Porcella - The Deadly Snakes

Looking back, the whole “garage rock revival” of the early 2000’s was one of my favorite parts of growing up. Having already been exposed to classic rock, the discovery that an entire rock’n’roll culture had been gestating in my own backyard (Detroit) inspired me to delve into the world of garage rock with the kind of wild-eyed intensity that only 14-year-old boys learning about rock’n’roll for the first time ever get. Back then, I would gush about the raw power and hot guitar riffs of just about any group of shaggy-haired dudes with a “the” at the beginning of their band’s name. Then, gradually, I grew up and realized that 90% of garage rock sounds exactly the same, and now I only listen to the best of the bunch. I didn’t know it back then, but one of the very best garage bands of the last decade was a band that I rejected because they weren’t loud enough: The Deadly Snakes. While I was listening to legions of mediocre “mod” or “blues” bands, The Deadly Snakes were a couple hundred miles north, in Toronto, expanding and experimenting with their garage-y sound, adding elements of old-timey folk, carnivalesque blues, and admirably unique psychedelia. In 2003, the Snakes released Ode To Joy, an album stuffed to the gills with white-hot blues-punk. It wasn’t quite as loud or aggressive as The Dirtbombs or, say, Guitar Wolf, so I ignored it. Then, in 2005, they brought Porcella to the table. Let’s just get this out of the way right now then: Porcella isn’t garage rock by any stretch. It sounds like some awesome combination of the Oblivians and the Decemberists: soul-inflected gutter rock meets literary sophistication. The entire album pretty much sums up what I was trying to get at earlier in this review: garage rock is boring without embellishment. The Deadly Snakes embellish the style in the form of strings, horns, various oddly-tuned keyboards, and rather bizarre lyrics about sinking ships, shooting game birds, and other such pursuits. It’s a real trip, and for those of you who still haven’t forgiven garage rock for the travesties of Jet and their ilk, here might be a good place to fall in love all over again.

On the edge of a knife is a calm simplicity.

Chum Onah: Bx7 Celebrates The Music Of Michael Jackson - Various Artists

Michael Jackson’s death back in June has, for some reason or another, made an impression on basically every single human being alive. I’d rather not mention my thoughts on the entire media circus surrounding the former King of Pop’s demise, but let me just say: if you thought that even the most cynical, chillwave-loving hipsters were immune to the news of MJ’s death, you’d be dead wrong. As proof, I offer Chum Onah: Bx7 Celebrates the Music of Michael Jackson. And sure enough, there’s a fresh-faced young Michael sporting a ridiculous psychedelic afro on the deliberately cheap-looking cover of this bizarre tribute album. Here’s the gist of it: somebody (Butterface, whoever that is) brought together ten buzzy indie/lo-fi/______wave groups to record a set of Michael Jackson covers in their own trendy recorded-in-the-bedroom style. So far this review is making it sound like I don’t dig this album, but that’s not true. I wish I didn’t dig this album, because, frankly, it seems more like a cheap attempt at pointless irony than a legitimate tribute. But the songs themselves are mostly pretty fab, particularly Toro Y Moi’s spacey version of “Human Nature”, which fizzes and crackles with the same groundbreaking energy that made MJ’s original such a revelation (I’ve already professed my love for Toro Y Moi a few days ago… he doesn’t seem to be capable of putting out a bad track). And despite the fact that Hungry, Hungry Ghost describe themselves as the world’s only “post-indie transcendentalist punk band” (gag me), their rendition of “Earth Song” is downright inspiring: it’s melodramatic, corny, and beautiful in all the right ways. Dem Hunger’s bizarre sound collage take on “A Brain Inna River” (is that even a Michael Jackson song?) sounds about as indebted to “Billie Jean” or “Thriller” as does Napalm Death, but it’s a cool track nonetheless. Unfortunately, it’s not all good vibes: Phil & The Osophers’ two tracks are lo-fi to the point of idiocy (you might as well listen to radio static), and Julian Lynch’s two chances to shine are squandered on a couple of hokey “I ♥ the 80’s” jokes. But even with its occasional missteps, Chum Onah is a pretty interesting and, for the most part, entertaining tribute album, and at the very least, it’s something different from the glut of bland MJ tributes that we’ve been enduring for months now.

If they say why, why? Tell ‘em that is human nature.

