Zohra Atash and Joshua Strawn make up the dark post-punk duo, Azar Swan. As residents of the NYC-based goth label, PENDV SOUND, it would be easy to guess what Azar Swan are all about even before you saw a picture of the pair looking moody, black and intimidatingly stylish. That's actually a quite apt way to describe their music. All violent synths and surging bass and thudding drum machine, swirled together in a tangled web of angsty electronics. Azar Swan are all about creating this threatening musical façade - an assault of sexy darkness that recalls groups like The Knife and other practitioners are electronically enhanced gloom. No wonder, then, that they recently opened Martin Rev, of Suicide, the band that took doom and fear and dressed it up in just enough catchiness to let you sleep with the lights off. Well, "Frankie Teardrop" excluded.
AZAR SWAN, w/ Delphic Oracle, 9 p.m., Northern, 414 1/2 Legion Way, Olympia, $5
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