more cool. A lot more cool than anything I've come across here so far. The museum space, a plain upstairs room rendered informal and cozy by low lighting and a sprinkling of candles, sets the mood (last night, a spread of peanut butter and jelly snacks for the audience played neatly off of the school theme). And Mobtown founders, sax man Briana Sacawa and composer/turntablist Erik Spangler, set the tone with pieces that exude now-ness, even when some of the actual composition dates are more like yesterday. Composers with followings in New York (including veterans of the Bang on a Can outfit there) seem to be particular favorites.

The highpoint for me last night came with the presentation by Jody Redhage of Anna Clyne's Paint Box, a 2006 work for cello and tape. A progression of long, dark string notes created a kind of elegy against electronically filtered and modified breaths and word-snippets, as well as louder sounds of a sometimes aggressive, scary world. David Lang's The Anvil Chorus, from 1990, was a vivid adventure in solo, non-traditional percussion. Steve Owen delivered the snaps, bell tones and wicked whomps in taut, bravura fashion. Julia Wolfe's Lick from 1994 suggested a rock band doing a jam session where each player takes a separate path that, somehow, keeps intersecting perfectly with all the other players. The heady, absorbing exercise was tightly performed by Sacawa, DJ Dubble8 (Spangler's stage name when he's operating turntables and other electronic devices), Matthew Everhart (electric guitar), Nathan Bontrager (cello) and Joel Ciaccio (bass).

The concert was bookended by Sacawa and Spangler, starting with the latter's pastlife laptops and attic instruments written for the saxophonist in 2004. The score's mix of live and processed sonics seemed a little short on substance, but had an effective urban edge. The finale, Grab It, a punchy item from 1999 by Jacob van Terveldhuis, had a similar feel, only edgier still. Among the many sampled sounds are utterances by prison inmates using a certain, four-syllable curse word I don't typically hear in my sheltered concert-going life. It's provocative stuff, geld together by the power of the sax riffs and the punchy rhythmic tracks. In this performance, there was the added impact of video by Guy Werner, who incorproated bits of old sitcoms and vintage TV ads for cereals, action figures, fast food -- the rapid visuals became an increasingly ominous counterpoint.

Mobtown Modern clearly has what it takes to become a fixture on the Baltimore scene. The only stuffy thing about last night was the lack of air conditioning in the performance space, but no one seemed to mind, and the occasional street sounds coming through the open windows only added to the atmosphere of spontaneity.

BALTIMORE SUN PHOTO (Karl Merton Ferron): Erik Spangler, left; Brian Sacawa