Recently in Alt/Indie/Punk Category

Goldfrapp, Bonobo and every other artist mentioned here are yours to listen to whenever and however you want with your Rhapsody subscription. Click here to sign up for a free trial and see what we’re all about.

It's a great month for happy returns: Goldfrapp are back with Head First, a vivacious follow-up to 2008's subdued Seventh Tree, while Ninja Tune's eclectic mood-manipulator Bonobo returns from a four-year album break with Days to Come, easily his best record so far. Then, coming back just to say goodbye, the noise duo Yellow Swans signs off with a final album that's extreme only in its beauty.

Reunite with all those artists, and dive into Deadbeat's dub-techno mix opus Radio Rothko and more.

The Avett Brothers

Thirty Tigers has been fighting the good fight for indie labels and artists for nearly 10 years. The Nashville-based, self-proclaimed "artist-friendly" aggregator has been lending a helping hand to heartland-leaning indie-rock and Americana artists like the Avett Brothers, a small convoy of former and current Drive-By Truckers (Jason Isbell and Patterson Hood, respectively), Jason Boland, and Ben Sollee, even back when they were still getting beer bottles thrown at them by "Freebird"-chanting rednecks at roadside honky-tonks. The warm and fuzzy feeling doesn't stop there, either: upstarts Those Darlins, Jessica Lea Mayfield and JEFF the Brotherhood also call Thirty Tigers home and prove that they are still looking out for the little guy and gal.

Check out a free Thirty Tigers sampler. If you like what's tickling your ear buds, then download discount albums from the above luminaries as well as Backyard Tire Fire, Matthew Perryman Jones and more.

These Thirty Tigers musicians are yours to rock out to whenever and however you want with your Rhapsody subscription. Click here to sign up for a free trial and see what we’re all about.

(Download a Zip folder of tracks here.)

The music of many Trouble & Bass artists is yours to enjoy whenever and however you want with your Rhapsody subscription. Click here to sign up for a free trial and see what we’re all about.

Helmed by the dashing, occasionally duck-tailed New Yorker Luca Venezia, the Trouble & Bass label is a crop of new-school upstarts with old-school attitude. Like Diplo's Mad Decent or the French label Institubes (for whom Venezia has recorded as Curses!), Trouble & Bass is all but singleminded in its pursuit of the adrenaline rush of the rave, but open-minded enough not to get bogged down in retro pieties. Drawing from acid house, electro and breakbeat hardcore as well as dubstep and kuduro, the Trouble & Bass catalog is an extended love letter to overdrive, sub-bass and swing.

To celebrate the label's 25th release, it has collected its highlights so far with the appropriately named Trouble & Bass 25th Release, a collection of shamelessly peaktime-focused jams with wobbly bass, diva vocals, piano riffs and rave sirens firing on all cylinders.

Check into detention with these creative miscreants, and listen to some highlights in the playlist below.

Isan, F.S. Blumm and every other artist mentioned here are yours to enjoy whenever and however you want with your Rhapsody subscription. Click here to sign up for a free trial and see what we’re all about.

If there's anything I've learned from living in Berlin, it's that Germans like a cozy home.

Windowsills spill over with ceramic figurines and plastic doodads; garden plots are festooned with painted gnomes and polka-dotted toadstools.

Whether you view such things as kitsch or charm, the pleasures of hearth and home rank highly here. (One of the first words I learned in my German course was Heimat, or "home.") Appropriately, the living room is the source of one of Germany's key pop-music movements.

This release week is a big one for the indies, and boy are there some goodies. To make things easy for you, we've rounded up a good lot of 'em to feast your ears upon. Indie rock deities Pavement top off the week with a best-of compilation; Liars and Ted Leo & the Pharmacists continue to dominate; and younger bands including Frightened Rabbit, the Morning Benders, Titus Andronicus, and jj are keeping the veterans on their toes. Listen to all of the albums listed below, to your heart's content, on Rhapsody. Not a member? Sign up for a free trial.

Van Morrison, Horslips and every other artist mentioned here are yours to rock out to whenever and however you want with your Rhapsody subscription. Click here to sign up for a free trial and see what we’re all about.

Van Morrison and Rory Gallagher started Ireland rocking with their respective bands, Them and Taste, back in the '60s, and the nation has kept it up through almost 50 St. Patrick's Days since. And while songs by the Cranberries and Snow Patrol that might as well be sung by actual leprechauns are obviously not unheard of, and there are occasional Bonos who'd prefer to be the Pope, the Emerald Isle's specialty is rowdier stuff that tends to go quite well with green beer. A brief primer is below; a longer playlist can be found here.

Best-of comps are usually a marketing gimmick for record labels to make a little extra dough off  catalog artists, and the people who second-guess the albums are bored music nerds engaged in some esoteric parlor game. But it’s 2010, and here we are. On the cusp of their blockbuster (!) reunion tour, Pavement released Quarantine the Past: The Best of Pavement, collecting all the hits that kept the radio ablaze during the '90s. Seriously though, it’s not a horrible experience or anything. Anytime you put 23 Pavement tunes together it’s going to result in some quality listening. But they didn’t get it right, in our opinion, and here are the songs we would’ve added and the ones we would’ve taken away. So crack open your Pabst and be sure to scroll down to the end of the post, where there's a playlist that includes all the songs mentioned here.

Don't forget: every Pavement song mentioned in this article is yours to rock out to whenever and however you want with your Rhapsody subscription. Click here to sign up for a free trial and see what we’re all about.

Forget $5 footlongs, how about $5 albums? We dug through Rhapsody's seemingly endless supply of indie music and picked out some noteworthy albums for our latest MP3 sale. Get the one and only release from Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock's Ugly Casanova; "Kiss the Lipless" with the Shins; head down to the woods with Sleater-Kinney; or hit the creek with Iron & Wine. These albums and more are marked down to $5 for just one week only, starting today! Grab them all here. And don't forget, you can listen to all of these artists and more with your Rhapsody subscription. If you're not a member, sign up today for your free trial account.

Usually we think of cover versions as tributes to songs we know already — stars or hopefuls paying homage to a time-proven classic, perhaps. But once in a while, a cover song gets to be a huge hit when almost nobody out there ever heard the original version in the first place. For some reason, this seemed to happen especially often in the '80s. For instance, there's a real good chance you know who had hits with "I Love Rock N Roll" and "Tainted Love," but you might not realize that the artists who recorded those songs first were not Joan Jett or Soft Cell. A rundown of covers you might've thought were originals is below — including a couple where the hit artist cheated by changing the title.

Elvis Presley, Prince and every other artist mentioned here are yours to listen to whenever and however you want with your Rhapsody subscription. Click here to sign up for a free trial and see what we’re all about.

• "Hound Dog," Elvis Presley (1956); "Goin' Up the Country," Canned Heat (1968); "When the Levee Breaks," Led Zeppelin (1971): Only three of the probably scores of well-known rock songs whose initial blues versions aren't as famous. Consult Big Mama Thornton's 1953 "Hound Dog," Henry Thomas' 1928 "Bull Doze Blues" (before Canned Heat changed some words), and Memphis Minnie's 1928 "When the Levee Breaks" for evidence.

Welcome to another edition of Classic Rock Crate Digger, a (near) weekly column wherein Rhapsody nerd Justin Farrar wanders the never-ending maze that is our catalog in search of classic rock's forgotten gems. If you're new 'round these parts, then also check out the Crate Digger's archives.

Over the last two weeks the Classic Rock Crate Digger has been obsessing over The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, arguably the apex of the Genesis discography. I've always appreciated Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, but it hasn't been until the last couple years that The Lamb's sheer brilliance has revealed itself to me. It isn't just prog; it's a way-ahead-of-its-time art-pop album every bit as futuristic as David Bowie's Heroes, Brian Eno's Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) and the Walker Brothers' Nite Flights. We're talking 100% avant rock, 1970s-style.

But here's the catch: the Crate Digger, believe it or not, doesn't know early Genesis nearly well enough to write about them. Oh sure, I know and totally dig the basics, but this is prog we're talking about. It's complex and arty and difficult. Any critique worth a damn needs to come from a hardcore fanatic who knows the band's discography inside and out. Fortunately, I know two fanatics: Bob and Dave Kane. I grew up with the Brothers Kane in a place called Lyncourt, a miniscule speck of barely-middle-class houses and a china factory, rubbing shoulders with the city of Syracuse in central New York. Dave and Bob, a pair of seriously precocious preteens and gifted musicians to boot, were anything but average. When just about every other kid in the 'hood was lapping up Top 40 fare from Casey Kasem, they were honing their chops and diving mind-first into old-school progressive rock, particularly the mighty Genesis. Hell, they were too busy Selling England by the Pound to even notice Madonna's skimpy white lace.

Well, then again …

Over the last couple weeks we here at Rhapsody HQ have been talking about our favorite covers albums. And whenever we start obsessing over a particular kind of record or even a genre we do what we always do: tally a list! Of course, the list below is by no means definitive, but after much discussion we managed to put together a collection of 20 records that does a great job of covering our editors' diverse interests: glam, Tuvan throat singing, indie pop, jazz-funk, honky-tonk, pop metal, progressive rock, contemporary country, baroque pop, Americana etc. There's something here for everyone, so do dig in.

Don't forget: Every artist mentioned below, from Macca to Elvis Costello to Rush, is yours to rock out to whenever and however you want with your Rhapsody subscription.

Click here to sign up for a free trial and see what we're all about.

Hot Chip, Massive Attack and every other band listed in this article are yours to rock out to whenever and however you want with your Rhapsody subscription. Click here to sign up for a free trial and see what we’re all about.