Album Para La Juventud, Vol. 1 - Juan Ravioli

The fabulously named Juan Ravioli is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist from Buenos Aires, and, judging from the strength of Album Para La Juventud, Vol. 1, his first album, he's learned from the greats. After the delightful surprise of hearing some non-tango music from Argentina wears off, immerse yourself in the hearteningly accessible sound of Señor Ravioli's supremely well-realized imagination. I don't usually find myself impressed by bands that blatantly rip off classic rock (I'll take The Beatles over any of their millions of imitators, thanks), but Juventud stops just short of outright plagiarism. At times it sounds like the aforementioned Fab Four, at times like Pink Floyd, Tim Buckley, Neil Young, Radiohead (who are basically classic rock already), or, on the magnificent "La Diversidad De Los Rumbos", like Nick Drake gone jazz fusion. It's all en Español, of course, which does a lot in the way of distancing Ravioli from his monolithic influences, but the sweet 'n' sour acoustic laments and pop hooks are pretty darn universal. It's not likely to be the most groundbreaking album you've ever heard (unless your musical tastes are pretty much limited to Oasis), but it's a warm and familiar-sounding album that only the most jaded snob could dislike. Yes, the acoustic guitar melodies all start to blend together after a while, and Ravioli's not the most dynamic vocalist in South America, but when he tosses in a curveball like the previously mentioned and satisfyingly melodramatic "La Diversidad De Los Rumbos", it becomes obvious that there's more to our man in Buenos Aires than simple idol worship. Muy bueno.

Youth has no age.

Candylion - Gruff Rhys

Gruff Rhys might not be a household name (even in indie households, if there exist such things), but as a behind-the-scenes sort of eccentric, his skill for crafting psychedelic pop songs is rivaled only by Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips. As frontman for Wales’s finest band, Super Furry Animals (as well as earlier cult group Ffa Coffi Pawb), Rhys has spent the last two decades making music that can only truly be described as Gruff Rhys music. Combining psychedelia, folk, ambient, trip-hop, soul, and free jazz, Rhys is a bona fide renaissance man of indie music. With a knack for writing snappy pop tunes and a pleasantly husky, heavily Welsh-accented croon for a voice, I can’t imagine anyone hearing Rhys’s music and not enjoying it. Candylion, Rhys’s second solo album, is not so different from Super Furry Animals’ more recent material, except maybe being a little more laid-back. Featuring songs in English, Welsh, and Spanish, Candylion is a cutesy, quaint album that recalls Syd Barrett at his most delightfully whimsical. “Painting People Blue” is a wistful, waltz-like ballad that could sound just as fitting for a picnic in the sunshine or a walk through the snow. The track that best showcases Rhys’s diverse talents, however, is definitely the fourteen-minute prog-rock opus “Skylon!”. Layers of rollicking piano, pastoral folk flute, atonal strings and synthesizers, and fuzzy spoken-word samples build upon an insistent drum pattern that’s almost motorik-like in its consistency. It calls to mind the best British prog of the early 70’s, suggesting that Barclay James Harvest and the Strawbs might be cooler than you thought.

Now we’re in this shit together, let’s let each other live.

You Don't Know: Ninja Cuts - Various Artists

There was a time in the mid/late 90’s when London’s Ninja Tune records virtually ruled the digital underground, with practically everything they released becoming an instant trip-hop/chillout/nu-jazz/ambient/drum & bass classic. Ninja Tune’s greatest achievement was legitimizing “weird” electronic music and introducing it to the dancefloor, and even the radio – it’s easy to forget that 90’s hipsters were dancing to something other than rave and big beat. You Don’t Know is the fifth in the label’s Ninja Cuts compilation series. While Ninja Tune might not command the underground respect it once did, it’s still one of the freshest labels in existence. Far from relying upon its old, outmoded standby genres, label founder Coldcut assembles here an all-star cast of mysterious dancefloor gods for this three-disc voyage through the oceans of “indie” club music. Though everything found here could tangentially be considered “dance” music, the variety of material is simply stellar: Ghislain Poirier, Bonobo, Daedalus, Mike Ladd, King Geedorah, and others bring the abstract hip-hop sound in which Ninja Tune has recently been specializing, The Cinematic Orchestra, The Herbaliser, and Yppah peddle homegrown acid jazz/funk, Roots Manuva and Ty rock over bottomless dub rhythms, and Amon Tobin, Mr. Scruff, and Coldcut himself update the classic Ninja Tune sound for a new generation of listeners. It’s all quality, but the most unusual tracks here are those that warrant repeated listens: Pop Levi’s buzzy electro-glam “Dita Dimoné”, RJD2’s barnstorming percussion-heavy “True Confessions”, and TTC’s over-the-top Francophone hip-hoppy “Travailler” are all marvelous dancefloor fillers, proving that Ninja Tune is even more relevant and impressive now than it was in its heyday over a decade ago.

