They had the name before September 11, and they're sticking with it. But I Am the World Trade Center aren't exactly publicity hounds: on their new The Tight Connection (Kindercore), in lieu of a band photo, the twin-tower boy-girl duo hide behind a stack of vinyl albums. The album itself, however, is more than the sum of their record collections: it's a disc of laptop techno by indie brats who get disco's infernal combustion almost completely right. Which is to say they're the first "rock" band in a couple decades who have a song called "Big Star" that sounds less like Alex Chilton than like Abba. See IATWTC on Wednesday at the Skinny (207-871-8983) in Portland and next Thursday, May 23, at T.T. the Bear's Place (617-492-BEAR) in Cambridge.

So are glitchy laptop breakbeats the new distortion pedal? You might get that impression from Self-Titled Long-Playing Debut Album (Teenbeat), by +/- (pronounced "Plus Minus"), a new group featuring Versus's James Baluyut and Patrick Ramos along with Tuscadero's Margaret McCartney. Which is to say that the points in +/-'s songs where the mood shifts from Baluyut's ethereal, jangly dream pop into manic overdrive -- see their fantastic "The Declaration of Independence" -- hinge not on a propulsive rock-guitar riff but on a sudden explosion of crunk-ass sampling and drum-machine sprawl. See what happens when Beatles fanatics get their hands on iMacs when +/- hit the Middle East (617-864-EAST) with Lockgroove on Friday.

Formed in 1991, the Texas duo Charalambides mix elements of psychedelic guitar and folk music with the outer extremes of spontaneous improvisation. For their current tour, the guitar/voice duo of Tom and Christina Carter are joined by Heather Murray; their Cambridge appearance, originally scheduled for the Zeitgeist Gallery, will be at Twisted Village (617-354-6898) on Friday. You can also see them on Saturday at Flywheel (413-527-9800) in Easthampton and on Wednesday at AS220 (401-831-9327) in Providence.

The week before Bob Dylan's 61st birthday, a bunch of folkies -- including Cliff Eberhardt, Mark Erelli, Jim Henry, Deb Talan, and Brooks Williams -- pay tribute to Bobby by performing his Highway 61 Revisited in its entirety at the Iron Horse (413-584-0610) in Northampton on Sunday. Dusty pop dude Pete Yorn teams up with retro-rock perennials Sloan, whose latest disc, Pretty Together, recently got picked up by RCA; they're at Avalon (617-423-NEXT) in Boston on Wednesday, and at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom (603-929-4100) next Thursday, May 23. The ever-righteous Al Green stops in at Foxwoods (800-200-2882) in Mashantucket, Connecticut, on Friday. Hardcore legends the Cro-Mags resurface on Sunday at the Met Café (401-272-5876) in Providence. And WAAF's "Big Field Day" gathers the metal faithful at Brockton Fairgrounds (800-477-6849) on Sunday for Puddle of Mudd, Static-X, Tommy Lee, Gravity Kills, and a bunch more.