The new year gets off to a rousing start with a wave of new albums from across the electronic-music spectrum. Downtempo veterans Massive Attack, returning from a seven-year absence, are the elder statesmen of the bunch, and while Heligoland may not break much new ground, the smart collaborations and production help them hold their own. Far bolder is a pair of albums from two artists quickly becoming standard-bearers for left-of-center pop music. Hot Chip ease into a kind of gangly maturity with One Life Stand, while the Knife deliver their most avant-garde statement yet with Tomorrow, In a Year, the score to a Danish opera about the life of Charles Darwin. (Who else but Scandinavians would come up with that?) Charting a different path under the noonday moon, Norwegian disco duo Lindstrom and Christabelle treat us to icy, Italo-inspired electronic funk with their expansive Real Life Is No Cool. And Four Tet delivers his strongest solo effort yet with There Is Love in You, a delicious distillation of his interests in psychedelia and dance music. Read on for full reviews plus links to hear all these albums and more on Rhapsody.

Spoon had a pretty incredible '00s (seriously, four great albums). So for their first release in a new decade -- also their first self-produced effort -- Transference is just what the title promises: a transferring of all that the band has learned and defined into a sound that is as familiar as it is fresh. Slight piano bumps, soft hi-hat hits, lo-fi guitar, the occasional echo, and the rare fuzz effect ebb and flow with the same patience and ease as Britt Daniel's coos. This is Spoon as you know and love them: minimalist, smart, catchy, always playing it cool.

Since we've been digging Transference, we've decided to put it on sale in our MP3 store for just $5.99 this week. That's like the cost of a, um, serving spoon?

BUY IT HERE FOR $5.99.

Owl City, Postal Service, Brokencyde and every other band listed in this article are yours to rock out to whenever and however you want with your Rhapsody subscription. Take a free trial and see what we’re all about.

Owl City’s Adam Young may be only 23 years old, but he’s already beginning to look old-fashioned. The Billboard-topping artist, who was still living in his parents’ basement when he began recording music, established the foundations of his fan base via MySpace. (Remember MySpace?) Modeled on the sparkly electro-pop of the Postal Service, Owl City might even be considered a kind of retro undertaking. OK, it’s a stretch, but just think: the Postal Service’s lone album came out in 2003. That’s eons ago, in Internet years. In any case, Owl City’s blend of electronic production, emo songwriting and Web 2.0 community-building signaled a major aesthetic shift for the American underage set, reuniting punks with synths and bringing together the whole Hot Topic Nation under a cheerfully post-everything umbrella.

Now, nipping at Young’s heels comes a slew of musicians raised on the diversified diet that substitutes for monoculture these days: dance pop, emo, crunk, trance. Some of them, like Owl City, stick mainly to a twinkly sort of shtick you might call “tweemo”; others take pages from Lil Jon and Insane Clown Posse. But no matter whether they come across as shrinking violets or smirking violent offenders, they love their synths and their Auto-Tune. Whether you call it emotronica, crunk-punk or crabcore, it’s a crazy new world of American synth-pop, one that even Suicide surely never imagined. Check out a playlist, and read on for a who’s who in the bleeps ‘n’ bangs scene.

Jay Reatard was the archetypal punk rocker: ridiculously talented, prolific, smart, totally weird, nihilistic, paranoid, tortured -- qualities worthy of worship balanced with traits most of us shamefully try to hide instead of embrace. Sadly, the multi-talented musician, born Jimmy Lee Lindsey, Jr., passed away on Wednesday, January 13, 2010, at the young age of 29.

An ace guitarist and singer-songwriter, Lindsey helped boost the garage rock scene in his hometown of Memphis, where he began recording at the tender age of 15. His first project was the Reatards (initially just him playing guitar, singing and adding his own DIY percussion). He went on to record and play with numerous local artists and bands -- Lost Sounds, Final Solutions, Nervous Patterns, among others. He eventually released his first solo record, Blood Visions, in 2006, before signing to indie label juggernaut Matador Records. He most recently released Watch Me Fall in early 2009.

Lindsey may not have been a household name, but he was a powerful force in the indie and rock worlds. Blood-soaked album covers, fist-fight-inducing performances, song titles like "Greed, Money, Useless Children" -- these were all sly diversions to keep the faint-of-heart away. But those who dared to listen, watch and revel in his talents got every bit of who he was: the good, the bad, the fun, the defiant, the gifted. Now that's punk rock.

Dig into Jay Reatard's catalog on Rhapsody, including exclusive live cuts of his performance at Rhapsody Rocks NYC in 2008.

Ignore the naysayers, 2009 was a great year in indie rock. Since it's a new year and a new decade, we're going to keep that optimistic spirit afloat as we take a look into the future and gather excitement for our most anticipated albums. There are plenty of rumored releases for the year (Radiohead?! Arcade Fire?!), so we've decided to focus on the first quarter. Kicking off 2010 is the much ballyhooed release of Vampire Weekend's sophomore album, Contra. Here are 10 more to get giddy about. (And if you're really getting antsy, listen to our playlist featuring singles from many of these upcoming albums.)

And, of course, you can listen to these as soon as they come out with your Rhapsody subscription. Take a free trial and see what we're all about. 

Contra is yours to rock out to whenever and however you want with your Rhapsody subscription. Take a free trial and see what we're all about.

Maybe it's just because they're already so far removed from their Ivy League days, but acclaimed Anglophile Afrophiles Vampire Weekend have a bit of writer's block on their inevitably chart-scaling second album, Contra. Oxford commas and New England commutes apparently don't cut it anymore once you're an indie-rock star, so you have to look for random rhymes for "horchata" instead. Which isn't to suggest they're not still obsessed with privilege. There's a very long song called "Diplomat's Son" that incongruously opens with an M.I.A. sample, and "California English" says something about "private schools" -- it's just harder to tell if they have anything clever to say about the topic.

V.W. have been singled out from the start as archetypes of the industry's accelerated hype cycle -- famous on the basis of just a couple of MySpace songs, months before the release of their first album. So it's less shocking that the sophomore slump would hit them than that they managed a fairly enjoyable debut in the first place. And it's not like Contra is a rehash; the title is a politically confused if presumably ironic reference to Sandinista!, the Clash's over-the-top-eclectic coffee-table triple LP from 1981, and the V.W.s do seem to broaden their own rhythmic palate across the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, in their own prim way. "Holiday" sounds like Haircut 100 doing some jaunty ska oompah; there's something vaguely zoukish about "California English"; "Cousins," the single and least twee track, opens with a hard James Brown vamp that Pigbag might've bleated out in the '80s. Evidently they've been listening to Latin music, too. But mostly there's a sort of stiffened punk-funk clank not far from what was coming out of Brooklyn's more bohemian neighborhoods from bands like the Rapture and Radio 4 at the previous decade's outset. Which might be useful on hipster dancefloors if Vampire grooves didn't have a mysterious tendency to clumsily disentregrate almost as soon as they're established.

They get praised for putting "space" in their music, probably because of the plinky-plonky xylophones and fancy-pantsy string orchestrations. Which are cute, sometimes. But the melodies aren't there like before, and inevitably Contra's charming numbers are the ones kept short and speedy; when the band slows down and stretches out -- frequently so Ezra Koenig can pirouette two-syllables words into ten -- they're a snooze. Obviously the hiccuping and yelping, just like all the upper-crust affectations, are part of the concept. But even rich boys need hooks, right?

Chillwave, glo-fi, "hypnagogic pop": in a year that many critics agree didn't provide much in the way of musical innovation, the main novelty in indie circles flew under names that sounded awesome but meant … well, what the hell did they mean, exactly?

The music -- made by bands with evocative names like Neon Indian, Memory Cassette and Washed Out -- sounds much like you would expect something called "glo-fi" to sound: luminous and lysergic, grounded in '80s pop, but with echo, reverb and fuzzed-out harmonies trumping songwriting and lyrical expression. (Imagine the soundtrack to Ghostbusters gone avant-garde.)

Like so many fly-by-night styles, I'm not sure that is a "real" subgenre; the music is too variable, the layers of influence (shoegaze, ambient, lo-fi, electro-funk, house, '60s pop) too porous to build anything durable or even particularly coherent. A wide gulf separates Ganglians' noisy garage pop and Pictureplane's bedroom rave. Many of the acts associated with the fad might bristle at their inclusion, in fact. But it's precisely that unstable quality that makes the phenomenon so interesting. It's less a genre than a meme: call it hashtag music, with a slew of acts all repping for an unmistakably woozy kind of effect, without necessarily agreeing on how to get there.

There are plenty of precedents, of course, from Dan Deacon's last few years of loony tunes to the mid-'00s "folktronica" of Four Tet and Caribou, and all the way back to the beginning of the decade, with the Avalanches' Since I Left You, a high-water mark of super-saturated sampledelia.

And there are even more outliers, artists whose music bears some relation to the queasy roller-coaster rush this stuff induces but tilts more in the direction of ambient drone, freak-folk or other strains of in-betweenness: Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Grouper, White Rainbow, Lucky Dragons, Animal Collective, even polychromatic post-dubstepper Joy Orbison -- the list goes on and on.

But I don't think we have to commit ourselves to a strict definition of glo-fi and chillwave (or even keep using those terms for too much longer) to agree that a whole lot of indie acts and bedroom producers are currently drinking from the same punchbowl -- and that the combined results add up to something that's way more interesting than mere microgenre hype.

Read on for a handy cheat-sheet of artists associated with the phenomenon, broken out into stylistic subsets, and check out a three-hour playlist of their muddled sounds. As always, you can listen to the playlist and all the albums mentioned here (plus about 6 million more) by simply signing up for a free Rhapsody trial subscription.

Watch as Thomas and Christian of Phoenix share their thoughts on the decade in music - specifically, why the 2000's totally ruled and the 1990's totally didn't.

Have you seen the rest of our Best of the Decade interviews? Watch The xx, Gossip, Snow Patrol and more tell you about their favorite albums of the last decade for Rhapsody's On the Record video series.

What's the fuss all about? Decide for yourself. As always, you can listen to all these albums by simply signing up for a free Rhapsody trial subscription.