Une

Deux

Trois

Meets A.S. Dragon - Bertrand Burgalat

Bertrand Burgalat's got style, and lots of it. As a singer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, record label head, and impeccably sharp dresser, he, along with other upstarts like Benjamin Biolay and Vincent Delerm, has been keeping the swinging spirit of 1960's Paris alive since the mid-90's, both musically and sartorially. But unlike Biolay and Delerm, who sound like little more than aurally pleasing Gainsbourg/Dutronc/Polnareff clones, Burgalat does his own thing, blending spacey Stereolab-style electronics, "French touch" dance beats, groovy 60's-derived rock'n'roll, and Radiohead-esque pomposity. This, a live album from 2001, finds Burgalat fronting A.S. Dragon, an ace space rock group assembled to perform as the house band for Burgalat's own Tricatel record label (inspired by Booker T & The MGs' keenly-felt presence at Stax Records, I might add). To be quite honest, A.S. Dragon steal the show with their spectacular brand of mod rock, and it's hard to wonder if this album might not be even better had it been recorded with the group's regular frontwoman, Natacha, an androgynous-looking fashion plate with a penchant for performing au naturel. But let's not bash our man in Paris, Burgalat himself, as his louche crooning proves to be perfectly satisfactory, as he whispers across cosmic numbers like "Follow Me" in an impenetrable Gallic accent. Further cuts like "Gris Metal" and "OK Skorpios" strut with the sophistication of Roxy Music and the raw soul energy of The Small Faces. But the show-stopping highlight has gotta be the last number, a groovy, vintage keyboard-heavy rendition of Smokey Robinson's "Tears Of A Clown". A.S. Dragon stretches a Motown classic into a spectral psychedelic jam that constantly grows in intensity across seven minutes, making this a rare post-millennial live album that manages to sound more urgent and thrilling than a batch of well-considered studio cuts.

Just like Pagliacci did, I try to keep my surface hid.

Turquoise - Headdress

Among all the bogstandard lo-fi "psychedelic" bands in the world, you'd be hard-pressed to find one more warm, hypnotic, and mysterious than Headdress. Sounding like a much hairier, much Southwest-ier version of Grouper, the two (presumable) dopeheads of Headdress conjure up an aural miasma that encompasses all of the infinite desert expanses, dream-like mountain landscapes, and vivid pink sunsets of Arizona and New Mexico. What's most remarkable about this music is its sparseness: no track contains much more than some guitar drone, some heavily echoplexed vocals, and mebbe an organ or a rainstick. Although I'm reluctant to get personal, I must declare that seeing these guys live is quite an experience. They don't seem to have noticed that any time has passed since about 1975, almost as if they've been lost in a brilliant peyote vision for the last three decades. There's not much else I can say about this wondrous music: interesting people will dig it, boring people won't. And though it's unfair to classify people according to their tastes in music, the sounds contained in these vinyl grooves (or digital encoding, whatever) are as universally beautiful as a sunrise over Taos.

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is - infinite.

