To explain bassline is to explain the endless tension of gender in British dance music.

Have some short-hand.

First, in the late '80s, there was acid house. Then jungle. And then 2-step, grime, and dubstep. A single, all-connecting, 20-year breed, in other words, of U.K. underground electronic genres that continues to grow, mutate, experiment, fray, and explode, keeping the culture locked onto the future.

Throughout the evolution, the focus of British black dance music has essentially swung back & forth from a male and female approach to sound, with the jungle, grime, and dubstep scenes finding a more boys-dominated audience while the acid house and 2-step ones welcomed a more universal, girls-friendly group of followers and producers. Of course, it's a reductive umbrella-idea in the face of so many other influences, but this dynamic, this struggle, between U.K.'s genres has been so tangible and prevalent for so long that it'd be a mistake to ignore.

K-Punk, for FACT Magazine, writes, "It wasn't only the dominance of grime that meant that the pendulum of the 'hardcore continuum' was stuck at the ultra-masculine pole. Dubstep, too, suffers from the same oestrogen-depletion, and both genres to some extent have their origins in a reaction — an over-reaction — to the 'feminine pressure' of late-'90s 2-step."

Rinse FM's Geenus, talking to Stranger contributer Brandon Ivers for XLR8R last month, says about U.K. funky, bassline's cousin, "The funky thing came about because girls had stopped dancing in clubs — [grime] was more of a show thing. So people could just dance again, you know? It was 70% females. And now it's gone the completely opposite way again."

Unlike U.K. funky, the bassline genre hasn't yet bubbled up to wide acceptance, despite it being more ecstatic and free-wheeling of the two. With a more intent emphasis on female vocals and 2-step's strange, hyper-galloping rubber-ropes of bass that slash out in all sorts of directions — think of precursors like 2001's "Kinda Funky" by Jammin or "Booo!" by Sticky — the sound is restless and welcoming and sometimes glad to be ridiculous, refreshingly re-injecting the warmth and exhilaration of ecstasy's bliss into grime and dubstep's ferocious paranoia.

It brings us to London's Dexplicit, who is bassline's best.

A known name thanks both to remixes of Akala, Wideboys, and M.I.A. and his production for the likes of Nana and Lethal Bizzle's enormous "Pow," he's been on a tear this year, with four volumes so far of his Dexplicit Content collection of grime and bassline instrumentals as well as, finally, Digital Kinesis his full-length debut.

There are other big names in the sound, such as T2, Platnum, Delinquent, or A1 Bassline.

But it's Dexplicit who's done this.

And this, chopping up Orbital's "Chime" for some grime newsroom action.

And this, suggesting a parallel-world Beyoncé who's got music as charismatic as herself.

Dexplicit's the one that's pushed the sound the furthest, balanced it just right between pleasure and aggression, the feminine and the masculine, displaying the sound's rave roots without just repeating them.

While it's unfortunate he and Britain's tastemakers appear to be shrinking away from the bassline tag, it's been a year-long treat to hear him assimilate the underground's latest possibilities into a flood for the clubs.

Now, with a little luck, the sound might get more than a chance.

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.

If the singles from Tongue 'N' Cheek have so far mined late '90s big beat ("Bonkers") and Ibiza-styled trance ("Holiday"), "Dirtee Cash" is full-on late '80s crossover acid house, which continues the album's deliberately low-brow through-line of mainstream British dance history and works as a sort of follow-up to the "Pussyole (Old Skool)" Wiley-bait that Dizzee put out a couple of years ago before his hit-or-miss abandonment of grime credibility.

Wiz hears the song, in any case, and conjures up a black-faced, beauty-contestanted, rugby shirted, mandolin enhanced, Margaret Thatchered, 'The Wicker Man' book-bonfire dance of death.

As you do.

It's a nice change of pace, both visually and musically. Not as sure-fire a trick as earlier ones. Until you realize it's only a vague update to the 1989 number-one "Dirty Cash" by The Adventures Of Stevie V.

"Road Rage," from the album, should've been the single anyway.

But it is! Or will be.

It's now the next song scheduled for release.

Pop telepathy! Bam!

Which reminds us. Remember when we wanted an extended all-aboard-the-trance-train version of "Holiday"? (We do.)

Bam!

And how, for the last year, we obsessed, again and again, about Little Boots properly unleashing "Earthquake"?