I’m utterly incapable of wrapping my head around the fact that Jack Rose is gone. The guitarist passed away -- at his home in Philadelphia, from an apparent heart attack -- on the very day I was putting together Rhapsody’s Best Roots Albums of the Decade list. Rose is, of course, on it. His 2005 masterwork, Kensington Blues, sits at No. 5. This was not even two weeks ago: Saturday, December 5, 2009. In that time, Rose’s music has laid claim to my ears almost exclusively. Then again, it's not as if I just discovered Jack Rose. I’ve been obsessing over his music for most of the decade. In addition to spinning Kensington Blues and a slew of other solo joints, there’s his work with underground drone-masters Pelt (the version of “Calais to Dover” on Bestio Tergum Degero is such a mind-bending opus) and the brand-new Jack Rose & the Black Twig Pickers album, the exquisite offspring of his collaboration with one of southwest Virginia’s finest old-time revival acts.

Rose wasn’t famous. He was revered, yes. But famous? No. Chances are a lot folks reading this blog have never even heard of the guy. For the uninitiated, he was -- and I’m not being overly dramatic when I say this -- one of the greatest American instrumentalists of the modern era. His masterful fingerpicking built upon the progressive-folk tradition that heavies like John Fahey, Robbie Basho, Sandy Bull, Davy Graham, Peter Walker and even a young Leo Kottke originally established in the 1960s and ’70s. We’re talking about a single man, climbing onstage with just his guitar and nothing else, and creating glorious, richly textured compositions that you wouldn’t even think possible from such a stripped-down setup.

If you're a purist, then many of the jams you're about to encounter are going to confound, maybe even offend, you. And that's because I have a very liberal (some would say skewed) definition what constitutes roots music. Fellow Rhapsody scribe Chuck Eddy once used the phrase "art country" to describe my aesthetic sensibilities. And he's right. I love rootsy stuff, but I also love psychedelic weirdness and underground-bred eccentricities. The aughts were a pretty darn good decade for the intersection of these various proclivities. With the alt-country movement fragmenting and thus relinquishing its grip on the basic concept of a non-mainstream folk-based genre (however nebulous), the playing field opened up for a new breed of earthy oddball. A lot of these youngbloods — more influenced by the progressive folk of John Fahey and classic British folk-rock than, say, anybody from the Uncle Tupelo camp — belonged to the "freak-folk" and "new weird America" trends. Yet there were just as many who had no hip affiliation, who weren't freakers at all. Groups like the Moondoggies, D. Charles Speer & the Helix and Flying Canyon emerged and simply used ancient threads to weave something new and really quite edgy.

One major influence on 21st-century "art country" that cannot be ignored is the emergence of the reissue. Dozens upon dozens of artists lost to history for one reason or another were unearthed and embraced by young peeps who liked the idea of vintage hippie and folk music but who had long ago grown tired of hearing from the usual suspects. Nowadays, if you ask some alternative/indie type who their fave old-school songbirds are, he or she just might rattle off the names Vashti Bunyan, Karen Dalton and Judee Sill before even mentioning Joni Mitchell, who used to totally own the hippie-songstress archetype. What's remarkable about Vashti's case in particular is how the reissue of her 1970 album, Just Another Diamond Day, actually led to her collaborating with those furry little creatures in Animal Collective (whose Campfire Songs looks out over "art country" from a rocky bluff -- in sight, but distant). In a sense the reissue revolution of this decade played a similar role to that of Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music in that both retrieved forgotten history and reinterpreted it for a new generation of musicians. Deeply inspired, they used this information to spawn new sounds, new ideas -- and new jams!

Of course, there's no denying the classics when you hear them, which is why my list is also home to Chatham County Line, Charlie Parr, the Black Twig Pickers and even bluegrass icon (and all-around god) Del McCoury. These are artists who make excellent American folk music that hovers just outside time.

Now my list of the 25 best "art country" albums of decade is down below. But before taking a look, I need to tell you something. And yes, I sound like a corporate drone. However, what I dig about Rhapsody (I'm both customer and employee) is that I've consumed very nearly every single artist, album and song you're reading about simply by using our service. I think that's super cool. Not to sound crass and commercial, but hell, you should check out our free trial. Seriously.

One more thing: Here's my Roots' Best Albums of the Decade playlist. Dig it!  

25. Songs: Ohia
Ghost Tropic, 2000
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Ghost Tropic is a particularly stark affair, even for Jason Molina (aka Songs: Ohia), a Neil Young-inspired singer-songwriter known for crafting emotionally naked folk ballads. If just a single instrument were removed from, say, "The Body Burned Away" or "Not Just a Ghost's Heart," there would be no song. So yeah, Molina is a master of rural minimalism. In fact, the 11-minute "Incantation" is nothing save his wavering croon and an atmospheric hum.

24. Maplewood
Maplewood, 2004
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Maplewood hails from that asphalt desert known as New York City, but the group is pure California — with a detour through Scotland. Much like Glasgow's Teenage Fanclub, the quartet mixes vintage power pop and West Coast country rock. As you'd expect, their harmonies are light, tight and airy, while the guitars do lots of chiming and jangling. Maplewood's pastoral vibe might feel a tad too precious for some, but not for those who worship early Poco, America and even Bread. Mellow my mind, yo.

23. Chatham County Line
Speed of the Whippoorwill, 2006
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The title track could be the most soulful tune Chatham County Line has put on tape in its short recording history. But Speed of the Whippoorwill is more than just a testament to the group's rapid evolution. It's about a bluegrass sound that's both a product and a reflection of modern America. Sure, it exudes that old-time feel, but narrative-heavy tunes like "They Were Just Children" and "Coming Home" are filled with populist characters who are probably carrying the same celly as you.

22. Espers
Espers, 2004
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More than any other first-tier freak-folk group (Devendra, Joanna, Vetiver, etc.), it’s Philadelphia’s Espers who sound the most like real-deal musicians committed to folk music as craft. Deeply inspired by the magical forest vibes of both the Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention, the band’s debut is a stunningly mature effort. Greg Weeks, Meg Baird and company have definitely done their homework, creating a sound that’s both old school and stridently modern in its attention to the details.

21. Vashti Bunyan
Just Another Diamond Day, 2004 (reissue)
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Just Another Day was originally released in 1970. However, the aughts have been the decade of the reissue. Undiscovered in its time, Bunyan’s debut album helped spark the freak-folk movement three decades later. In this sense the whimsical Brit-folk songstress has more in common with Animal Collective, with whom she has collaborated, and Joanna Newsom than all them smelly old hippies from back in the day. One more thing: Just Another Diamond Day is the ultimate soundtrack for dawn.

20. Heartless Bastards
The Mountain, 2009
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Before The Mountain, a Heartless Bastards album was more or less the band setting up its gear in the studio and rocking out. The Mountain is different. While "Early in the Morning" and "Nothing Seems the Same" prove the band still drops the (indie) blues-rock hammer, the rest of this killer album finds the Heartless Bastards exploring Crazy Horse-brand country rock, acoustic blues and even some moody folk-rock. As always, the star of the show is Erika Wennerstrom's voice, a gnarly chunk of contorted beauty.

19. Vetiver
Tight Knit, 2009
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On previous records, Vetiver's Andy Cabic was a freak-folkie who obviously owns a fat stack of awesome albums — not bad, but not great either. With the release of Tight Knit, however, the dude is no longer a collector-nerd. This is profound landscape music, a misty coastal piedmont thoughtfully carved from the singer-songwriter's twin loves: vintage British folk and West Coast soft rock. Everything here works perfectly, from the compositions to Cabic's elegant whisper to his band's patient gait.

18. The Del McCoury Band
Family Circle, 2009
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To say Del McCoury is one of bluegrass' last great practitioners is to seriously undervalue the man. Del is one of music's great singers and stylists, period. He has found a way to make traditional bluegrass sound contemporary without falling into the typical aesthetic pitfalls (too progressive, too retro, etc.). Family Circle is a stone-cold classic, and that's all there is to it. Tunes like "Hello Lonely" and "Bad Day for Love" stand alongside anything from Bill Monroe or the Stanley Brothers.

17. Kurt Vile
God Is Saying This to You?, 2009
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Vile sounds depressed. After dropping a debut bursting with sing-along pop anthems, he gives us this moody nosedive into fingerpicked folk-blues and hazy psychedelia. You really couldn't ask for a better candlelight-at-3 A.M. listening experience than God Is Saying This to You? The first lines of the opener, "My Sympathy," encapsulate what's to come: "So you want to marry me/ Well, you got my sympathy." About 30 seconds later he croaks, "So you want a baby/ Well, it's got my sympathy."

16. Charlie Parr
1922, 2003
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Charlie Parr is an independent folk artist, but he’s not an indie-folk artist. There’s a difference. 1922 feels like a folk-revival album from the early 1960s. Parr’s husky voice and country-blues fingerpicking recall Dave Van Ronk, as well as pre-Bringing It All Back Home Dylan. It’s really quite astounding America can still produce an artist who sounds like this. Though “Migrant Boxcar Train” stands third in line, bump it to the front; it’s one of the saddest folk ballads of the decade.

15. Maquiladora
A House All on Fire, 2005
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Previous indie bands have hinted at a fusion of post-rock/slowcore and the kind of cosmic rural jamming the Dead mastered in 1972 and '73, but only Maquiladora have truly explored the concept. A House All on Fire is both spacey and earthy; it's the product of both desert nomads and barroom habitues. This creeping music could only have come out of three guys who live in Southern California, by the border, near vast expanses of sun, ocean and desert. This is a record to get utterly lost inside of.

14. The War on Drugs
Wagonwheel Blues, 2008
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If Dr. Dog are the Beach Boys of Philadelphia, then the War on Drugs are the city's Byrds, a jangle pop band fusing Americana and mild psychedelia. But unlike the Dog, T.W.O.D. aren't exclusively committed to the retro mission. Wagonwheel Blues opens with an anthemic homage to Dylan, but soon veers through ambient drones that would sound right at home on an Animal Collective/Dodos playlist. Although the young band hasn't figured out how to totally fuse these two streams, it's well on its way.

