Buzzbox

There a few groups — Radiohead and The Flaming Lips immediately come to mind — whose work demands headphone-assisted listening for full absorption of its intricacies. The Lips have even gone so far as to supply headphones at their live shows, which capture a radio broadcast of the music as it plays. Though this experiment has gotten rave reviews, no other groups have duplicated it, because of either expense constraints or fear of being considered derivative. Saturday’s show at The Hurricane, which offers three sonically adventurous acts, would be an ideal setting for a Lips-style spectacle, but instead fans will just have to listen carefully to detect the subtle variations in the droning ebb-and-flows all of the groups employ.

90 Day Men (pictured) explore jazzy dissonance on their debut disc, {it [is] it} critical band, which contains music that’s even more maddeningly complex than its title. After piecing together these compositions in the studio, the quartet revels in tearing them apart and reconstructing them on the road, delivering shows that are heavy on both energy and improvisation. The Appleseed Cast is set to unveil the first installment of its sprawling double-album project, Low Level Owl. The first volume (the discs are being released separately) guides listeners through a dizzying maze of echoes, inverted tape and loops decorated with xylophone, sleigh bell and organ accents. Starting with lush symphonic backdrops that recall the preludes The Cure uses to introduce its longer pieces, The Appleseed Cast stacks on layer after layer, inducing trances before breaking the spell with a drum roll or the sudden appearance of vocals. To Conquer?, Kansas City’s heavy-prog supergroup, hasn’t yet documented its hypnotic creations on record, which keeps faithful fans returning to each of its frequent area performances to get their fix.