EMA, aka Erika Anderson of defunct psych-folk outfit Gowns, is all about contradictions. She's lo-fi and blown-out, folk-minded but tentatively danceable, ethereal and explosively percussive. The reductive way to describe her music would be to say that it's experimental, but, well, dammit everything's experimental now. The advent of the Internet has changed music forever. Now, it's not mind-blowingly weird for EMA to do a 17-minute cover of a Robert Johnson song - it's par for the course in an age where music and time mingle undivided in the ears of up-and-coming artists. Maybe EMA makes drone-folk, which I suppose can be a thing, now that the paint cans of culture have tipped over and turned everything swirly and brown. Regardless of how you describe EMA, what can't be denied is that she is making fiercely individualistic music. 

NORTHERN, W/ ARRINGTON DE DIONYSO'S MALAIKAT DAN SINGA, THE MOTHER RUCKUS, 9 P.M., $5-$8, 414 ½ LEGION WAY, OLYMPIA