13. Greensky Bluegrass
Five Interstates, 2008
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When playing live, which they do a lot, Greensky Bluegrass are a new-grass beast capable of picking some heady jams. On record, however, the Midwest group is driven by well-crafted tunes, smart lyrics and tight harmonies. In this sense, Greensky Bluegrass have more in common with alt-country dudes like the Jayhawks and Son Volt than Leftover Salmon. Outside a few instrumentals and a cover of the standard "Freeborn Man," Five Interstates is all about earnest meditations upon love, roots and rambling.

12. The Sadies
New Season, 2007
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Before you listen to anything else on the Sadies' seventh studio album, play "A Simple Aspiration," a blissed-out earful of ringing guitars, trippy lyrics and transcendental vocals, framed in the echoing production of hazy, hallucinatory '60s rock. It's unlike anything else on the album, which is otherwise occupied by a lot of darn fine alt-country. But like a fine wine, if you take a whiff of that expertly executed psychedelic rock first, you'll hear its influence in the other tracks. The Sadies aren't necessarily more rock than country, but they are expert craftsmen of subtle layers.

11. The Moondoggies
Don’t Be a Stranger, 2008
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Too many modern rural folk-rock bands slip into the "country life is good" schtick. But the Moondoggies are different. A fusion of Crazy Horse crunch and the Grateful Dead's hippie gospel, the band is detached, desperate and too preoccupied with their own demons to ever enjoy the so-called simple life. There are light moments for sure. But more times than not, they give way to darkness. "Bogachiel Rain Blues," for example, is a barroom raver whose primary hook is the line "I'm going down to die."

10. The Black Twig Pickers
Hobo Handshake, 2008
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Old-time music suffers from museum syndrome. It’s so revered as an artifact that just about any group that attempts some kind of modern update or innovation almost always screws the pooch. Enter Hobo Handshake. On their best album to date, the Black Twig Pickers, who have studied with authentic mountain musicians in rural southwest Virginia, find that elusive bridge between archaic and modern. In fact, they just might be the most forward-looking old-time revival act since the mighty New Lost City Ramblers. Yowsa.

9. Oakley Hall
I’ll Follow You, 2007
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The chills of Oakley Hall's first two LPs happened when everything came together: singer Pat Sullivan reaching for a reedy harmony with Rachel Cox's sweet alto over a saturation of '60s psyche dusted with just enough wiry twang to evoke '70s C 'n' W. On the band's third LP, these signature combinations are everywhere, making it their most consistent effort to date and yielding keenly tooled singles like "Rue the Blues" and "Marine Life." Knees get weak when Cox takes over for a rare lead vocal, as on "All the Way Down."

8. The Skygreen Leopards
Disciples of California, 2006
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After just a couple spins, Disciples of California will have you rummaging around the attic, looking for your musty copies of American Beauty and New Riders of the Purple Sage. But here’s the thing: the Leopards don’t actually sound like a vintage hippie folk-rock band. They very ingeniously pay tribute to the mythology of a bygone era with a style that has more in common with Television Personalities, the Go-Betweens and other jangle-pop auteurs born and raised in the 1980s. So cool.

7. Beachwood Sparks
Beachwood Sparks, 2000
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Twee-lovin' country rock is what the debut album by this Los Angeles-based group is all about. A well-produced and mixed album filled with songs that take the best elements of psychedelic, country rock and dream pop and toss them together to create a forward-thinking album with feet planted in the past. "Silver Morning After" and "The Reminder" are highlights.

6. Moviola
Dead Knowledge, 2007
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After 15 years and six albums, Ohio's Moviola drop their best record. Growing beyond youthful, lo-fi primitivism, they're now mature folk-rock craftsmen as skilled as Amish carpenters. From rustic country-pop to punchy R&B, Dead Knowledge unfolds like a true American panorama. The quartet even tips its glass to freak-folk with a Celtic drone titled "Black Haired Katherine." But the disc's best track is the piano ballad "Rudy," a melancholic reflection on Midwest boredom.

5. Jack Rose
Kensington Blues, 2005
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Although a long road stretches before guitarist Jack Rose, fans are already calling Kensington Blues his masterwork. Fellow maestro Ben Chasny went so far as to say, "Finally, somebody has something to say on the acoustic guitar that hasn't been said before." Followers of John Fahey will dispute such a claim, but what they can't deny is this record's profound beauty. No matter how far out Rose travels, he never forsakes melody and rhythm. His tightly woven lyricism conjures entire landscapes.

4. D. Charles Speer & The Helix
After Hours, 2007
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After Hours is one of those rare records that cuts across genres like Patton’s tanks plowing through Saharan sands. With their roots in the free improv/drone scene, D. Charles Speer & the Helix take alt-country, country-rock and dusty Americana and filter them through mind-altering psychedelia and fuzzy freakery. But what’s truly amazing is how the group never ditches the tune — or craft for that matter. They love both good songs and wild sounds. All hail a modern classic!

3. Karen Dalton
In My Own Time, 2006 (reissue)
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Much like Vashti Bunyan’s Just Another Diamond Day and Judee Sill’s self-titled debut, In My Own Time feels like a modern record. Sure, it came out in 1971, but listeners are only now coming to terms with Karen Dalton’s sublime and ghostly fusion of folk, blues and soul. The sheer number of imitators this reissue has spawned in the 21st century should give you an idea of just how ahead of her time she really was. And yet, none of them have found a way to capture Dalton’s bruised and breaking croon.

2. The USA Is a Monster
Tasheyana Compost, 2003
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Now we’re totally off the rails! To 99.9% of the world’s population, the USA Is a Monster will sound like ugly noise and heavy metal tossed into an industrial blender. Dig beneath the surface, however, and you’ll hear a band that’s continuing in the tradition of the Meat Puppets. Tasheyana Compost is an underground-rock masterpiece dipped in twang, Native American rhythms and an earnest love for the environment. There exists nothing else like this strange little disc in the entire galaxy.

1. Flying Canyon
Flying Canyon, 2006
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Flying Canyon's sole release burns slowly. The phantom feedback of guitarist and producer Glenn Donaldson haunts Cayce Lindner's rural ballads and brooding dirges. Lindner's roots were planted in the hippie country of Kris Kristofferson, Neil Young and '90s lo-fi: Sebadoh, Red Red Meat. But unlike most indie singer-songwriters, who are forever college kids, Lindner's lumbering sincerity is that of a man, one who believes in the mythology of classic rock 'n' roll. This is heavy folk music, maybe even painful at times — but always great.

Honorable mentions

James Hand, Shadow on the Ground
Campfire Songs (aka Animal Collective), Campfire Songs
The Coydogs, The Coydogs
The Donkeys, Living on the Other Side
Jack Rose, Jack Rose & The Black Twig Pickers
The Felice Brothers, The Felice Brothers
Josephine Foster, All the Leaves are Gone
Dr. Dog, Easy Beat
Tift Merritt, Bramble Rose
TK Webb, Phantom Parade
Michael Hurley, Ancestral Swamp
Turner Cody, First Light
James Blackshaw, Litany of Echoes
Dredd Foole, Daze on the Mounts
Woods, At Rear House
Asian Mae, Collsing
Wovenhand, Blush Music
Don Howland, The Land Beyond the Mountains
South San Gabriel, Welcome, Convalescence
Kath Bloom, Terror
Blitzen Trapper, Wild Mountain Nation
Arbouretum, Rites of Uncovering
No-Neck Blues Band, Qvaris
Giant Sand, Chore of Enchantment
Phosphorescent, To Willie
Joanna Newsom, Ys
Drive-By Truckers, The Dirty South
Glenn Jones, Against Which The Sea Continually Beats
Califone, Roots & Crowns
The Corndawg, Live and In Person
Jolie Holland, Springtime Can Kill You
PG Six, Parlor Tricks And Porch Favorites
Steffen Basho-Junghans, Waters in Azure

Just a minuscule sliver of the killer reissues worth mentioning:

The Beau Brummels, Triangle
Judee Sill, Judee Sill
The New Lost City Ramblers (R.I.P. Mike Seeger), 50 Years: Where Do You Come From? Where Do You Go?
Henry Flynt, Back Porch Hillbilly Blues Volume 1
Tim Buckley, Live at the Folklore Center - March 6th, 1967
Elyse Weinberg, Elyse
Michael Hurley, Blueberry Wine (aka First Songs)
The Lyman Family with Lisa Kindred, American Avatar
The Red Fox Chasers, I'm Going Down to North Carolina: The Complete Recordings of the Red Fox Chasers (1928-31)
John Phillips, John Phillips (a.k.a. John The Wolfking of L.A.)
Sandy Bull, Still Valentines Day, 1969: Live At The Matrix, San Francisco
The Holy Modal Rounders, Live in 65
Bill Fox, Shelter from the Smoke
Jay Bolotin, Jay Bolotin
Iain Matthews, Valley Hi
Red Red Meat, Bunny Gets Paid
Jackson C. Frank, Blues Run the Game

Forget six degrees of Kevin Bacon, try three degrees of Them Crooked Vultures -- the new rock supergroup featuring John Paul Jones, Josh Homme and Dave Grohl -- and you'll get to just about anyone who's ever picked up an instrument. Because that would be a never-ending project, we decided to plant the seed of a Kevin Bacon-esque flowchart -- sans Jones (not because we don't love him or Led Zeppelin, but because that would be a whole other never-ending project) -- and see how far we could let it grow. So with the two ringleaders of rock's current fraternity, desert-rock pioneer Homme and drummer/frontman extraordinaire Grohl, we've charted out their numerous bands, projects and collaborations and realized these guys are not just ridiculously prolific, they have so many connections to each other and rock's elite that we couldn't even plot them all. We stopped at around 69, and that number was mere coincidence.

Our challenge to you: click on the image to view our complete, interactive flowchart, listen to all the artists represented -- just click on their name and press Play -- and start configuring more degrees of separation. Not too difficult, right?