Bam!

We love it when E.S.P. demands come together.

(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!

More here.

Eskimo Snow, the latest album from anticon. sorta-rapper turned sorta-singer-songwriter Yoni Wolf and company, hits stores today. Regular readers of Line Out will know I am thoroughly stoked for this album. Let me attempt to explain why/explain Why?.

Eskimo Snow is Why?'s third album as a full band, but while predecessors Elephant Eyelash and Alopecia bore definite elements of live instrumentation, this is the first album that really sounds like a live band recording rather than some clever, multi-talented studio heads collaborating. Josiah Wolf's drums feel looser, they live in larger acoustic spaces, and they're left to stand on their own without the addition of any programmed drum machinery. Seattlite Doug McDiarmid's guitar and tight-circling piano tinkling are similarly unadorned. Fittingly, Yoni's songs here are further towards the folky/indie end of his spectrum (and thus further from the left-field hiphop end) than ever—there are still slight tics and cadences of course, but in general it's less rapping and more singing than on previous efforts.

As ever, Yoni's lyrics are incredibly tightly-wound, dense and hyper-detailed, full of clever couplets and tonge-twisting wordplay, and always, always obsessed with his own mortality (and, in neurotic, ever-tightening, navel-gazing spirals) with his own anxieties about those obsessions and his apparent need to perform them (on "Against Me," just before wondering, "will I gain weight in later life/and when will someone swing a scythe against me," Yoni asks, "am I too concerned wit the burn of scrutiny?"). I could rattle off a million little lyrical coups on this record (on the album's title: "all my words for sadness/like Eskimo snow on unmanned crosses"; on lost youth: "we found a dead fox and a dozen matchbox cars/when we cut back the hedges on Cortelyou Place"; on being a ladies' man as well as a land mine: "now my bike tire's flat/I must've run over some glass in the dark/or it might've got slashed/'cause I was messing around with someone's/ex-girlfriend/again"), but I'll leave the rest for the comments.

Eskimo Snow stems from the same recording sessions that produced Alopecia, but its songs were set aside to make for a separate record. At first—and this album was a totally slow-grower for me—this felt like a lazy way to pawn off some b-sides as another proper album, but over time Eskimo Snow revealed itself to be as solid and self-contained as any other Why? album, bearing out the band's talk of its distinctly different mood (the songs are less sly and sneering, more sorrowful and sentimental).

Go buy this album today, and listen to it deep and with no-sleep until Why? plays the Vera Project on Wednesday, Oct. 14th along with Mt. Eerie and No Kids.

Borgore
"Womanizer"
www.myspace.com/borgore

Fight!

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 press release:

Human Skab was a 10-year old singer from Elma, Washington. Stay Thirsty is one of a half-dozen or so cassettes recorded by the soccer player during the mid-late 1980s and injected into the underground postal network of cassette traders, zine scribes, DJs, and freak seekers. In a way, this is Skab's response to He-Man, the smoldering cold war, living near the abandoned Satsop Nuclear Plant, and heavy metal (the title has gotta be response to Twisted Sister's classic Stay Hungry LP!).

Rumors maintain Human Skab opened for David Thomas at the Capitol Theatre in Olympia, Washington before focusing on baseball card collecting and growin out his mohawk.

As Bruce Pavitt wrote in the 1986 Sub Pop zine: the Skab zips around the living room shooting toy guns. He hits the family piano with his fists. He tries real hard to play guitar. He makes up songs about terrorism and radiation and throwing rocks at windows. Cool!

Now, 23 years later this is the first time any of the Skab's rare recordings have been reissued or even made available outside of dusty, personal collections. You can't find this stuff on blogs. Family Vineyard will follow up this ultra-limited 105 edition LP with a full-length CD reissue of the stunning and epic Thunder Hips and Saddle Bags, expanded with a bonus radio interview from the time, in late 2009. C'mon, baby mohawk!

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.

