No one knows what Robbie Williams was thinking about with 2006's Rudebox and thank god for that.

After fracturing off from an iconic English boy-band in the late '90s, Robbie went supernova, living up a life of a half a dozen consecutive world-wide number one albums that all, in a form or another, fed off of the Venn diagram space between the long, steady after-effects of Britpop and the overpowering rise of celebrity culture.

Then there was Rudebox.

Robbie's seventh proper full-length, Rudebox was the sound of mid-career crazy-pants. A man going random. There were collaborations (Lily Allen, William Orbit), covers (Human League, Manu Chao), and an unstoppable, nostalgic sense of creative freedom and surprise. At the time, Robbie said, "It's reignited how I think about what I can do with music myself. I've always been scared to try out different things and this album I think I've lost the fear of where I should be in my head as a populist, as a populist artist, and it means I can just go and do wonky pop now, which is all I really wanted to do anyway." In the end, Rudebox sounded like a shoplift of Justin Timberlake, the Pet Shop Boys, who co-wrote a couple of the songs, and a massive bizarro stylistic love-letter to the Happy Mondays that was somehow better and stranger, and more historically believable, than Shaun Ryder's previous own Amateur Night In The Big Top.

"She's Madonna," "Viva Life On Mars," "Good Doctor," the title-track.

R.U.D.E.B.O.X.,
Up yer jacksy, split yer kecks,
Sing a song of semtex, pocket full of durex, body full of mandrex,
Are we gonna have sex (yes!),
Will you wear your knee socks (ohh!).

Rudebox has become both 1.] his finest achievement and 2.] one of the most magnificent and unexplainable chart albums of the '00s.

Next week, meanwhile, Robbie Williams will release its follow-up.

Produced by Trevor Horn and entitled Reality Killed The Video Star, the album promises to blend the battering but eventually unpopular brilliance of Rudebox with the more traditional stadium universalism of the two musicians' pasts.

How's it working out, then?

Going by "Bodies," in any case, the album's first single: if Robbie was all Shaun Ryder before, now he's gone a bit Ian Brown.

Which is fine, seeing how Brown is also back on top fucking form.

So, Frankie Goes To Hollywood meets The Stone Roses?

We've all had a rough year.

Please. Be. True.

like a Rammstein Dildo Box Set!

(No picture of this thing could be safe for work.)

The A-Z Series by Ash has begun.

Announced a few months ago, the series is an experiment where the band will release 26 singles in one year. A new, non-album song for every letter in the alphabet every two weeks. All for download or on limited 7" vinyl. And backed by videos and a U.K. show in a city of each letter.

You can subscribe to all the digital singles for twenty bucks or import the vinyl if you're a millionaire.

This is, of course, an excellent idea.

But that'd be all it'd be if the music didn't sound tremendous.

"Return Of White Rabbit," a sneak-peek over the summer, is one of the best singles the band has ever done, and this week's official kick-start with "True Love 1980" is even more uplifting and syntharazzi, like 2004's "Starcrossed" or 2001's "Shining Light" with OMD beats.

Bar?

Raised!

After being sent this amazing video of Antony & The Johnsons live in Amsterdam with the Metropole Orkest:

I hoped he would release his version sometime soon.

This tuesday my wish was granted! Available at your local as well as online.

Now back to watching this video 10 more times....

The all-time record high temperature for Seattle is 100 degrees, set July 16, 1941, in downtown Seattle. Temperatures forecast by University of Washington Probability Forecast are on track to break the city's all-time record- making today the hottest day ever in the city of Seattle. The incredible heat will slow activity to a crawl- what are you going to do about it? Eat your refined sugars in a futile attempt at inducing a cold snap(see "An Embarrassment of Riches")?

Here's another idea- stay cool and put on the new single from Seth Troxler, "Hurt". Seth Troxler and Matthew Dear collaborate on this new single out on Spectral Sound. It starts with a hypnotic synth melody, wavering like a desert mirage, followed by a heavy bass kick. Brush strokes on drumskins fall like ice shavings and slide across the track. Seth Troxler injects a fair amount of whimsy as well as sexual deviance into his music(his alter ego? Sex Trothler.) Here he asks Matt Dear to guest and play the lecher; Dear propositions and pleads in pitch-bent whispers, "Baby I wanna hurt you, I don't wanna say why/ that feeling that I get from the tears running down from your eyes/ little droplets that mean you're in pain/ like Huey Lewis standing in the rain." Squelching synthesized horns rub up against digital piano lines that tickle and play. Seth Troxler's tracks bring out the wry grin in minimal techno heads that hide perversion more than happiness. It's music for sitting at the lake and eating a snow cone innocently, while wearing big sunglasses so no one can see where your gaze falls.