The Swell Season

ANTI- Records was founded in 1999 as a sister label to Epitaph Records. It's the byproduct of  its founder, Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz, growing up a bit and realizing that he has broadened his musical horizons beyond just punk rock. Sure, the Distillers and one of ANTI-'s earliest signings, Tom Waits, are both punks at heart, but they hardly make good labelmates.

The latest crop of releases from the Swell Season, Neko Case, Os Mutantes, Islands and Booker T. are kind of all over the place stylistically; they almost make you think there oughtta be yet another sublabel under the Epitaph roof. Irish-Czech emo-pop (the Swell Season), cheeky alt-country (Case), Brazilian psychedelia (Os Mutantes), Hammond organ-infused blues-rock (Booker) and preciously baroque indie rock (Islands) hardly share a common note, but maybe that's the point.

Here's a taste of free tracks from the label's latest.

Ever since the early days of MTV, Flock of Seagulls haircuts, and Spandau Ballet new romanticism, it's been widely accepted that synthesizer pop is a mostly British (or at its weirdest, continental European) phenomenon: "Glitter-disco-synthesizer night school, all that noble savage drum drum drum," the band X ranted in their 1983 anti-Anglo tirade "I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts." Americans were just too gritty and guitar-loving for all that silliness, right? Well, not all of them. Lady Gaga is only the latest -- and potentially the biggest -- artist from U.S. shores to re-imagine Anglo/Euro technopop, fashion sense and all. Here's a rundown of electronically inclined Americans who preceded her.

There are three really cool things about my job. One of them is getting to turn people on to the music I'm most jazzed about: it's a license to pontificate, really -- a pulpit for strictly musical evangelism. But, recognizing that my own tastes can be, shall we say, peculiar, I also try to listen with open ears and the humble reminder that what doesn't float my boat (a rather cramped dinghy, it sometimes appears) may carry another listener's craft all the way to shore. They talk about the critic's role as a "filter," but I'm really more like a theater usher, lighting your way to the appropriate aisle.

(Pictured: Deerhunter)

Chicago-based Kranky records has been tearing both electronic and rock music a new one since 1993. From the droning post-rock of the label's first signing Labradford, to the crackling landscapes of Tim Hecker, and the rumored-to-be-defunct, lo-fi pop act Deerhunter, the label has chucked the envelope clear out the window into a nebulous cloud of beautifully musical goo.

For neophytes and fans alike, here's a free Kranky sampler of recent releases to get your get your feet--and ears--wet, including tracks from Atlas Sound, Pan American, Windy and Carl and more. Soon you too, ladies and gentlemen, will be floating in space.

Blister Pop is the name of an album from the Embarrassment, this wonderful little band that has become something of a cult legend over the last two decades. The Kansas-based group crafted a shambolic -- and really quite nervy -- brand of underground awesomeness that fell in the cracks between post-punk, hardcore, power pop and Attractions-style pub rock. Nowadays, the Embarrassment would be considered indie rock or quite possibly pop-punk, but back in the 1980s there wasn't a quality name for what they were doing.

The likely pick for my favorite album of 2009 is looking to be the self-titled debut from the xx, a co-ed London quartet of 20-year-olds whose self-produced album is a masterpiece of sensuality and restraint. Even I'm surprised at my enthusiasm for the record: it doesn't necessarily reach out and grab you on first listen, favoring atmospheres over hooks and suggestion over immediacy. Still, I have a hard time listening to it only once in a given sitting (one of the pleasures of a 39-minute album).

One of the things I like about the record is how it distills so many influences into such a simple, unassuming form: there's a vintage rock 'n' roll patina borrowed from Sun Studios-era Elvis and, less authentically vintage, Chris Isaak's "Wicked Games" (which serves as the barely disguised foundation for the xx's "Infinity"). The welling bass is reminiscent of dubstep and UK garage, and the sullen ambiance recalls post-punk and early goth; the song structures suggest the molasses Americana of Galaxie 500 and their prot�g�s, like Low, Yo La Tengo and Mazzy Star.

The more you listen, the more references you can spot, floating like drops of oil on the surface of the xx's inky, glistening infusion. Since I can't just keep listening to their album on a constant loop (can I?), I put together a playlist that pulls together a number of possible xx influences—as well as a few contemporaries who achieve a similarly dark, viscous bliss in their music—including all the above plus Slowdive, Hugo Largo, David Bowie, Massive Attack, David Sylvian, Cocteau Twins, Seefeel, Brian Eno and many, many more. Listen to a sampling below, and check out the whole playlist here at Rhapsody's Playlist Central.

New albums from Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam have me daydreaming about the days when grunge stormed America and wrapped just about every high school between Seattle and Syracuse in red-and-black checked flannel. Those were heady days for me and my alternative pals Jay, Kerry, Jared and Ted. In the summer before senior year, we’d sit around Ted’s house (his parents were never home) and impatiently wait for MTV to play the “Alive” video or maybe even Temple of the Dog's "Hunger Strike." Feeling intensely nostalgic, I’ve been spinning the popular classics of grunge over the last week or so. Some of these sound really great, others kind of dated and a few haven’t changed at all. I figure I'd share my discoveries … in the form of a stock report.

The fall release schedule has kicked in, in earnest, and the electronic-music world is humming like an overheated Theremin. From Basement Jaxx' cyborg pop to the nether reaches of the underground, here's a selection of recent records that don't require a PhD in electronic subgenres to appreciate.

With the release of Paramore's new album, Twilight's Kristen Stewart rocking her best Joan Jett for an upcoming bio-pic and Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O leading an all-star cast of indie rockers on the Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack, it's really not a bad time to be a chick in a rock band. But of course, all chicks fronting rock bands face the age-old question at some point: To go solo or not to go solo? It's a question Paramore's Hayley Williams had to quash when rumors swirled this summer over a possible solo move when she contributed a track to the Jennifer's Body soundtrack. She's stayed adamant that Paramore is going nowhere, but this got us thinking -- as tempting as it is to reach for the brass ring, is going solo always a good idea? We lined up a few examples Ms. Williams might want to consider for future reference. (And please to be remembering: if you dig Paramore, solo projects, Wild Things, or all of the above, then get on the jet with a Rhapsody subscription -- try it for free right here, right now.) 

The era of the celebrity DJ is on the wane. These days, the real big-tent tastemakers are music supervisors: the behind-the-scenes types with the knack for administering just the right dose of Snow Patrol at the tear-jerking climax of a Grey's Anatomy episode. And no one does that better than Alex Patsavas, whose keen ears and bursting Rolodex have put their sonic stamp on Grey's Anatomy, The O.C., Gossip Girl, and a little yarn about vampires called Twilight, whose soundtrack went on to sell 2.2 million copies.

The H1N1 Influenza virus -- popularly known, to the chagrin of the Other White Meat industry, as "swine flu" -- keeps spreading. And with some estimates claiming that it could affect as many as two to three billion people, it's only natural that celebrities will be stricken, along with the rest of us schlubs. (I'm not a doctor, but I play one on this blog.) From the cases reported so far, it looks like swine flu is not immune to irony. CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta got it. Epidemiologist and Huffington Post medical blogger Larry Brilliant, M.D. got it -- just days after agreeing to write an article on the disease, at that. (In addition to all its other evil powers, swine flu also apparently rifles through your email. Maybe they should call it crazy ex-girlfriend flu?) And now, it turns out, Marilyn Manson has gotten it too.

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Almost Christian Acts

From left: Mike Mogis, M. Ward, Jim James, Conor Oberst

The concept of the supergroup is older than fishing -- literally! Jesus and his Disciples were certainly a supergroup, and we're pretty sure Jesus invented fishing. Yes, bands of preternaturally talented brothers (and sisters) have been joining forces for millennia. With this week's debut from Monsters of Folk -- a supergroup comprised of Mike Mogis, M. Ward, My Morning Jacket's Jim James and Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst -- we thought we'd reflect upon some of our favorite supergroups of years past. Was the whole greater than the sum of the parts? Read on to find out, and don't forget: if you dig supergroups, regular groups or anything in between, Rhapsody has you covered. Take a free spin to see what unlimited, unfettered music access tastes like (surprisingly unlike chicken, we think you'll be pleased to discover).

You have to give DFA credit for not resting on their laurels. The label's a figurehead of this decade's indie-dance scene, with an almost unnervingly astute sense for the nuances of 21st-century cool. And yet, aside from certain hallmarks of the DFA style -- ropy bass lines, disaffected vocals, judicious use of cowbell -- they have yet to settle into a pattern. (Black Meteoric Star's psychedelic, home-soldered acid house isn't exactly par for the indie course.)

Their habit of reaching outside their own scene when commissioning remixes is equally commendable. In addition to marquis names like Soulwax and Franz Ferdinand, DFA also tap artists -- like Carl Craig, Baby Ford and Luomo -- who resonate with house and techno die-hards, but have little foothold in American indie circles. It's not just a question of credibility; the stream of new input keeps DFA's mutable sound continually refreshed.

A stellar new collection of remixes of LCD Soundsystem's 45:33, James Murphy's Nike-sponsored album from 2006, is a case in point. Theo Parrish, Prins Thomas, Runaway, Trus'Me, Prince Language, Padded Cell, Pilooski and Riley Reinhold all take the ball and run as far as they can, touching down everywhere from Detroit downbeat to Norwegian disco. Read on for a rundown of the parties involved, with recommendations for further listening from each.

 

I’m no Perez Hilton, or even a young Joan Rivers for that matter, but I think I’ve spotted a pop trend -- albeit a minor one. It dawned on me when I recently stumbled across the video for Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat's “Lucky.” (Nine months behind schedule, I know.) It was the same day I read about Break Up, the new album from Pete Yorn and Scarlett Johansson. I'm talking about this whole he/she retro-pop duo thingy. I’m calling it a trend because I can name four additional examples. There’s She & Him (M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel); Wilco and Feist; Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell; and Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs. Without sounding too reductive, all these acts are variations on a theme: take a little Lee and Nancy and some Serge and Brigitte and filter them through a modern alt-pop sensibility (with a dash of Americana thrown in for good measure, of course).

