LEGENDARY PINK DOTS
News of NASA's Voyager leaving our solar system reminds me of V'Ger, the sentient mash-up of an earth probe and alien consciousness that drove the plot of the first Star Trek movie. If V'Ger, grounded in earth culture yet also detached and otherworldly, had listened to Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd and snapped up a copy of poet W.B. Yeats' The Second Coming on its way back to our planet, it would sound a lot like the Legendary Pink Dots. Thirty-plus years into its singular career, the London-by-way-of-Amsterdam combo trades in spaciness, miasma and dread over a foggily soothing mix of goth, English eccentricity and jauntily psychotic folk. Narcotic but surprisingly hooky and pretty, LPD were spawned by the British post-punk scene and championed by industrial outfit Skinny Puppy. Yet they echo the best of Floyd's prog: Barrett's transcendent playfulness plus the comfortably numb chill of "Wish You Were Here." Frontman and driving force Edward Ka-Spel's lisping, surreal vocals suggest a less macho variation on the Cure's Robert Smith, mixed with the polite occult ramblings of Psychic TV's Genesis P-Orridge. Against all laws of the universe, Ka-Spel and crew make slouching toward Bethlehem seem like such good fun. With Orbit Service. $20-$25. Sept. 29, 9 p.m. Tremont Music Hall, 400 W. Tremont Ave. 704-343-9494.