With the possible exception of !!!’s Afro-funk block-party anthem "Me and Giuliani Down by the School Yard," there isn’t any better argument for NYC’s post-punk/house craze than the Rapture’s "House of Jealous Lovers," the DFA-produced cowbell-and-handclap epiphany that singlehandedly brought indie-rockers and club kids together under a groove back in ’02. A year after it broke, the song is the lead single from the Rapture’s Strummer/Universal debut, Echoes, and the band are back in orbit with gigs tonight (Thursday, December 4) at the Middle East (617-864-EAST) in Cambridge and Friday at Ultra (401-454-LIVE) in Providence.

In his old job, as the lone human in a cartoon house filled with talking mailboxes and puppy sleuths, Steve Burns was a calming center of gravity in a playful world of pure imagination. And though he’s hung up his green-striped jersey on Blue’s Clues, Burns plays a similar role on his solo debut, Songs for Dust Mites (PIAS America), with his tousled and untroubled tenor grounding an indie-pop song cycle as messy and magical and mysterious as any by his buddies the Flaming Lips, who lent their producer Dave Fridmann to the cause. Burns plays tonight (December 4) at the Iron Horse (413-584-0610) in Northampton, and on Friday at the Middle East he opens for Boston pop luminaries (and fellow Fridmann clients) Wheat. Elsewhere in the land of misfit toys, former Slint bassist Ethan Buckler brings King Kong, his primitivo zombie-disco band for Flintstones-loving kids-at-heart, to the Space (207-828-5600) in Portland tonight and to Zeitgeist Gallery (617-876-6060) in Cambridge on Friday.

Just a few years ago, the vintage-corseted chamber-goth girl group Rasputina were Marilyn Manson’s opening band of choice; earlier this year, they were Belle and Sebastian’s. The versatile ladies headline their own dates at the Middle East next Thursday, December 11, and at the Century Lounge (401-751-2255) in Providence on December 13. Not to be confused with the Belle and Sebastian album of (almost) the same name, the Scottish indie-pop group Arab Strap come in from the Highlands with a full tour behind their Monday at the Hug & Pint (Matador), which places Aidan Moffat’s slurry musings on life, love, and leaving in settings from bitterly folksy to carried-away orchestral to lustily rampaging. They’re at the Middle East on Saturday and at Pearl Street (401-584-7810) in Northampton on Monday. Damien Rice, the Irish singer-songwriter who took home this year’s short-list prize for his skeletal, soulful disc O (Warner Bros.), is at Pearl Street on Tuesday. The Raveonettes — who are either the Danish Cramps or the Danish Jesus and Mary Chain, depending on whether they’re playing two chords or three — are at Club Metronome (802-865-4563) in Burlington, Vermont, on Tuesday, the Century Lounge on Wednesday, and Pearl Street next Thursday, December 11.