Carrboro
LAVENDAR DIAMOND, ENTRANCE
The ArtsCenterLavender Diamond’s Becky Stark possesses one of the most captivating crystalline voices in rock, a black-and-white film goddess arriving renewed in her youth. Her band’s Matador debut, Imagine Our Love, finds Stark sometimes uncomfortably fitting those airs into a busy pop context, but when she relaxes and eases it out (as with last year’s perfect “In Heaven There is No Heat”), Stark’s unstoppabletransfixion personified. Entrance is the outlet of erstwhile Baltimore wild hair Guy Blakeslee: In three years’ time, he’s moved through an arc of influencesprimitive Delta, killing-floor blues, Middle Eastern drone-built trance and freely erupting psychedelic ecstatics. For better and worse, Lavender Diamond sounds like a free spirit finding a complex, cinematic grounding. Entrance, then, sounds like a genius, homeless cousin. Spend $12 at 9 p.m. Grayson Currin
Raleigh
GLOBAL PLAYGROUND
ExplorisRecess has never been this fun or this culturally diverse. Come out to Exploris for its opening of the Global Playground (running through the summer). Kids of all ages can enjoy Chinese jump rope, a British hopscotch board, net playing from Brazil, and many more indoor and outdoor entertainments. Admission is $5. For more info about museum hours, call 834-4040 or visit www.exploris.org. Iesha Brown