FRIDAY, JULY 13 W.A.C.O. at Normandie Card Casino. Give the Wild Acoustic Chamber Orchestra credit for imagination in choosing locations for their CD-release concerts. When Sylvania was unveiled a couple of years ago, the party was held among the glittery lights above L.A.X. at Encounter. This time, to celebrate A Game of Cards (True Classical/Transparency), the demented mini-orchestra perform at this thematically appropriate card casino. Singer-pianist Steve Gregoropoulos says that A Game of Cards is the closest W.A.C.O. has ever come to a purely pop record, and tunes like "Elvis Evangeline" and "Promenade" are more economical and melodic than some of the foreboding marches on earlier CDs. Pied Piper flute flurries hover over the unfolding garden of "Fire Ants" like birds chasing each other in intertwined flight, while violist Heather Lockie and violinist-singer Rebecca Lynn stitch everything together jauntily with swooping feints of their bows. Only the gorgeous ballad "Hydra" moves at a glacial pace, calving icebergs, as Gregoropoulos laments the loss of faraway friends: "I can't talk to you in satellite transmissions." It's all very grand and stately and ambitious and, ultimately, quite satisfying. (Falling James) back to News