DJ STARTING FROM SCRATCH @ TAINTED LOVE
With DJ Fase. Thu, Mar 27. Andy Poolhall, 489 College. Free.
With ‘90s house, pop and rave anthems being called “old-school” these days, it’s extra fun to hear four fine and well-experienced DJs — Fase, DJ X, Corey Dawkins and Ritz — digging deep into ’80s retro, rock and new jack swing at their new weekly called Tainted Love. FLOW 93.5’s “mix show magician” DJ Starting From Scratch guests here, adding his cutting-edge blends and personal take on so-called guilty pleasures. With talent like this, and crates as deep and diverse as those of Scratch and Fase, retro continues to avoid becoming a four-letter word.

WE ARE WOLVES @ SHIT LA MERDE
With DJs Plan, Shit La Merde. Fri, Mar 28. Sneaky Dee’s, 431 College. $7 advance tickets at Rotate This, Soundscapes, Ticketweb.ca. $10 at door.
After a few years of packing venues, monthly indie dance party Shit La Merde continues to come on strong, especially with a solid string of live acts also bringing the noise. Montreal dance-rock trio We Are Wolves will drop their perfectly raucous post-punk bombs this time around, highlighting tracks from last year’s awesome sophomore album Total Magique.  I’ve long been an admirer of the Wolves’ ability to marry dirty, distorted chaos with precise playing and bang-on rhythms, but seeing them bring this balancing act to the stage when they last came to town amped my appreciation for them ten-fold. A must-see.

THE FINAL SHUT ’EM DOWN
With DJs JC, Kaewonder. Sat, Mar 29. 751, 751 Queen W (upstairs). Free.
It’s rare that promoters have the gumption to end club nights at the peak of their success, but the Fameless collective is playing by their own rules in shutting down Shut ‘Em Down. A monthly hip-hop party started last summer, Shut’ ‘Em Down brought in capacity crowds for DJs JC and Kaewonder‘s blend of obscurities and classics. While part of the event’s charm lay in its monthly musical themes — ranging from “dead rappers” to a focus on regions or specific producers — this finale will be more of a free-for-all. Watch for future parties from Fameless, including a new hip-hop weekly called Can I Live? starting in May.

MORCHEEBA
With Federico Aubele. Sun, Mar 30. The Opera House, 735 Queen E. $32.50 advance tickets at Rotate This, Soundscapes, Ticketmaster. 8pm.
When the Godfrey brothers released Who Can You Trust?, their debut album as Morcheeba, back in ’96, I fell immediately for their soulful, polished downtempo. They’d learned well from Portishead and Massive Attack, wrote beautiful arrangements and had a powerful vocalist in Skye Edwards. Personally, I soon tuned the band out, finding subsequent albums more bland than bold — though millions of fans thought otherwise. Now the Godfreys have returned to form with Dive Deep, Morcheeba’s most inspired album in a decade. Taking their show — and a number of vocalists — on the road, Morcheeba is joined here by compelling ESL artist Federico Aubele.

GROOVE ARMADA @ SOUNDBOY ROCK DJ TOUR
With DJ Nasty Nav. Wed, Apr 2. The Social, 1100 Queen W. $15 advance tickets at Rotate This, Soundscapes, Play De Record, Wantickets.com/embrace.
Speaking of acts that made it big in the ‘90s and went on to sell millions of albums, Brits Andy Cato and Tom Findlay are Groove Armada and yes, they will indeed be DJing at this rather intimate venue. Some may know Groove Armada for hits like “At The River,” “Superstylin’,” and “I See You Baby” or for their excellent contributions to the chilled Back to Mine and Another Late Night mix CD series, but they’re also fantastic DJs who’ve been producing parties for as long as they’ve been making tunes. More than 10 years in, Groove Armada are as relevant as ever.

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