“Wow and Flutter” sounds like two words slapped together by bored hipsters searching for a band name, doesn’t it? Well, this Portland trio, playing their first show in Seattle in two years tonight, actually has one of the catchiest band names that actually mean something. A wow and flutter measurement quantifies the amount of “frequency wobble” on analog playback devices. So when you’re listening to Whitney on a shitty old cassette player, the “Wow” can be heard when “I Want to Dance With Somebody” starts to sound, er, cracked out. This Wow and Flutter, known as a mild-mannered band in P-town for a decade, has undergone some fluctuations of their own as they finish their sixth full-length album. They’re more raucous than before—a Willamette Week writer recently saw front man Cord Amato playing guitar, keyboards, and a tambourine with his foot while singing at a house party—but with the same pleasing, energetic sound. Seeing them in possibly the best free music venue in all of Seattle may just set your heart aflutter.

Thu., Sept. 13, 9 p.m.