Group Sounds - Rocket From The Crypt

John "Speedo" Reis is an old-school badass: pompadour'd and usually clad in a leather jacket and Levi's, he has spent the last two decades keeping the rock 'n' roll flame alive and getting very little recognition for his efforts. He's been involved in a number of projects, all of them somewhat punk-ish, but Rocket From The Crypt is by far his best work. Throughout most of the 90's, Rocket From The Crypt loomed like the ghost of Eddie Cochran over America's largely stale punk rock scene, playing at house parties and tiny bars even while releasing increasingly stupendous albums and achieving international recognition from alternative music magazines. 2001's Group Sounds doesn't come from Rocket's classic era (if you're interested in that period, check out Scream, Dracula, Scream! or RFTC), but it plays like the culmination of over a decade of ferocious punk, primal rockabilly, stately soul, and even the occasional Phil Spector-ish flourish. This is tough, anthemic shit. RFTC might have evolved from a gutter punk group into a serious rock 'n' soul revue, but they've lost none of their bite or intensity. Scorchers like "Venom Venom" and "Carne Voodoo" rock with all the jungle wildness of a feral ape, but it's the more restrained and organized tracks, "S.O.S. with its anthemic horns and "Ghost Shark" with its melancholic piano, that show just have far Rocket From The Crypt have come. Group Sounds is quite a culmination of talents for one of the greatest bands of the 90's, bar none.

This is not the call of the wild, from when I laid it down on the line.

Taxis - Zoos Of Berlin

Gosh. It's been a while since I heard an album like this - an album that sounds like it was tailor-made to rock my world. Zoos Of Berlin are a quintet from Detroit that sounds like a conglomeration of influences specifically picked to please even the pickiest record collectors and art-rock snobs. Bits and chunks of Ennio Morricone, Can, Fela Kuti, Stereolab, ESG, and even Silver Apples all contribute to a sound that, despite its obvious debt to a number of sources, still manages to be admirably original. Taxis isn't going to change the face of indie rock (you probably won't even read about it in Spin or Pitchfork), but it certainly has the potential to save art-rock for more than a couple people. If you've grown bored of the seemingly endless hordes of beardy Americana-indie-folk groups that apparently have Urban Outfitters by the nuts, or if you can't warm up to the legions of deliberately amateurish Animal Collective imitators that have recently been popping up across the country, Zoos Of Berlin may be the band for you. What I find so impressive about Taxis is the amount of work that has clearly gone into it: each song is meticulously arranged and produced to amount to that rare beast: an album made up entirely of songs. There's no pointless ennui or self-consciously quirky experimentation to be found here. Trumpets and vintage keyboards sound like more than just tired gimmicks, as on "Juan Matus", in which a peppy Britpoppish sort of tune suddenly gives way to an ocean of feedback and electronic-y tones that sounds like Popol Vuh gone goth. And then it abruptly chills the fuck out, sounding like either Pink Floyd or fusion-era Joe Zawinul, depending on your frame of reference (and this is all just one song). Opener "Century Rail" is a good ol' indie stomper with a delightful trumpet solo, while the closing track "Coliseum" sounds like a heavenly cross between The Smiths and Nino Rota's plaintive film scores. If you thought that indie rock had lost its ability to move you, take a chance on Zoos Of Berlin and allow yourself to be pleasantly surprised.

Time always falls in the second hand, into the sea.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Live At The Ginger Minge - Coachwhips

The last track on this album is named "Your Party Will Be A Success". If we (probably wrongly) assume that this track refers to this LP's value as "party music", then we've got to think about who's coming to our party. This ain't music for no goddamn dinner party. But if you're throwin' a booze-soaked birthday bash for G.G. Allin, Son of Sam, or the Devil, this might just be the fiesta soundtrack you've been lookin' for. This is pure savagery - punk slime taken to its logical extreme. Clocking in at about twenty minutes, recorded "live" (no overdubs, all first takes) at the fictional Ginger Minge, Peanut Butter & Jelly sounds like The Sonics fuck'd up on purple drank recording with Kim Fowley in Hell. It's John Dwyer's show from start to finish, as he rips and tears through ten brief excursions into madness. Personally, I prefer Coachwhips to Dwyer's other projects (which include Pink & Brown, Thee Oh Sees, The Hospitals, and Zeigenbock Kopf, among others), simply because Coachwhips are the most primal garage rock band ever put to wax. Hell, this makes The White Stripes' first album sound like Electric Light Orchestra. It's pretty useless to write about individual tracks when they all sound like incoherent howling, but suffice to say that the adroitly named "Did You Cum?" is a highlight. As Tim the Enchanter once said, "If you do doubt your courage or your strength, come no further, for death awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth!" Goddamn Coachwhips, mutherfuckers.

Ouch.