Release date for both The Feelies re-issues on Bar None: September 8, 2009

Both albums will be issued in original sequence with download cards included in each package that will give purchasers access to bonus tracks as well as the original albums. The band felt that the original records functioned as discrete works on their own that should not be compromised with additional tracks not part of the original sequence, hence offering bonus tracks thusly

Crazy Rhythms CD/LP reissue track listing:
Side One:
1. The Boy With The Perpetual Nervousness
2. Fa cé-La
3. Loveless Love
4. Forces At Work
Side Two:
5. Original Love
6. Everybody's Got Something To Hide (Except Me And My Monkey)
7. Moscow Nights
8. Raised Eyebrows
9. Crazy Rhythms
*** NOTE: Their cover of "Paint It Black" was left off the reissue as
per the band's request. A&M added it without the band's permission
and it was a recording from the late 80s with a different line-up than
what was the "Crazy Rhythms" line-up.

Crazy Rhythms bonus tracks:
1. Fa cé-La [single version] - originally released as a 7" on Rough Trade.
2. The Boy With The Perpetual Nervousness [Carla Bley demo version]
3. Moscow Nights [Carla Bley demo version]
4. Crazy Rhythms [Live] - From the 9:30 Club (Washington D.C.),
recorded March 14, 2009.
5. I Wanna Sleep In Your Arms [Live] - From the 9:30 Club (Washington
D.C.), recorded March 14, 2009. Modern Lovers cover.

The Good Earth CD/LP reissue track listing:
Side One:
1. On The Roof
2. The High Road
3. The Last Roundup
4. Slipping (Into Something)
5. When Company Comes
Side Two:
6. Let's Go
7. Two Rooms
8. The Good Earth
9. Tomorrow Today
10. Slow Down

The Good Earth bonus tracks.
1. She Said, She Said - originally on the "No One Knows" vinyl EP on
Coyote Records through Twin/Tone Records (US). Beatles cover.
2. Sedan Delivery - originally on the "No One Knows" vinyl EP on
Coyote Records through Twin/Tone Records (US). Neil Young cover.
3. Slipping (Into Something) [Live] - From the 9:30 Club (Washington
D.C.), recorded March 14, 2009.

Download cards will be included in each respective CD & LP reissue.
The full album + bonus tracks will be included on each. Domino will
be the hosting site for the downloads as they have the rights to the
albums outside the U.S. & Canada.

Bar/None's LP reissues were mastered by Andy VanDette at Masterdisk in NYC
www.masterdisk.com
Pressings will be handled by Rainbo Records and will be 180 gram
www.rainborecords.com

Original tapes were unfortunately not found. Andreas Meyer from Tangerine Mastering used
digital files for both.

Tapes obtained from the band were used for the Fa cé-La [single
version], The Boy With The Perpetual Nervousness [Carla Bley demo
version] and Moscow Nights [Carla Bley demo version]. The live tracks
were recorded by their live sound engineer Andy Peters.

Insound will be exclusively carrying a limited
edition 7" reissue of the original "Fa cé-La" single. www.insound.com
Side A:
Fa cé-La (single version)
Side B:
Raised Eyebrows (album version)

Pressing for this single will also be handled by Rainbo Records.
Street date for the single is TBD.

On the other hand, besides the sleeve, Kasabian's new one, the ridiculously titled West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, actually turns out to be quite a listenable thing.

Big, odd sounds, but full of anthems, oil-streaked pools of arrogance, unexpected Dan The Automator production, an uncomfortable air of claustrophobia, and samples from Helmut Zacharias and the French film 'Sans Soleil'. Kasabian's long learned both the value and dangers of tradition. More than most. Like the band's best work, there's a lot going on, from vintage rock history to studious electronic meddling and a rolling, multi-colored danceability, which all helps to resurrect the dialogue between white and black music while still hiding it well. "Underdog", "Where Did The Love Go?", and singles like "Fire" are fine moves forward.

It's rare and layered British guitar music without being lost up its own guts. Modern and full of surprises.

Twenty-first century spaghetti-western groove.

Harry Potter's a fan.

Plus, if you get the special edition, you don't have to look at the artwork.

Whew!

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)

Take that, going-to-split rumor villains!

As a debut to the girls' seventh full-length album, it sounds —zzz! — American.

The group's just signed on to Jay-Z's label and apparently been working in Los Angeles with producers of Beyoncé, Lady GaGa, and Rihanna, so it's not a whole shock.

THX-like intro? Whoosh. Right Said Fred bits? Plop. It doesn't recall a lot like other Sugababes singles, apart from maybe 2002's Richard X-produced "Freak Like Me," a song we hated. And yet "Get Sexy" only offers more ambivalent feelings.