El Guincho (photo: Oliver Faig)

This week's column has no explicit theme, but there might be an implicit one: all five of these albums explore what happens when you combine traditional acoustic and electric instruments with electronic processing and production. Three of them make heavy use of vocals. Four are new, another is a decade old, and one of them sounds way older -- in a good way.

El Guincho, "Antillas" remixes: EP1 and EP2

El Guincho's music is so full of energy and ideas, it's often hard to believe that it's the work of a single artist: listening to his 2008 debut, Alegranza, feels like standing on a hilltop equidistant from three or four different stages at a world music fest, with soca, Afropop, tropicalia and psychedelic rock swirling in the air and shifting with the winds. Now the Spanish musician has reissued "Antillas," one of the album's standout tracks, to a diverse crew of remixers who take his ideas even farther afield. Most of them stay true to the sunny-day spirit of the original, homing in on Highlife-inspired guitars and delirious, Animal Collective-styled chants. Spank Rock's XXXchange comes up with a dazzling slab of Technicolor exuberance in the spirit of DFA or Carl Craig. Norway's Prins Thomas, a master of hypnotic disco, seems to have come across a few of the helium-fueled balloons that once floated above the floor of David Mancuso's Loft; full of bluegrass guitar and manic hand claps, it's as unstoppable as a five-year-old's birthday party. Cee, of Germany's dub outfit Al-Haca, takes the opposite approach, layering atonal voices over quavering bass and stripped-down percussion halfway between dubstep and the bleakest techno: it's "Antillas" all right, but as heard from the other end of a black hole.

 

Owl City (photo: Pamela Littky)

While Gawker reports that Michael Cera is losing his cool, there arrives a new torchbearer for gangly teenaged sincerity. Minnesota's Adam Young launched his electronic-pop project, Owl City, while passing the time in his parents' basement; his MySpace page lists "God," "optimism," "foreign accents" and "G-rated movies" as influences. Taking cues from the Postal Service's fusion of skittery digital rhythms and unabashedly emo melodies, Owl City's new album, Ocean Eyes, channels the bright-eyed rush of the teenage sublime into the sweetest -- well, bittersweetest -- sound possible. With the album casting its rosy glow over the electronic and rock charts, the daydreaming insomniac found the time to share with us an exclusive playlist: Owl City's Pajama Party Songs, complete with his own track-by-track commentary. With a surprisingly ambitious selection running from Hella through Boards of Canada and the experimental computer musician Alva Noto -- and, uh, Shaquille O'Neal -- even die-hard cynics will find it hard not to open up to Mr. Young-at-Heart.

Hella, "Welcome to the Jungle Baby, Your Gonna Live!"
"This song makes me wanna throw a huge pizza party with the Chicago Bulls."
Alva Noto, "jr: for katsushika hokusai"
"I wake up every morning and brush my teeth to this song. My pearly whites are incredibly clean."
Boards of Canada, "Dayvan Cowboy"
"Of dusk and dust and dreams."
Shaquille O'Neal, "My Dear"
"Best song in the history of recorded music. Ever."
Pelican, "Last Day of Winter"
"Indoor swimming music."
The Field, "I Have the Moon, You Have the Internet"
"Brilliant minimalist house."
Taylor Swift, "Love Story"
"Sigh."
Botch, "To Our Friends in the Great White North"
"Go-cart music."
Amon Tobin, "Get Your Snack On"
"This song makes me wanna hang out with my mailman."
Hammock, "When the Sky Pours Down Like a Fountain"
"Snuggle music."
 

Sally Shapiro

Summer's all but officially over, and boy does it feel like it. These three albums may be grounded in libidinal sounds like disco and punk, but there's nevertheless something coolly distant, even alienating about them. (That's part of their charm.) They might make for an entirely unscientific sampling of the current indie dance landscape, but from their heightened affect to their stylistic feints, I think all three speak to a creeping sense of anxiety in the pop underground, both explicit and unconscious.

Sally Shapiro, My Guilty Pleasure

If the term "ice princess" wasn't invented for Sally Shapiro, it's entirely possible she was invented for it. (And she is, let's not forget, an invention: Sally Shapiro is only the nom de microfon of a Swedish shrinking violet whose real name, she demurs, is "something else.") Even singing songs like "Love in July," she sounds about as summery as a steel-blue shock of glacier: her breathy, oddly translucent voice rises up from the mix like the vapors from a frostbitten kiss. Of course, much of the credit for My Guilty Pleasure's deep-freeze aesthetic goes to producer Johan Agebj�rn, whose Italo-disco-inspired arpeggios feel as sharply limned as the edges of a snowflake. All the gleaming surfaces can get a bit dizzying after a while -- Royksopp's Junior, a similar attempt at cryogenic disco, sounds positively tropical in comparison -- but there's a thawing respite in the trance-tossed "Dying in Africa," which summons visions of the Field's disappearing horizons.

YACHT, See Mystery Lights

YACHT's full-length DFA debut sounds almost like the work of a different band than the one responsible for I Believe in You. Your Magic Is Real. On the Portland, Ore., band's new album Psychic City, the skittery electronic touches of earlier albums cede the center ground to more muscular guitar-drums-and-bass arrangements. Instead of sketching around the outlines of pop, Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans now home in on the shape of their songs in bold strokes. YACHT aren't shy about their magpie tendencies: "Pyschic City" and "It's Boring" take cues from the Pixies and Pylon, while more futuristic joints like "I'm in Love with a Ripper" open their arms wide to encompass '80s synth-pop and '00s R&B, via ZTT-inspired sampling and delirious flights of Auto-Tune. (There's even a trace of the Durutti Column in the limpid guitars of the opening "Ring the Bell.") It's far more engaging than fellow Portlanders Glass Candy, whose No Wave disco wants for YACHT's irreverent, inquisitive spirit. From the low-slung bass to Evans' slouchy delivery, the album's a no-brainer fit for DFA, currently running this corner of the indie dance scene. But despite the obligatory grounding in the punkier side of disco, it still sounds unlike anything else on the label.

Health, Get Color

Health's machinic rhythms and queasy oscillators, laced with digital tics and freaky effects, draw an imaginary line from Sonic Youth's swollen amplifiers to the nether space of the motherboard. Like Liars, Animal Collective and Battles, the L.A. band pulls at rock's ragged edges in both style and sonics. The new album, Get Color, is both heavier and trickier than their debut: songs like "Death+" sound like a cross between Helmet and Aphex Twin -- part death march, part angels' chorus. The band's tendency to lock into a trance-inducing churn sometimes leaves you wishing for more in the way of songwriting; maybe that last, as-yet-untaken leap is what gives the music such a palpable sense of struggle -- witness the fiery permutations of "We Are Water," where the band wrestles with the ghosts of prog rock, hardcore and techno; the song's imbued with a sense of almost incendiary frustration as it twists and turns.

Ah, 1999, we hardly knew ye: we were so caught up in preparing for the looming millennial ball drop that we dropped the ball on savoring the waning days of a thousand-year stretch that began with the founding of Norway and ended, as usual, with Dick Clark holding court in Times Square, as I'm pretty sure he'd done every year since around the time of the Norman Conquest. (The big difference at 1999's New Year's Eve parties was that people seemed to be listening to a lot more Prince, for whatever reason.)

Blame the Y2K bug for our inattention. But at least we danced. Oh, how we danced. Basement Jaxx, Underworld, the Chemical Brothers, Moby and other relics of the rave era were enjoying proper pop credibility. Dr. Dre was "Still D.R.E.," while Britney was, well, still Britney, but without the "b*tch." Le Tigre proved that riot grrrls were down with the disco. And the underground was teeming with activity, from U.K. garage to minimal techno. Relive it all with our five-hour playlist of the best dance tracks that 1999 had to offer. Don't you deserve a break from the "oughts"? Thought so. Check a sampling below, and get the whole thing here at Playlist Central.

Gorgeous Johnny is finally out. Sweet. I’ve been waiting three years for a new album from the Skygreen Leopards. Their last, 2006’s Disciples of California, is so good it had me writing all kinds of wacky copy about Jerry Garcia fronting Television Personalities in a dive bar in Santa Cruz. (Oh, wait a minute. Maybe that was Mickey Dolenz and the Go-Betweens?)

Disciples strikes the perfect balance between 1980s twee and rootsy, West Coast folk-pop. Since its release I’ve stumbled across more than a few indie bands exploring similar turf. I dig a lot of them, particularly San Diego’s Donkeys, whose Living on the Other Side is just splendid. But for the most part very few of them can do what the Leopards do. Even with the Donkeys, you can point to a specific guitar lick or riff and say “That’s so Neil Young” or “Man, that sounds a lot like ‘Ripple.’” What makes Disciples special, in contrast, is how the album channels the golden age of California pop, folk and country without ever aping it, without ever sounding like a Monkees tribute band or the Grateful Dead, Jr. Ultimately, the Leopards are more about capturing the feeling of that era rather than its actual sound.

Now having said all that, Gorgeous Johnny finds the Skygreen Leopards backing away from their love of classic California. I mean, it does have its moments, like the Smile-inspired vocal magic of “Goodnight Anna” (the album’s third best song after (1) “Can Go Back” and (2) the title track). But overall, Gorgeous Johnny is way less pastoral, way less wandering-the-countryside-on-a-Saturday-afternoon music. In fact, it’s really kind of urban. Like one of America’s half-dozen classic flatiron buildings, it’s lined with finely detailed ornamentation. The album’s artwork gives all this away. Where Disciples’ cover is a dusty country road (albeit one with a gigantic skull hovering at its end), this new record sports a colorful painting of a city block full of towering apartment buildings.