Cheap Time - Cheap Time

Well kids, I'm back - back in the frozen Mitten, writing this darn'd blog to keep my fingers warm! And what better to stave off frostbite than a bracing dose of punky power-pop? Thank goodness for Cheap Time. In all the garage-punk universe, there's no band as recklessly and unabashedly fun-lovin' as these merry hooligans. In a scene defined by shtiks - Nobunny with his bunny mask, King Khan and his James Brown affectations, Jay Reatard and his insistence on singing in that irritating cod-British accent - Cheap Time offer nothing but good old-fashioned teenage kicks. Cheap Time is the brainchild of Jeffery Novak (although calling something so instinctively infectious as this the "brainchild" of anything seems rather ridiculous), but this band's style of pinhead rock is doubtlessly a group effort. All sounds - guitar, bass, drums, vox, screech, drone, hum, hiss, warble - all mesh together to form a glammy firecracker of an album that sounds as though it was recorded on a tape recorder in a landfill. But hey, that's no dig - this is dynamite! It's Ramones-y, T.Rex-y, and, true to the name, even a bit Cheap Trick-y. This is power pop, light on the pop, if you please. The sing-song primitivism of "Too Late" only hints at the trashy throwdown to come, "People Talk" is a babbling, Britpunk-evoking thrill, and when the band tosses some hokey synthesizer bloops into the mix on the stomping "Zig-Zag", it only seems fitting for a band that apparently wants nothing more than to start a punky ruckus. They succeed, and gloriously.

Are you blind? Why can't you see? There's nothin' wrong with me!

En' A-Free-Ka - Shafiq Husayn

The development of musical Afrofuturism since the 1950's has seen many trends come and go. Sun Ra created the template with his divisive cosmic jazz experiments. Soul jazz iconoclasts like Alice Coltrane and Archie Shepp kept the spirit alive through the 60's, while George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic injected the -ism with a nasty dose of funk in the 70's. The 80's saw the rise of Juan Atkins and his many pseudonyms, which expressed Afrofuturist ideals through the sound of Detroit techno. Meanwhile, in New York City, Afrika Bambaataa pioneered a far-out sound that would influence 90's hip-hop heads like Del Tha Funky Homosapien and DJ Spooky to funkitize sonic galaxies in the spirit of Afrofuturism. Nowadays, we're lucky to be witnessing a new generation of Afrofuturists; a generation that has learned from and drawn from the generations of pioneers that came before them. Producers like Dâm-Funk, Ras G, and Sa-Ra Creative Partners have all created masterpieces that combine aspects of all of their predecessors, from Sun Ra to DJ Spooky. In 2009, Shafiq Husayn, one third of Sa-Ra, has created the ultimate expression of cosmic black consciousness. En' A-Free-Ka is a psychedelic voyage through jazz, soul, funk, techno, hip-hop, science fiction, and mythic poetry. The cover portrays Husayn in a state of serene self-consciousness, sitting like a majestic Ethiopian negus amidst a collection of African objets d'art. The sounds contained within these grooves are no less striking: Husayn is always at the center of his sound, presiding over the rhythm and poetry with effortless grace. Whether he's surrounded himself with blaring saxophones, chirping synthesizers, or clattering tribal percussion, he steers the course of the music with astronomical precision. "Nirvana" glides along over distorted chunks of soul jazz, while "No Moor" hustles over a nursery rhyme-like pattern that barely hides Husayn's righteous anger beneath its shimmery surface. Groovy. I suppose there's not much more I can say to promote this album, except that it feels somehow... triumphant. Yeah, triumphant.

If you knew better, you'd do better... take it from me.