Which isn't particularly a pop ideal.

The more Sugababes try to sound different, really, the more they start to sound like everyone else.

Is it possible to be loud and confident but unconvincing?

Köln, Germany label Kompakt Records is renowned for its exacting quality control and deep stable of elite producers working many strains of techno, house, and ambient music. The imprint's Total compilation series annually collects Kompakt's creamiest cuts from the preceding year. With Total 10, Kompakt will collate "essential tunes from our catalogue" and exclusive tracks and remixes from Wolfgang & Reinhard Voigt, Michael Mayer, the Field, DJ Koze, and many others. The album comes out Aug. 10.

- - - - TRACKLISTING - - - -

CD1:
1. DJ Koze - 40 Love
2. Thomas/Mayer - Total 9
3. Justus Köhncke - (It's Gonna Be) Alright (Dirk Leyers Mix)
4. Shumi - The Wind And The Sea
5. Sam Taylor-Wood produced by Pet Shop Boys - I'm in love with a German film star (Gui Boratto Mix)
6. Ada - Lovestoned
7. Coma - Sum
8. Gui Boratto - No turning back (Wighnomy's Likkalize Love Rekksmi)
9. Nicolas Stefan - Closer
10. Jonas Bering - Who is who

CD2:
1. Justus Köhncke - Give it to me easy
2. Matias Aguayo - Walter Neff
3. Mayburg feat. Ada - Each and every day
4. Gotye - Heart's a mess (Supermayer Mix)
5. The Field - The more I do (Thomas Fehlmann Mix)
6. Burger/Voigt - Wand aus Klang (It's a fine line Mix)
7. Wassermann - Berg und Tal (Instrumental)
8. Juergen Paape - Ofterschwang
9. Reinhard Voigt - Am Limit
10. Mugwump - Ignored Folklore
11. Pachanga Boys - Fiesta forever

3LP

A1: DJ Koze - 40 Love - DEU670900067
A2: Thomas/Mayer - Total 9 - DEU670900068
B1: Gotye - Heart's a mess (Supermayer Mix) - GBJET0800002

C1: Mayburg feat. Ada - Each and every day - DEU670900076
C2: Justus Köhncke - Give it to me easy - DEU670900075
D1: Wassermann - Berg und Tal (Instrumental) - DEU670900078
D2: Juergen Paape - Ofterschwang - DEU670900079

E1: Jonas Bering - Who is who - DEU670900074
E2: Reinhard Voigt - Am Limit - DEU670900080
F1: The Field - The more I do (Thomas Fehlmann Mix) DEU670900007
F2: Pachanga Boys - Fiesta forever - DEU670900081

To kick off the latest in the where-do-we-go-now fallout of digital music, Northern Ireland's Ash decided that their fifth album, 2007's Twilight Of The Innocents would be their last, but, interestingly, they weren't going to break up. They were going to do something different.

I guess you'd want to change things, too, if you recorded a debut a decade ago, just out of British high-school, and saw it go platinum, launching a career of some of the best and most playful, punk-inspired, and melodic songs of your generation, first becoming Britpop's Buzzcocks (1977), then dark exhaustion cinema (Nu-Clear Sounds), and then epic, shining sonic champions (Free All Angels), and absurd and somehow plausible comic-book metalheads (Meltdown).

What Ash have now decided to do is record singles. And only singles.

They've been upfront about why: all music is downloaded, the studio/LP/tour model has become boring, etc. "It hasn't helped that most people have forgotten how to make a decent album," Tim Wheeler, the band's lead, told the NME, "I'm constantly disappointed with records I buy. The future lies elsewhere and we can have a lot of fun by changing things up."

This September, they start the new plan, which is to release a single every other week for an entire year. It's sort of a 21st century update to what The Wedding Present did in the early '90s when they released one Top 30 single a month twelve times in a row. Ash, meanwhile, will put out a total of 26 singles in 52 weeks, all coming in random different formats like mp3s, CDs, vinyl, and videos, and is called, for now, their "A-Z Series".

The band uncaged a tease of a single this week in the form of a free song called "Return Of White Rabbit".

Shake it, shake it.

Definitely different, though! It's Hot Chip, really, but definitely not treading water like the last album. This is dance-oriented and full of sound — it's kind of chunky — and outshines its obvious influence with style and a bit of life.

