Meat Beat Manifesto AT THE CENTER (Thirsty Ear)

For the remaining info-age dissidents who recognize in electronic music an anesthetic nightmare out of Brave New World, Jack Dangers offers a gentle baptism. Raised poor in Swindon (between Oxford and Bristol in England), the brains and brawn behind Meat Beat Manifesto received his musical education through the alien squelch of a short-wave radio. It’s no wonder, then, that his music is glitchy, cross-bred, and adventurous. On At the Center, the innovator of electronica joins jazz players Peter Gordon, Craig Taborn, and Dave King and emerges with an inviting marriage that avoids the obscurantist tendencies of both genres. Dangers nestles flute, clarinet, and keyboards into the intricate mock loops that King patters out like a human drum sampler. But it’s his junk shop full of samples and concepts — hinges squeaking, harps trilling, Lawrence Ferlinghetti reading the want ads, and an exotica-like tribute to the flute — that make this fun for the whole family, even the black sheep who can’t dance.

Meat Beat Manifesto | June 28 | Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, Boston | 617.228.6000.