Quintron and Miss Pussycat @ Crescent Ballroom

There's something to be said for going with what you know, but wouldn't you rather watch artists take some risks? If your answer to that one is "yes," attending a Quintron & Miss Pussycat show should be a no-brainer. The New Orleans duo consistently has been one of the more creative acts to tour the country, remaining idiosyncratic and pushing their own creative boundaries. It hasn't always paid off — the band's weirdly textured sonics, organ-laden tunes, and tech-heavy sci-fi sound effects and crazy puppets sometimes comes across as pretentious, boring, inaccessible, or strange for the sake of being strange. But when it works, which it does often, the duo can be thrillingly off-kilter and unpredictable. The adventurous spirit took flight with 2011's Sucre du Sauvage. The disc was recorded over several days in the New Orleans Museum of Art, where the ambient sounds became part of the recording. Also, this awesome thing: Quintron created the Singing House, where he installed a drone synth and speakers whose noises modulate as the weather changes. A sensor on the roof signals different tones for sunrises, sunsets, and lightning storms, while ambient sounds inside the house change depending on whether it's raining or windy. So, thumbs up for ambition, whether it falls flat or succeeds in unexpected ways.