Though the Leopards’ artistic core are singer-songwriters Glenn Donaldson and Donovan Quinn, the recent addition of multi-instrumentalist Jason Quever helps explain the sound of the new album. This dude is the brains behind Papercuts. If you dig richly textured dream pop, then check out their latest release You Can Have What You Want, released this past spring. Quever, unlike Quinn and Donaldson, doesn’t sound as if he writes songs while strumming a guitar underneath the protective canopy of a redwood forest. He’s more of a composer-type, one who probably develops ideas on the piano. Of course, I’m just guessing here, but I think I’m on to something. A good chunk of Gorgeous Johnny feels more composed, more baroque -- more rococo. (Ha! That word rules.) Several songs unfold like mini-suites stitched together from two or three song fragments. The most striking just might be the oddly titled “SGL’s et al.” It opens with piano and handclaps drowning in echo, that whole recorded-down-the-hall effect. This ends abruptly, giving way to Quinn mumbling like Lou Reed after staying awake for 36 straight hours. He’s saying something about the band getting in the van and driving to the sea. Gradually, Quinn melts into a hazy, droning chant involving a little strummed guitar and about three or four hushed voices. It’s really quite... gorgeous.

Then again, so is the rest of this more-than-worthy follow-up.

PS - You in need of even more Skygreen Leopards? Then check out their Rhapsody celebrity playlist! It’s packed with all kinds of good stuff: The Kinks, Jerry Jeff Walker, The Clientele, Lou Reed, Outrageous Cherry and more.

Mocky's new album, Saskamodie, makes great use of the Paris studio in which it was recorded, channeling the spirit of artists who have previously recorded there -- Nina Simone, Serge Gainsbourg -- into a wonderfully warm and intimate take on '60s lounge pop. The presence of friends and co-conspirators like Jamie Lidell and Feist only enhances the Canadian musician's ample, obvious talents as a songwriter, arranger and multi-instrumentalist.

Mocky's recent performance in his current hometown, Berlin, didn't feature any of those names, and the setting couldn't have been more different from the celebrated Paris studio. The show took place at Badeschiff, an artificial beach along the banks of the Spree river, where the band performed beneath a plastic tarp while the crowd sat in folding hammock chairs or sprawled on damp sand. Berlin's clockwork summer showers had begun shortly after soundcheck and let up, more or less, right about the time the band came on stage. (Serendipity, or something more?)

Alexisonfire’s latest release Old Crows, Young Cardinals, is a hardcore fan’s wet dream. The songwriting demonstrates exactly what this Canadian quintet has to bring to the table and is Alexisonfire’s most thought out and impressive release to date. Featuring 43 minutes of non-stop, explosive, rock ecstasy, Old Crows may very well be the all-around best release to come out of the hardcore genre this year. Combined with string-bending hammer-ons, backed by raucous drum fills, Dallas Green and George Pettit’s mixture of angelic and demonic vocal styles create an almost perfect collection of tracks that when performed live, will assuredly be fueling circle-pits around the globe. Alexisonfire might possibly be the best band you’ve never heard of. With four full-length releases behind them, two of which went Platinum in Canada, one of which went Gold and Old Crows, Young Cardinals, which peaked at #2 on the Canadian charts, it’s a mystery as to what has kept them from climbing to the top of US rock charts, until now. The guys recently sat down with Rhapsody to discuss the death of punk rock, how Nickelback has influenced their band and exactly what has kept them from exploding onto US rock radio.

Grizzly Bear by Tom Hines

As you may have noticed, I've been on something of a Warp kick lately. To me, Warp will always be first and foremost an "electronic" imprint -- after all, the label served as my main introduction to contemporary electronic music 15 years ago, via Autechre's Amber and then other Warp artists like Aphex Twin. (I wrote at some length about my first encounter with Warp eight years ago, when the label's cofounder Rob Mitchell passed away; you can read that piece here.)

But in recent years, Warp has arguably had its most surprising successes outside electronica, in hip-hop, avant-pop and indie rock. I've already talked about Jamie Lidell, Battles and Flying Lotus. Here are a few more crucial albums from the guitar-wielding weirdos warping Warp's aesthetic in wild, white-knuckled ways.

Gnarls Barkley

Now that moonlighting members of Vampire Weekend and Ra Ra Riot have unveiled their side band, Discovery,  and Interpol's Paul Banks released his latest album, Julian Plenti...is Skyscraper, under the moniker Julian Plenti, it's clearly time to ponder one of rock history's great riddles: Do side projects of active bands often wind up bigger than the main dish? And the definitive answer is ... sort of! Below, you'll find a rough guide to side projects that were more successful than the musicians' main gigs. Some of the entries may surprise you.

brokenCYDE

Do you have an elaborately sculpted (and perhaps crayon-hued) hairdo, garb yourself in skinny jeans and neon colors and <3 txtspk? Chances are, you're a scene kid and you will totally <3 this playlist of hott scene bands. Conversely, if you've never heard of "scene," thought neon went out with Reagan and can't understand what's up with all these suburban kids making what sounds like snotty, screamo gangster rap, you are probably old (we feel your pain, friends!). Don't get all emo about it: just listen to this playlist (or raid your kid's MySpace page) and catch up! (You OG types can also check out Philip Sherburne's playlist of old-school raunch-rap acts who made him laugh his hiney off at LMFAO.) You can listen to a sampling of the tracks below, or listen to the entire playlist here.

In 1978, a British New Waver calling himself Elton Motello had a supremely sleazy punk-disco dance club hit called "Jet Boy Jet Girl." Almost immediately, a Belgian New Wave singer calling himself Plastic Bertrand, using both the same studio musicians and same backing music as "Jet Boy Jet Girl," turned the song into a French song called "Ca Plane Pour Moi," one of punk's greatest and silliest novelty hits. Both songs have been covered countless times over the years, sometimes by far more famous bands. The playlist below provides an overview, and tosses in other rock classics about jets and by people named JET and Jett and Jetboy that somehow, in this context, totally fit.
 

Jamie Lidell

What do hypersoul crooner Jamie Lidell, futuristic beatsmith Flying Lotus and psychedelic math-rockers Battles have in common? Aside from their shared penchant for turning traditional forms inside out, and the ability of all three artists to combine experimental-music rigor with refreshing good cheer, they all make their homes on Warp, the iconic U.K. label that turns 20 this year. Despite a roster heavy on electronic agents provocateur like Aphex Twin and Autechre, no single sound dominates Warp's catalog, which ranges from bleepy electronica to mind-bending hip-hop to smart, snappy rock 'n' roll. Here are 10 Warp artists you need to hear now.

Daft Punk tower over their indie dance acolytes like, well, a giant, gleaming pyramid. So it's only appropriate that some starry-eyed statesiders would eventually borrow not only the French duo's filters, but even one of their album titles. That would be Discovery, perhaps better known as the duo comprised of Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij and Ra Ra Riot's Wes Miles. (Perhaps to compensate, they named their debut album simply LP.) Their buzzing, gleaming layers of filtered synthesizers would be unthinkable without Daft Punk's influence, but they take just as much inspiration from contemporary R&B, favoring jiggling, syncopated drum-machine beats and scads of breathless falsetto, often run through vocal effects like Auto-Tune. At their best, as on "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend," they remind me of Hot Chip or even His Name Is Alive's experiments in electronic R&B; elsewhere, as on the highly questionable Jackson 5 cover "I Want You Back," an instinctive indie aversion to execution saps the force from their music, rendering it kitschier than it probably wants to be.

This will sound kind of strange to a lot of you, especially those who know their jangle pop and roots rock history, but this new Deer Tick album, Born on Flag Day, has my noggin drawing comparisons to the La’s, that Brit pop band who put out one truly astounding record in 1990. To begin with, there’s John McCauley’s voice: The dude croaks, burps, belches and hiccups like Lee Mavers -- had, of course, a witch turned the La’s mercurial frontman into the celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County. Secondly, and this is the far more important point, Deer Tick is a lot like the mighty La’s in the way the group takes sounds and styles that are more or less pre-British Invasion and feeds them into a scrappy, shaggy brand of alternative rock equal parts quiet/acoustic and loud/electric.

But where Mavers and company drew their inspiration from skiffle, a countryish folk-pop trend popular in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s and early ’60s (see Lonnie Donegan), Deer Tick looks to classic American music from the same period, everything from twangy instrumentalists (the Ventures, Duane Eddy) to rock & roll artists who cut rockabilly with Tin Pan Alley. These include Ritchie Valens, Roy Orbison and Ricky Nelson, as well as Buddy Holly and his legion of followers: the Bobby Fuller Four, Bobby Vee, Tommy Roe, etc. Now if you didn’t spend your childhood with ears glued to the oldies station, then check out this playlist I recently put together. It features a lot of the vintage rockers I just mentioned. It totally rocks, if I do say so myself.

Deer Tick also differ from the La’s in their overt revivalism. Mavers, even when penning timeless jangle pop like “There She Goes,” never really went straight-up retro. McCauly, in contrast, lifts scraps of melodies, rhythms and vintage guitar licks directly from his heroes. “Easy,” Born on Flag Day's opening track, as well as its lead single, isn’t too far removed from the Meat Puppets or Dinosaur Jr. But dig beneath that initial burst of feedback and those scratchy guitars, and you come to rumbling tom-toms and a chiming ride cymbal that are so “I Fought the Law.”

McCauley’s love for early rock & roll reaches a fever pitch on “Straight into the Storm.” From that classic-sounding title to the dude’s exuberant shrieks, this song reeks of nostalgia. You can easily imagine a group of young and greasy punks, maybe the even The Outsiders, rocking out to it back in ’61. Hell, it’s total El Paso rock.

Of course, this entire review, however positive, implies that McCauley is nothing more than a master of pastiche. Oh well. I really don’t think that’s such a bad thing, especially when the master in question can pen a classic ballad like “Smith Hill.” When spinning this track, pay extra special attention at the 2:55 mark. Coming out of the chorus, Deer Tick could easily slip into a guitar solo or whip up yet another verse. Instead, McCauley cranks the string section and reaches for this melodramatic teen opera climax. It’s a trick torn from the pages of the Roy Orbison songbook. Like so much of Born on Flag Day, it’s an utterly delicious chunk of pop music.