Calle 13 - Calle 13

Calle 13 is notable for being pretty much the only reggaetón act to get any sort of critical respect, and if the reggaetón tag itself turns you off, have no fear: Calle 13 don't like it either, and in truth, it falls woefully short in describing the diversified brand of hip-hop that Residente and Visitante peddle. That's not to say that Calle 13 doesn't share any common ground with Daddy Yankee, Wisin y Yandel, or any other reggaetón chartbuster; there are plenty of comparable traits shared by Calle 13 and the rest of the reggaetón herd. Cheap, canny (and inexplicably infectious) digital beats, loping, dubby basslines, and rapid-fire rapping en español all contribute to the urban flava of these Puerto Rican step-brothers' debut album, but there's much more to be discovered here than stereotypical ghetto bombast. Unfortunately, I can't say anything about Residente's lyrics - my Spanish is essentially limited to "donde esta la zapateria?" - but if his gift for gab matches Visitante's gift for creating razor-sharp productions out of deceptively simple digital snippets of Latin music, then he's definitely an MC to be reckoned with. Needless to say, Visitante's production really makes this album for me: he lays out a virtual smörgåsbord of each and every type of Latin dance music, all conveniently assembled into one concise package. Cumbia, salsa, bossa nova, Latin jazz, bomba, and tango are all grist to the musical mill for Calle 13 (not to mention reggae, which forms the basis of all reggaetón). And most importantly, the album maintains a freewheeling sense of fun throughout, a vivacious positive energy that's missing from acts like, say, Don Omar. Unorthodox dance tracks like "Atrévete-Te-Te" and "La Hormiga Brava" colorfully display exactly what sets Calle 13 apart from their peers, while hits like "Suave" serve as a funky reminder that Residente and Visitante are always aiming squarely at the dancefloor.

Vamos a mover el cuello a 90°.

Tradition In Transition - Quantic

Regardless of how you feel about Quantic's heavily derivative work as a producer or leader of The Quantic Soul Orchestra, you've got to admit that the artist formerly known as Will Holland has created a pretty impressive career out of slavish reproductions of recycled genres of music. It hasn't always been thrilling, and, personally, Quantic's ersatz funk has always felt to me like a "why don't I just listen to the original thing?" situation. Tradition In Transition, however, sounds like the work of a real pro. It plays somewhat like a Quantic "greatest hits" package, as Will Holland and his cheekily named Combo Barbaro play through virtually every genre of music at which the man has ever tried his hand. There's soul, funk, salsa, jazz, samba, bossa nova, and even David Axelrod-style orchestral pop. Sure, Tradition is entirely derivative of the styles just named (every track feels like a conscious attempt to record in a particular idiom), but the overall effect of the album is marvelously pleasant, yielding more intricacies and standout moments with each successive listen. There's nothing here that's going to replace Al Green, Jorge Ben, or Mongo Santamaría for any lover of the groove, but it's a fine complement to any soul or Latin-centric collection. The emphasis here seems to be on salsa-inspired tunes like the sublime "Linda Morena", but Quantic's talents with other brands of music are immediately apparent, as on the almost trip-hop-esque opener, "The Dreaming Mind, Part 1". Quantic is an artist with a purpose: he strives to keep the flame of the pan-African groove alive, and while some may question if anyone really needs a white Englishman to provide this service, it's undeniable that this producer wunderkind can craft some very fine tunes.

How can they treat you so bad when you're lookin' so good?

Midnight At The Movies - Justin Townes Earle

Country music is in a weird state nowadays. It shed its associations with blues, folk, and jazz long ago and has made a pretty solid bid for mainstream pop/rock appeal since the 1970's. In the new millennium, America's heartland music seemingly only offers two possible career paths: that of the pop star cowboy/girl or that of the self-consciously old-fashioned "alt-country" singer. Sure, every now and then you get a Brad Paisley, who turns the notion of the CMT-bred country superstar on its head with his clever songwriting and guitar-slinging, but what antidote do we have against the seemingly endless stream of phony purveyors of long-vanished Americana? Enter Justin Townes Earle. Son of Steve Earle of Guitar Town fame, Justin is a tattooed Woody Guthrie for the iPod age. He's already proven himself in performances at both the Grand Ole Opry and indie rock clubs across the country. What makes his tunes so damn good, however, is his lyrical talent, a real treasure in the increasingly homogenized world of country. You won't find any redneck or hillbilly clichés here, nor will you find the sort of ersatz front-porch folk you're likely to hear from, say, Ryan Adams. Instead, Justin establishes himself as the latest in an illustrious line of classically modern country singers. He is, like Gram Parsons and his namesake Townes Van Zandt before him, a country songwriter gloriously out of step with contemporary trends, yet more evocative of what it means to be an American in the modern age than any of the hickish superstars you're like to hear on the radio. "They Killed John Henry" is old-timey storytelling at its finest, while "Mama's Eyes" and "Midnight At The Movies" are wistful and touching odes to Justin's mama and the Greenwich Village scene of the early 1960's, respectively. Have yerself a listen.

I am my father's son, I've never known when to shut up.

