll in. (JS)

Battles — After losing frontman Tyondai Braxton and the robotic-chipmunk chirping he brought to Battles’ debut, 2007’s Mirrored, the band refined its instrumental vision — mostly for the better. This year’s Gloss Drop is both mechanically dazzling and imminently danceable — club music for a post-human utopia. Of course, Battles’ center has always been one of rock’s most powerful and precise drummers, John Stanier. The former Helmet skinsman continues to astound, delivering beats both mathematical and Motorik. (BR)

Brian Eno’s An Illustrated Talk — Many musicians get linked to the visual through what critics inadequately label “soundscapes,” but that’s been Eno’s home-turf for over four decades. For this event (a supplement to his 77 Million Paintings installation), Eno puts his fecund imagination to work — via an overhead projector — on topics like “generative art, haircuts, music history, screwdrivers, and the vast complexities behind them all.” The iconic Eno is his own Think Tank, and any forward-thinking music-lover should celebrate this festival tie-in. (JS)

Holy Fuck — If you’re going to Moogfest to party, don’t miss Holy Fuck. It’s not that these Canadian electro-rockers are outgoing party-starters. On stage, they concentrate on their instruments fusing very live, very sensual bass lines to spazzy noise that ranges from ethereal hums to shrieking outbursts. The result is kinetic dance music that inundates you with layers of intricate rhythm. Holy Fuck won’t be in the crowd’s face, cajoling them to move. They don’t have to. Their music demands it. (JL)

Suicide — When Suicide released their self-titled debut in 1977, they likely had little idea that it would continue to inspire new artists more than 30 years later. Yet, Martin Rev’s spooky, minimalist backdrops and Alan Vega’s volatile vocals wormed their way into generations of musical innovation, from synth-pop and goth rock, industrial and Krautrock, to post-punk and garage rock. To hear such a pinnacle of proto-punk’s anything-goes salad days in the flesh is a rare treat. (BR)

SHAKORI HILLS GRASSROOTS FESTIVAL: OCT. 6-9, PITTSBORO

Sidi Touré

The semi-annual gathering in Pittsboro, N.C. is a reliable source for rootsy, jammy, and worldly sounds with a solid slate of local bands to support its lineup. But the relatively modest festival still pulls in a few big wins every time. This time, you’d be remiss to miss out on these sets:

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings — Sharon Jones got her start, like a lot of great secular soul singers, in church choirs. She soon immersed herself in the classic R&B of the 60s and 70s, but because people were exceptionally stupid in the 80s, her Stax-flavored music was considered passé. Thankfully, she was rediscovered in the mid-90s and has slowly built the very-well-deserved reputation as heiress to the great soul ladies of the past. She’s backed by the excellent Dap Kings, comparable to some of the seminal era’s tightest and funkiest bands. (JS)

Sidi Touré — At home in Mali, Sidi Touré is a revered and award-winning singer and leader of the regional orchestra, The Songhaï Stars. But his Sahel Folk, released earlier this year by the venerable Chicago label Thrill Jockey, is not an overthought production. In fact, his loping acoustic guitars and warm, unadorned vocal carry the casual air and unhurried pacing of an extemporaneous front-porch performance. His appearance at Shakori Hills is the only Carolinas date on Touré’s first-ever U.S. tour. (BR)

Peter Lamb and the Wolves — Shakori out-of-towners shouldn’t skip this Triangle treat. PLATW are a crack team of local jazz musicians that dig into stylish traditional jazz with such rich texture and vigor you’ll feel as if you’ve somehow stumbled into a side-street jazz bar in the 60s. Instrumental interplay is favored over virtuosic leads. A revolving door of piano, wind and rhythmic leads keeps things interesting as charming vocals organize the cuts into satisfying nuggets. (JL)