Chicago R&B singer Megan Hammond, better known as m.e.h., delivers searching lyrics as though she’s already figured out what to do. With her steadfast poise and voluptuous voice, she balances confidence and vulnerability, which gives her music a disarming sincerity. In August, Hammond self-released the two-song EP Coup de Grâce, where she handles stylistically slippery instrumentals as easily as the workers at the Pike Place Fish Market toss big king salmon to each other. With its lithe, buttery guitar melody and gently bustling percussion, “Thrill Is Gone” borrows nonchalant cool from hip-hop and luxurious glamour from R&B, and Hammond’s performance moves between regimented rapping and swooning singing. Her knack for genre blending has brought her into the orbits of bigger artists on similar paths: she opened for Smino at Metro in April and for TheMIND at Sleeping Village earlier this month. This isn’t Hammond’s first set at chic Wicker Park speakeasy Dorian’s, but I suspect it’ll seen get much more difficult to catch her in a space this intimate.
m.e.h. Sat 12/28, 9 and 11 PM, Dorian’s Through the Record Shop, 1939 W. North, $10, 21+