Good one, Ash.

We didn't think we'd be eager to see where this'll take us.

Surprise!

[Download]

Amazing!

Is Queen going to be the new Fleetwood Mac?

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?!?

*Both locations of Easy Street will be taking 20% off everything in the store (except exclusive Record Store Items and those items already on sale).

*Both locations of Sonic Boom will have a sidewalk sale, as well as other awesome sales in the store. They're also going to have screenprinting. You can bring an item for screenprinting with you, or buy a t-shirt from them for $5. It's free, but they're asking for donations (all of which will be handed over to the Rock School scholarship fund). And if you take your Ballard store receipt to Bop Street on Ballard Ave, you get 20% off there too. They're also donating 10% of gross sales to the Seattle City School's Music Program.

*All Silver Platters locations will be taking 20% off all new and used vinyl, new DVDs, as well as offering one-day-only DVD specials.

*Everyday Music is taking 10% off all regularly priced new items and 20% off all used CDs, DVDs & vinyl.

*Wall of Sound is taking 18% off everything in the store.

And here's where all the free, live music can be found throughout the day!

Easy Street Records, Queen Anne
3 pm: Dex Romweber Duo
5 pm: The Moondoggies
7:30 pm: Sweet Water

Easy Street Records, West Seattle
9:30 pm: Wolves in the Throne Room ($5, 21+)

Silver Platters, Queen Anne
2 pm: The Romance
3 pm: Barton Carroll
4 pm: The Toadies

Sonic Boom, Ballard
12:00 DJ Woogie "D"
1:00 Peter Blecha
2:00 Say Hi
4:00 Vetiver
5:00 Andy Harms (107.7 the End)
6:00 DJ Stupid Fresh

Sonic Boom, Capitol Hill
2 pm: Cheryl Waters (DJ set)
3 pm: Telekinesis
5 pm: DJ El Torro

Another Record Store, Gruv, and Satisfaction are also participating! So head to your favorite shop today and give 'em some love (and if you need more motivation, maybe read about the sad state of the independent record store here)! Visit recordstoreday.com for more info about all the special releases (but because the site is currently down due to "too many connections," see a partial list via Sonic Boom after the jump).

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.

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.

The second annual Record Store Day is coming up Saturday, April 18th and independent shops across the nation will be giving out free swag, hosting in-store performances, and offering up a bunch of great sales all day long. They'll also be selling (and in some cases giving away) 7"s pressed exclusively for Record Store Day.

Looks like it'll be a lot of killer stuff; here's just a sample of what'll be available (see the full list at www.recordstoreday.com):

Def Jam 25: Volume 1 and 2 4 LP gatefold history of Def Jam, only physical version available.
Elvis Costello "Complicated Shadows"/"Dirty Rotten Shame" picture disc - "Dirty Rotten Shame" is exclusive track--previously unreleased
Flaming Lips/Black Keys split 7" "Borderline"/"Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles"
Flight of the Conchords "Pencils In The Wind"/"Albi The" 7" - two exclusive tracks w/die cut sleeve
Leonard Cohen 7" "The Future/"Suzanne" tracks recorded live in London, packaged in clear sleeve with 3x5 photo
Modest Mouse 7" —"Satelite Skin"/"Guilty Cockerspaniels" both tracks are brand new
Obits "I Can't Lose/Military Madness" 7" - two exclusive tracks w/die cut sleeve
Pavement "Live in Germany 1988" LP - unreleased show from 1988
Queen EP Queen's First EP Hollywood Junketboy/MMN 1500 Limited Edition, Numbered CD for the first time in the US
Radiohead 10" vinyl series: Drill, Creep, My Iron Lung, High & Dry, Fake Plastic Trees, Just, Street Spirit, Paranoid Android, Karma Police, No Surprises, Pyramid Song, 2+2=5
Slayer 7" single "Psychopathy Red" - weird ass backward tracking song on the flipside; packaged in special X-Files-style, "confidential" packaging
Sonic Youth/Beck split 7"
Sonic Youth/Jay Reatard split 7"

Participating Seattle stores include Another Record Store, both Easy Street locations, both Sonic Boom locations, and Satisfaction Records. More could be announced soon.

(Not all stores will have all the releases, you'll have to call ahead to check for availability.)