Arts & Culture

It's hard to imagine a concept behind a triple album as anything other than abstract and inaccessible, but at just over two hours, Joanna Newsom accomplishes just that on Have One On Me. Framed by the trills of her harp and the eloquence of her lyrics, Have One On Me chronicles romance and heartbreak in a way that is tempestuous, whimsical and painfully honest.

Two Door Cinema Club's debut LP, Tourist History, is a neat and tidy collection of their past Kitsuné singles and a handful of new ones. Simple lyrics are tacked onto simple pop melodies, which clasp onto even more simple rhythms and beats. The album mainly consists of unornamented and straightforward compositions, but the sincere and charming lyrics seem to pick up the slack. If Tourist History were milk, it would probably be non-fat - in the sense that extra sugar was added to make up for the lack of nourishing substance. Listening to the entire album is like eating a $1 microwave dinner from Safeway. Sure, it gets the job done, but there are definitely better things out there.

Not much is known about Little Big Adventure, a.k.a. Vladimir Vasilyevich Markovnikov, except that all of his songs are about hate and that he loves his Casio keyboard. Throughout The Hateful Eye, Markovnikov skillfully combines many modern soundscapes and inserts anamorphic transitions from one to the other in an original and unconventional manner. Though the EP consists of only five tracks (and was released May of last year), it nicely captures LBA's eccentric pop sound of past releases and evokes feelings of self-pity, shame and melancholia - very fitting for the transition from winter into spring. The Hateful Eye is worth a revisit or two.

If you haven't heard already, Band of Horses is playing at Freeborn Hall on May 27. Students can purchase pre-sale tickets at the Freeborn Ticket Office for $25.50 with a student ID tomorrow beginning at 10 a.m. That's pretty cool. This is all in addition to the upcoming Passion Pit show, which is still scheduled for April. 14. Tickets for that show are $15 (go figure). Let's see if they pull a Crepeville-and-run like Bloc Party did last year.

The UC Davis Art of Regional Change's upcoming exhibit is giving youth a chance to express themselves and influence change in their surroundings. Art of Regional Change is a new, joint initiative between UC Davis Humanities Institute and the Center of Regional Change. It uniquely brings together a range of scholars with students to work with community organizations on media arts projects. Art of Regional Change teamed up with the West Sacramento Youth Resource Coalition (WSYRC) to create Youth Voices for Change - a social media project where about 15 urban teens collaborated with UC Davis scholars and artists to document and present the change youth hope for in their neighborhoods.

Artist and former UC Davis art professor William T. Wiley has been honored by the Smithsonian Institution with a collection of his former works. The exhibit, entitled "What's It All Mean: William T. Wiley in Retrospect," will feature approximately 85 of his works from the late 1960s to the present, borrowed from public and private collections as well as from the artist. The exhibit will provide a serious overview of Wiley's career while exploring important themes and ideas expressed in his work. On Mar. 20 at 10 a.m., NELSON ARTfriends members and students will have a unique opportunity to have a guided tour of the exhibit by Renny Pritikin, director of the Richard L. Nelson Gallery and Fine Art Collection. Student tickets are $20, and there is a limit of five students for this tour.

THIS WEEK IN DAVIS:Screening of OldboyToday at 8 p.m., freeChem 194Elephant Micah; Oh FootFriday, 7 p.m., free1430 Alice St.American SplendorMonday, 6 p.m., $5Mondavi Center,...

For over 20 years, the members of Caroliner have dedicated themselves to uniting the dissonance of static and noise with the allure of day-glow, tribal-influenced art. Caroliner is by no means new to the experimental-noise scene. Since their formation in 1982, they've released roughly 15 full-length albums and a dozen or so seven-inch singles. They are occasionally namedropped by music critic bigwigs - namely Alex Ross, the Pulitzer-prize winning music critic in residence at The New Yorker, but for the most part, Caroliner remains virtually ignored by mainstream America.

The day that Street to Nowhere broke up was devastating for many in the Bay Area local music scene. Luckily, front man Dave Smallen has emerged as a brilliant solo artist with a debut that feels like a soundtrack of his life.

Following their 2007 release of Migration, Sambassadeur swiftly and carefully developed the skill to adopt sounds from US and UK pop and polish them into their own catchy arrangement. In fact, the Gothenburg-based pop quartet's third studio album, European, seems to be an auricular summarization of all things pleasant in life.

The well-established Oakland-based indie rock band tries entirely too hard on newly released Permalight. The ill-fated record proves how easy it is to lose yourself in the need to find a perfect hook.

What do Avril Lavigne, Owl City, Franz Ferdinand and 13 other artists have in common? Not much, but according to director Tim Burton they all complement his newest movie, Alice in Wonderland. In this hodgepodge compilation, 3OH!3's "Follow Me Down" appears alongside Kerli's "Tea Party," Plain White T's "Welcome to Mystery" and other fittingly-titled tracks. Clever, right?

Monday marked the 200th birthday of Frédéric Chopin, Poland's renowned Romantic composer. Happy birthday, old man.

Granada Artist-in-Residence Katya Kamotskaia, with Mark Stevenson, will direct Anton Chekhov's famous Russian play, The Seagull, opening Mar. 10 through Mar. 14. Performances begin at 8 p.m., except for Sunday's, which begins at 2 p.m.

The San Francisco Jazz Collective will perform at the Mondavi Center today at 8 p.m. Tickets start at $12.50 for students.