Never having been huge fans of instrumental music, we were taken by surprise when we listened to Maserati's latest record Inventions For The New Season. Their own entertaining bio describes the music as a "post-psychedelic orgy of hooks molesting the tired cliche of math-prog" and/or "a post-disco drone machine bristling with the buzz-saw sound of 1,000 angry square waves nestled on a California king size bed of shoegaze swirl." We like to think of the record as a soundtrack to the imaginary film dramatizing the most exciting and dire moments in our lives: the chance encounter, the rendezvous, the breakup, the comeback, et al. See the four men from Athens, Georgia, perform at 12 Galaxies on Wednesday night. We've got a copy of Inventions For The New Season for one lucky winner. Listen to "12/16" and enter to win. (Contest ends 9/12. Winner will be notified via email.)

This week's show recommendations: Hurry up and head over to Amoeba at 6pm for a chance to see Okkervil River perform for free and then get a free, limited edition CD sampler when you purchase their new one The Stage Names (while supplies last, of course). Later on this evening you have a serious wealth of options to see good music. Our dear friend Ashod Simonian is on the road with Stereo Total who play tonight at Bimbo's with The Octopus Project. Ashod's toured with many a great band and recently put out a book called Real Fun which features 100+ candid Polaroids of musicians on tour during their downtime, including Spoon, Death Cab, Jenny Lewis, Broken Social Scene and tons more plus a CD with tracks by Irving, Dios Malos and Norfolk & Western. Over at the Warfield, Rilo Kiley perform songs from their new one Under The Blacklight (which we don't think sounds at all like Fleetwood Mac, for the record) with Lewis' man-friend Jonathan Rice and Grand Ole Party. Cafe Du Nord's got the oddly-named pair of Joan As Police Woman plus Michael Zapruder's Rain of Frogs. Bottom of the Hill presents Sacramento's nostalgic Nintendo-music tribute band The Advantage with Them Hills and The Lovely Public. For some local music, you could see Thee More Shallows at Hemlock or Eats Tapes and Lemonade at Rickshaw Stop.

On Friday, Cafe Du Nord hosts two EP release shows, one for Dame Satan and another for Two Sheds, followed by a headlining performance by Jackpot who we sure like a whole lot. On Saturday night, Brandi Carlile brings her soaringly huge voice to The Fillmore with openers A Fine Frenzy who kind of bore us but we do appreciate their tour-Twittering. We think more bands should Twitter. The Honorary Title play songs from their new one Scream and Light Up the Sky at Slim's with Cartel and Weatherbox.

Watch Brandi Carlile sing her heart out on Conan:

On Sunday, Band of Horses open for Dinosaur Jr. at Mezzanine. On Monday see the former captain of Grandaddy Jason Lytle with Herman Jolly at Cafe Du Nord or go upstairs to Swedish American Hall to see Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers fame. On Wednesday we plan to go see Maserati at 12 Galaxies with Silian Rail and Sky Pilots.

Watch Maserati's video for "This is a sight we had one day from the high mount":