Hello Mom! - Modeselektor

Think of Modeselektor as an electronic dance music primer: once you've boogied with Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary, you've boogied to acid house, IDM, electro, Eurodisco, hip-hop, ambient techno, and just about any other beat-based strain you might care to mention. Modeselektor have recorded since 2000 with Ellen Allien's generally IDM-oriented BPitch Control record label, but Modeselektor stands out from labelmates like Apparat and Sascha Funke like a sore thumb. The genius in Hello Mom! isn't in its diversity, although there's plenty of that. Rather, Bronsert and Szary manage to twist and mold every style they can get their grubby mitts on into a friendly, unpretentious collection of pop tunes with little regard for guidelines or precedents. The glitchy, dancehall reggae-flavored "Dancingbox", which features a guest spot from Parisian b-boy crew TTC, sounds like the consummate European dance track: a cathartic party-starter that has floor-filling potential in both techno and hip-hop clubs. "The Rapanthem", as its name suggests, also draws on hip-hop, but it's equally informed by the ambient sounds of Aphex Twin and even the eerie progressive rock of Goblin. "Kill Bill Vol. 4" is pure acid, sounding like a 90's raver reengineered for the ADD 2000's. On the other hand, "Hasir", with its Asiatic strings and netherwordly synths, is nearly trip-hop in tone. It's a brief, pleasant departure from the relentlessly party-oriented tracks that fill most of the album. Hello Mom! doesn't exactly sound like the work of bona fide musical mavericks, but that's no dig. Modeselektor are established pros at manipulating styles and trends, and Hello Mom! is the marvelously danceable realization of an ethos that's rather unique in electronic music.

They've got surround sound, a Rottweiler hound, and they don't want the euro replacing the pound.

Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited - Various Artists

Tribute albums are always a dodgy idea. Few manage to truly evoke the spirit of the artist in tribute, while many are built on gimmicks designed to rope in unsuspecting fans of said artist (another Gainsbourg tribute, I ♥ Serge: Electronica Gainsbourg unfortunately falls into this latter category). When dealing with a real maverick like France's legendary "dirty old man of rock & roll", it only stands to reason that a tribute album would sound just as peculiar and diverse as Serge's own recordings. And therein is where this album both succeeds and fails (luckily, the successes are rather spectacular and significantly outnumber the failures). Most of the artists compiled here have already publicly, or at least through their music, expressed their devotion to this self-proclaimed "cabbage-headed sex maniac", and here they finally get their chance to gush over Gainsbourg's iconic compositions. As far as first tracks go, Franz Ferdinand and Jane Birkin's explosive "A Song For Sorry Angel" sets the bar extremely high, remaining faithful in spirit to Serge's synth-y original without obviously copping Serge's 60's clichés, a vice to which many of the performers here fall victim. Portishead's "Requiem For Anna" is atmospheric and moody, and sounds more like a magnificent collaboration between Beth Gibbons and Gainsbourg's ghost, rather than a student paying tribute to the master. The Rakes' nervy take on "Les Poinçonneurs des Lilas", translated here as "Just A Man With A Job", plays like a conventional though thrilling punk cover, and Jarvis Cocker's syrupy reading of "Je Suis Venu Te Dire Que Je M'en Vais" ("I Just Came To Tell You I'm Going") sounds just about like the Gainsbourg original, but that's no dig at Cocker; if anyone's spent his career campaigning for broader recognition of Serge's musical gifts to mankind, it's him. The most depressing duds here are Cat Power and, oddly enough, Jack White's wife Karen Elson's bland trawl through Serge's only international hit, "Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus", which aims for that vintage French erotica that everybody seems to love and misses the mark completely. Likewise, James Iha and Kazu Makino's dreary and melodramatic translation of "Bonnie et Clyde" is almost instantly irritating, sufficient proof that some things just sound better en Français. But these are small complaints, and as far as tribute albums go, this one is quite a thrill.

Counting lights, every night, every kind of light.

