An obvious dividend of Minnesota summers is the plethora of free outdoor music gigs around the metro, and the lunchtime concerts on the Northrop Auditorium plaza in the heart of the U of M’s East Bank campus are among the most reliable in terms of quality control.

This summer’s Northrop lineup emphasizes both the global and the local for these sunny midday interludes, beginning with the Spanish music and dance of Michael Hauser on June 11 and, four days later, The New Primitives, a perennial winner of “best local reggae band” honors, despite a sound that owes as much to Memphis, New Orleans and Miami as Kingston, Jamaica.

Other well-known ensembles with an international flavor include Doug Little’s Latin jazz nonet Charanga Tropical (June 24), the French musette of Café Accordion (June 22), the Celtic-inflected string Americana of Machinery Hill (July 2), and the spicy Indian beats of Greg Herriges and Telluric Currents (July14).

There are also some relative newcomers to the scene — literally relative in the case of the sibling trio Lynhurst (June 23), who make coy and spare yet still frothy pop. It’s anybody’s guess what shape the “classical, pop and folk music” from De Visa Musical Troupe from Uppsala, Sweden (June 19) will take; ditto the “hip-hop/loop-based/understanding” of Kristoff Krane the day before. You can’t always believe the hype: The New Music Machine (June 25), dubbed “music’s newest machine,” sounded like the same old folk on their website link.

But from the Minnesota Sinfonia (July 8) to Jelloslave (July 20) and the Moss Piglets (July 16), there is music for every taste and temperament on tap. If there’s space on your refrigerator, you might want to print out the entire lineup here (PDF) and make plans accordion, er, accordingly.