Thrill Jockey Records is releasing Boredoms' Super Roots 10 on Sept. 8. (Note to self: Must get the double 12” with EYE artwork.) A full-length is due in 2010. And, of course, the numerology-obsessed Boredoms have something special brewing for 09/09/09.

When I listen to Boredoms, I—a hardcore atheist—am convinced that (a) God exists, and that is one definition (my definition, anyway) of transcendental art. For the last 11 years or so, Boredoms have made me feel this way, so please forgive my gushing fanboyism.

Press release and video (of tracks not on Super Roots 10) below.

BOREDOMS TO RELEASE "SUPER ROOTS 10" FOR THE FIRST TIME OUTSIDE OF JAPAN. THRILL JOCKEY TO ISSUE LIMITED 2 x 12"!

On September 8th, the legendary Boredoms will be issuing their "Super Roots 10" EP on Thrill Jockey in all territories outside of Japan. The release will be available as a limited 2 x 12" release. The album is produced by EYE and all the artwork was created and designed by EYE as well.

As you are likely aware at this point, Boredoms will be playing some very special shows this year. The highly publicized event that is a part of the Tokara The Sun & Moon Festival is going to take place on a Russian ferry in the ocean off the coast of Japan during the height of the upcoming solar eclipse on July 22nd. Boredoms will also be performing Boadrum 9 at Terminal 5 in New York on 09/09/09 and will repeat the performance as part of the Flaming Lips curated ATP Festival at the Kutschers Resort in Monticello on September 13th!

Last but not least, Boredoms fans can expect a new studio album due out in 2010!

"SUPER ROOTS 10" Track List:

1. SUPER ROOY
2. ANT 10
3. ANT 10 / ESTEREO 10 (REMIX BY ALTZ)
4. ANT 10 (REMIX BY DJ Finger Hat)
5. ANT 10 (REMIX BY DJ LINDSTROM)
6. ANT 10 / MINERAL DUB BREAK (REMIX BY ALTZ)

Have any of you heard the new Holy Ghost! (DFA) and Soft Rocks remixes of the next single, Of Moon, Birds & Monsters?

Amazing!

Is Queen going to be the new Fleetwood Mac?

The band. Not the Movie.

This weekend Empire Of The Sun came up no less than four times during random conversations and Facebook posts. It started with this:

Wasn't "Empire Of The Sun" JG Ballard's book about growing up during the WW2?!? These cutouts looked like something from "The Last Emporer", or one of the recent Star Wars movies.

Then this:

An electronic ode to Fleetwood Mac with a bit of neo-tribalism thrown in for good measure with a melange of styles that recall recent efforts by Cut Copy and MGMT. The duo from Australia made up of singer Luke Steele of The Sleepy Jackson and Nick Littlemore of Pnau have recently released there album, "Walking On A Dream" in the states and are seriously making a push this summer in the states.

Now of course the damn song is stuck in my head.

Thoughts?!?

I would have loved to expand on Leonard Cohen's Live in London disc, Peter Bjorn and John, and Malajube, but this was all I had in front of me. Digital promos killed my hard drive.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs
It's Blitz
CD (Interscope)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs' polished their third full-length with a slick, synthesized shimmer, which might turn off some who really appreciated Nick Zinner's wiry guitar sounds (you'll have to trudge through half the album to get your fix on "Dull Life" and "Scheme and Fortune"). But the band's new direction is certainly one that will draw more in than the number of those who are turned away. The catch-factor is off the charts and Karen O has never sounded lovelier than on "Runaway." It's Blitz is epic. Yeah.

A-Trak
Infinity +1
CD (Thrive/Fools Gold)

Hear me now: Infinity +1, the latest mix from the former DMC World Champion/current DJ for Kanye West known to many as A-Trak, will be crashing the CD players and iPods of many parties in 2009. The hour long, 21-track CD stacks demolishing house tracks (Laurent Wolf's "The Crow") upon mutant electro bits (Boyz Noise remix of Gonzales' "Working Together") and milky way-walking disco vamps (Golden Filter's "Solid Gold"), bringing together the accessible with the far out. This combination of dud-less ingredients yields potent, unbridled dance party action. Give thanks to body movement and feel great.