Dracula Boots - Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds

Just in time for Halloween, here's a magical gift for all you jivers, shuckers, run-a-muckers, and forlorn punkabillies wondering what happened to the Halloween you once knew in the halcyon heyday of The Cramps, Gun Club, and The Birthday Party: it's el hombre mysterioso himself, Kid Congo Powers, and he's back from the grave with a couple of rootin'-tootin' funk zombies to remind you why you went over to the dark side in the first place. The Kid has been a member of The Cramps, Gun Club, and Nice Cave & The Bad Seeds, so it only stands to reason that this album would be the best thing to happen to psychobilly since Lux Interior, rest his soul, first discovered Elvis. But here's the thing: this ain't psychobilly. It's psycho, that's for sure... bizarre and eerie covers of Bo Diddley's lost gem "Funky Fly" and the "Found A Peanut" song that they teach you in Cub Scouts attest to that. But Kid Congo's abandoned Carl Perkins and Gene Vincent for a sort of clattery funk that sounds more like a goofy Halloween-themed version of Can than it does "Human Fly". Oddly enough, there's two, uh, "Christmas" songs here: the filthy voodoo funk of "Kris Kringle Ju Ju" and the macabre Count-Five-in-hell dirge of "Black Santa". The most thrilling tracks, though, are the ones on which Kid Congo really gets weird, spooky, and fun in the most harebrained way imaginable: "Rare As The Yeti", for example, is three sublime minutes of all that's great about rock-and-fuckin'-roll. I hafta say it: this is my favorite album of 2009. Happy Halloween, all you turkeynecks, and stay tuned for more Halloween-y filth tomorrow!

You're rare as the yeti... not quite as pretty.

FabricLive.27 - DJ Format

The Fabric nightclub's ever-expanding series of DJ mix albums released under the names of Fabric and FabricLive focus primarily on IDM, trance, electro, and a number of other electronic dance music permutations, which is perhaps why DJ Format's entry into the FabricLive canon feels simultaneously like a fly in the electro-oriented ointment and a welcome departure from programmed dance beats. DJ Format, you see, does not spin electro. His gift to the Fabric community is a saucy platter of finger-lickin' R&B - rhythm and blues in many incarnations. The first half of this house-rockin' compilation is comprised primarily of the funkiest hip-hop this side of the "Funky Drummer" break - Ugly Duckling, Lyrics Born, Cut Chemist, Coldcut and DJ Format himself all make appearances. Dropping two of his own tracks might seem a bit indulgent if Format didn't coast on such an ace groove from start to finish; in fact, his collaboration with Abdominal, "3 Ft. Deep" is an unmatched highlight. But it's not the hip-hop side of this platter that contains FabricLive.27's chief appeal. From Ella Fitzgerald's dynamite cover of "Sunshine Of Your Love" onward, it's pure soul fire. Nina Simone and Julie Driscoll tear the roof off with their respective monster dancers, and eccentric slide-guitarist Ellen McIlwaine steals the show with a barnstorming rendition of "Toe Hold". Elsewhere, retro-funk revivalists Karachi Prison Band conjure up a tempest of percussion on "Put Some Grit In It" and Cleo Laine just about wraps everything up with the Northern soul nectar of "Night Owl" leaving our old friend Edan to bring this party to a close with a magnificent finale on "Rock and Roll".

We're ready to begin so grab your spot on the floor.

Primary Colours - The Horrors

You've really got to hand it to The Horrors. It seemed that their gimmicky goodness had worn itself out almost before it had even had a chance to develop back in 2006. A bunch of London youngsters playing vintage zombie rock via The Stranglers and dressing up like characters from an Edward Gorey comic come to life... sounds promising, right? Ah, yes. But then NME came along with their patented "British Music 'Zine Touch of Death" technique and slapped the boys on the cover of their joke of a magazine before they'd even finished recording their debut EP. Let's face it: bands with a tunnel-vision approach to making music rarely survive past their first big break, and it seemed that The Horrors would be no exception: their debut full-length Strange House was all style and very little substance. But now they've returned in 2009 with a proper follow-up, and damned if it isn't a wonder of an album. Oceans of synth have replaced the cheesy Screaming Lord Sutch-style organ vamps of Strange House, and odd and awkward little ditties about drawing Japan, counting in fives, or what-the-fuck-ever have been replaced by pocket symphonies drawn from the playbooks of Joy Division, The Jesus & Mary Chain, and Suicide. "Mirror's Image" and "Who Can Say" are glorious odes to misery, while "I Can't Control Myself" burbles and shakes with barely-controlled energy.

And though it's hard for me to say, I know you're better off this way.