 
One of the best things about working here at Rhapsody (besides from the complimentary oyster bar) is talking to artists about the music they love.

Musicians don't always enjoy talking about their own work, but they love talking about the music that inspires them. Rarely do artists just listen to the kind of music they make -- they love all kinds of music. Sonic Youth recently listed their favorites for us here. It is truly an enjoyable collection of music.

Rob Thomas also made a groovy playlist of his favorites for us. Nice guy and a really strong batch of tunes.

The artist that brought Sonic Youth and Rob Thomas together was the American expat Scott Walker. I grew up reading about Walker the same way that I grew up reading about the Velvet Underground -- there was once a time when you couldn't find their records in America, so all you could do was read about them. David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno and Julian Cope always said that they were heavily influenced by Walker's arty pop -- and when I finally heard Walker's solo material I discovered that they weren't exaggerating. Sonic Youth picked Walker's "Jackie," one of many Jacques Brel covers that he performed.

Rob Thomas goes for one of Walker's ballads with the Walker Brothers -- a cover of a Burt Bacharach tune (Walker was -- and is -- a fine songwriter in his own right, by the way). It's nice that Walker's fellow countrymen are now into his music the way that British and Irish artists have been. My guess is that the superb feature documentary Scott Walker: 30th Century Man has had a lot to do with this. Check it out -- maybe Sonic Youth and Rob Thomas saw it together.

From left: Tim Sult, Dan Maines, Neil Fallon and Jean-Paul Gaster

Nearly 20 years since their inception, roots rockin' stoner metal outfit Clutch may have grown, but they have never wavered. Beginning in 1991 with groove-oriented funk 'n' roll, fast-forwarding to 2009's blues-based ninth album Strange Cousins from the West, Neil Fallon and co. have run the gamut between rock and metal, but have always done exactly what they wanted to do. Explains Fallon, "This is a band that ... made music for music's sake and wasn't interested in anything else other than improving itself and being sincere while doing it." As a further testament to that, Clutch have even formed their own label imprint as a vehicle for exercising their creativity, which -- in addition to Clutch's most recent releases -- has also spawned an instrumental project called the Bakerton Group. To learn about Fallon's philosophical take on his musical output and humble fascination with rock history, plus the inner workings of Clutch's latest record, stay tuned right here.

Is it just us, or is LMFAO's "I'm in Miami B*tch" a whole lot like the Lonely Island's "I'm on a Boat" -- except not as funny and not, frankly, as funky? But the QWERTY-loving gag-rap duo and their new album, Party Rock, got us thinking about other occasions where funk has been put into the service of humor, unwittingly or no. Featuring tracks from the likes of Blowfly, Too Short, Eddie Murphy, DJ Assault and, uh, Leonard Nimoy, this playlist takes in filthy banter, faux-gangsta boasting, good-natured absurdism and (just for good measure) everyone's favorite dancing-banana meme. Oh, and it's totally NSFW, as though you hadn't figured that out already. Listen to selected tracks below, and get the whole playlist here.

Irony Doesn't Kill People, Curmudgeons Do
Being allergic to most things ironic, I half-expected to get some kind of rash from rubbing up too close to Guns Don't Kill People, Lazers Do, Diplo and Switch's kinda-sorta concept album about a one-armed commando from Jamaica named Major Lazer. (It's all very Gorillaz meets, oh, I don't know, Dr. Alimantado or something, or Rex the Dog meets rockers uptown.) But the record's actually kind of awesome. The first track alone features surf guitar; horse whinneys and clip-clopping hooves; Nokia ringtones; cash-register bells; a hyperactive Santigold loop; and gruff, absurdist chat from Mr. Lex. The album's first half offers a solid stretch of dancehall bangers and earnest lovers' rock; Major Lazer achieve genius with "Baby," a 67-second sketch featuring the roly-poly-voiced Prince Zimboo waxing philosophical to a newborn. (The baby has "built-in Auto-Tune," wouldn't you know.) For all the goofiness, Diplo and Switch flex considerable muscle with tracks like the supercolliding "Anything Goes" and the martial, minimalist "Pon De Floor." To make the latter beat, one imagines the producers having rigged up a Whac-a-Mole game with those toy cans that moo when turned upside down. As The Hudsucker Proxy's Norville Barnes would say, "You know, for kids."

Dan Palmer (left), Efrem Schulz

For California skate punk outfit Death by Stereo, it's been a tough journey through the darkness, but they've found their way back. Formed in 1997, D.B.S. took hardcore mentality, punk ethics and metallic tones; injected their outspoken swagger; and made a name for themselves with incredible live shows all across the country. As they gained momentum and their sound turned more aggressive, the band found themselves stricken by tragedy and at the center of some unwanted controversy in 2003 when a fan was killed at one of their shows -- a memory that frontman Efrem Schulz recalls as "one of the most awful things I will probably ever see in my lifetime."

Bouncing back from the misfortune was not easy, but Death By Stereo persevered and continued writing and releasing music. Then, after parting ways with Epitaph Records, Schulz explains, "the planets were aligned to end our band." But in trying to do it on their own, D.B.S. found an ally in System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who took the band in under his Serjical Strike imprint to release their Jason Freese-produced fifth album, Death Is My Only Friend. To learn more about the new record and how far Death by Stereo have come since 2005's Death for Life, read what else Schulz had to say in our interview (click below).

It's impossible to pinpoint who invented new wave, but you could definitely do worse than guessing Sparks, Kraftwerk, or Suicide's Alan Vega. They're all on this playlist, as are several hip young folks from the late '70s to mid-'80s, before "new wave" turned into "modern rock" and the world came crashing down. A glorious pogo-dancing party is guaranteed for all, and since every song is priced at 69 cents, you'll have money left over to buy a skinny tie!

Phoenix are a pop band, plain and simple: a little bit Sloan, a little bit Fleetwood Mac and a little bit Daft Punk. At least, it feels like there's an unmistakably "electronic" element to the French band's records, even if it's just something about the goose-pimply detailing of their sound. (That could also describe the Fleetwood Mac influence, of course.) In any case, they take it back to the dance floor with a new set of "Lisztomania" remixes for Kitsune, the French label that recently released Phoenix's odd, appealing Kitsune Tabloid mix CD.

DFA's Holy Ghost! do a kind of chugging arpeggio thing that sounds an awfully lot like their own song "I Will Come Back." (Like their label mates Hercules & Love Affair and Black Meteoric Star, they clearly love old house and disco, but their take on it is way glossier.) LA's Classixx give blips their due on a spacy, slow-motion remix, and Manchester's Der Die Das dig into a gooey techno groove that reminds me the slightest bit of old Laurent Garnier. None of them are a patch on the original, nor for that matter upon Phoenix's recent album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, which is very good indeed, if you like that kind of thing. (By "that kind of thing," of course, I mean sunny-day singalong guitar pop that sounds like it's been squeezed from a tube full of rainbows and honey -- and who doesn't like that?)

In other recent indie/dance crossover releases, Strangelets (Supersoul Recordings' Xaver Naudascher and David Ducaruge) remix two of Sebastien Tellier's recent hits, gussying them up in tumbling, Italo-inspired arpeggios stretched to nearly eight minutes apiece. "Sexual Sportswear" is particularly good: brittle, pumping and moody. And, refreshingly, done without a trace of irony: these bleeps mean business.

Fever Ray's "Triangle Walks" is the new single from the Knife's Karin Dreijer-Andersson, and a diverse crew tests its malleable mettle. Tiga's is the oddball of the bunch, a low-slung electro number with booming 808s and a Neptunes infatuation. Elsewhere we find brooding downtempo (Ben Hoo), steely minimal techno (Spektre, Allez-Allez) and stately synth-pop (Tora Vintner, James Rutledge). Despite the stylistic range, they tend to bleed together under the weight of Dreijer-Andersson's almost overpoweringly processed vocals. Maybe that's why Allez-Allez's remix -- which all but erases them, stripping back the vocal track to a lone, repeated tone -- is one of the EP's most successful.

Finally, Moby has a new album out; following just a little over a year after Last Night, Wait for Me plots a considerably different course. While its predecessor was an uptempo celebration of New York's downtown dance legacy, the new one eases into a cozy, intimate vibe that's flush with guitars and vocals. Angelo Badalamenti, Beth Orton and maybe even Mazzy Star all serve as inspiration at different points across an album whose only real constant is its warmth. Taking a few cues from Joy Division (via Interpol), "Mistake" is fine, brooding guitar rock, while "Scream Pilots" sounds almost as though it might be a Plugz outtake from the Repo Man soundtrack. The album's best moments are its short, spontaneous instrumentals, fleeting moments when a musical idea flashes up in a smoke of tube glow and tape hiss, and is gone.

From left to right: Jeremy DePoyster, Andy Trick, Mike Hrancia, James Baney, Chris Rubey, Daniel Williams

The Devil Wears Prada are not your average scene band. Sure they have their merch in Hot Topics all over the country, and yeah, their fans average around the age of 16, but  in their three-album, five-year-and-counting career, these young Ohio natives have accomplished a lot more than any band with "street cred" (though they have that in their own right, if you want to get technical). Debuting at No. 11 on the Billboard 200 with their latest effort, With Roots Above and Branches Below (see: the same debut Mastodon had with Crack the Skye not two months prior), it's like guitarist/backup vocalist Jeremy DePoyster puts it: "Obviously we're young guys and we're small guys and we wear tight pants, but we can make some really heavy music." So with that "don't judge a book by its cover'" admonishment out on the table, find out what else DePoyster had to say about these young guns' thoughts on their "scene," their success and their goals as a Christian metal band. Forget what you may have heard, and please meet the Devil Wears Prada.