Thunderheist
Thunderheist
CD (Big Dada)

Thunderheist is Canada's answer to an Amanda Blank-fronted Spank Rock vacationing in Miami, with all the sass, suggestive sluttiness, and bottom-heavy, sweat-stained 808 grinds as the Baltimore-Philly crew, but without the memorable hooks or devious vocal positioning of the body. One standout track, "LBG (Little Booty Girl)," literally had me bouncing in my chair, and visions of a nice compact ass on a pretty girl knocked my dome. Hot. It's true that this album really likes to party, but it's done so in the way that could potentially lead to terrible, terrible things.

There were a slew of new releases that came out today yesterday, Tuesday, March 24, that didn't get written up because my computer died.

Fever Ray
Fever Ray
CD (Mute)

The debut from The Knife vocalist Karin Dreijer Andersson isn't much of a departure from the Swedish duo's 2006 sculpted ice block, Silent Shout, but it is an album that makes Deep Forest cool again for the first time ever. Amidst the din of Fever Ray's new age techno pulse is Andersson's lyrically inverted and confined immersion that yearns for escape, especially on the album's second single, "When I Grow Up." With Andersson at the helm of the album's synth and drum machine programming, one would be shocked to discover that the lead-off first single, "If I Had A Heart," and 75% of the rest of the album were not merely Silent Shout outtakes. It'll always be winter while listening to Fever Ray - desolate, bleak, and grey, for what seems like forever.

Lotus Plaza
The Floodlight Collective
CD/LP (Kranky)

As far as contemporary avant-garde indie labels are concerned, Kranky shrouds most of it's competition in a thick, cerebral fog. And they're incredibly consistent. Lotus Plaza, the solo project of Locket Pundt (guitarist of current Kranky superstars Deerhunter) works in a similar way. Pundt's expressive bedroom dreamscapes serve as the product inspired by Deerhunter bandmate Bradford Cox's Atlas Sound, but only just above the surface. The introverted reverbed vocals, beachy guitars are speckled with steady and twinkling percussion parts, that flicker through the heart like city lights from a vantage point in the foothills on a dark, clear night.

Doom
Born Like This
CD (Lex)

MF Doom made the beats for a good chunk of his latest album, Born Like Thing (in which he drops the Metal Fingers part of his name to simply become Doom), but enlisted in the stellar talents of Seattle's own Jake One, Madlib, and goes into the vaults of the legendary, late, great beatmaker J. Dilla. There are some great cuts on the album - ESG's "Moody" gets sampled for the millionth time on "Yessir." But Doom will certainly piss off many for his homophobic gay-bashing on "Batty Boyz." Bad move, Doom.

The Decemberists
The Hazards of Love
CD/LP (Capitol)

The Decemberists oeuvre is, in itself, as hyperanalytical as it is hyperliterate. Sitting through one The Decemberists album can feel like four semesters of 600 level English classes taught at a music conservatory. This makes some music writers/fans, like myself, cringe. It doesn't help that I find Colin Meloy to be one of the most annoying singers in the current lexicon of indie rock's shining turds for stars.

Dan Deacon
Bromst
CD (Carpark)

Speaking of annoying... Dan Deacon, a guy who slightly resembles a camp counselor that does bad things to children, who makes music that makes Crazy Frog seem innovative, and turned Exhibition Hall into a full-fledged hour-long day camp last year at Bumbershoot. Dave Segal expands on Deacon's latest in this week's issue:

On Bromst, Deacon bolsters Spiderman's electronic instrumentation with glockenspiel, player piano, vibes, marimba, live drums, wind, brass, and myriad mechanical devices (e.g., what sounds like an obnoxiously pitch-shifted alarm bell in "Red F"). The resultant dense, swarming brand of dance pop conjures a paradoxical sense of cuddly ferocity. Minimalist repetition meets Kraut-rock's motorik groove meets happy hardcore's overwhelming elation, all of which is inflated to mega-rave proportions. And, one senses, it's all for the kids, ultimately.

Other new releases out this week: Obits' I Blame You CD/LP (in which Grant Brissey shines some light on this week as well), Red Red Meat's Bunny Gets Paid deluxe CD reissue, Pearl Jam's Ten reissue, Royksopp's new Junior CD/LP, Mastodon, Mono, Indigo Girls, Amandou & Mariam, and more limited LP's from Mexican Summer Records, including Valet, and Kurt Vile.

I still stand by my next wave theory, and proof of that coming wave can be heard here, at 206Proof: Fresh Espresso's "Girls & Fast Cars." It's hiphop but it has nothing to do with MassLine, Sportin' Life, VitaminD/JakeOne/BeanOne moment that is happening now. We are witnessing a rupture, and the epicenter of that break is P Smoov.

Photo by Rabid Child.