Here are three track representing my three musical obsessions: experimental electronic music, reggae/dub music, and traditional Central Asian music. Enjoy!

William Basinski� D|P 2.1, [The Disintegration Loops]

Here’s the shortest track (a mere 10 minutes) from Basinski’s epic, four-disk masterwork. Like all the other tracks, this one is a combination ambient musical loop and field recording. Basinski played this track as a loop and then recorded the sounds created as the original tape disintegrated into nothing. The loop used for “2.1″ is strange: tentative, incomplete, and frightening. It’s similar to the music played in horror films when the heroine is walking through a dark, empty house, fully expecting the monster or killer to jump out of nowhere and kill her. Since it’s a loop, however, the monster never actually shows up; it’s all build up, again and again, until, as the song goes on, the nerve-wracking loop begins to disintegrate (like the sanity of a horror victim, really). It’s an amazing song from the most amazing album of the 21st century.

[visit Basinski’s website here; buy The Disintegration Loopshere]

King Tubby� Dubbin’ of the Ten Thousand, [The Sound of Channel One]

In my “Perfect Moment in Pop” article on this song, I noted, “I’ve been a fan of reggae for a long time, but the first time I heard this song was the first and only time I’ve ever sensed what reggae might sound like in Jamaica, in a culture submerged in music and poverty, where music and expression are the only things that keep some people alive. There’s a deepness in this song that I’ve only glimpsed in other works. It’s as if this song was not a few decades old but a few hundred, a few thousand years old, performed by the earliest musicians, sitting around a fire at night, wondering if the sky would ever return.” Here’s your chance to listen for yourself. Let me know what you think!

[read about Tubby here; buy The Sound of Channel One here]

Gevorg Dabaghyan� Anush Garun, [Miniatures: Masterworks for Armenian Duduk]

Finally, here’s one of the signature songs in Armenian musical culture, performed by one of the founding members of the Shoghaken Ensemble (Armenia’s foremost folk group) and a true masters of the duduk. The duduk is a small, flute-like instrument made out of apricot wood and played in many parts of the Middle East and Central Asia. However, Armenians claim it as their own, and the instrument dominates most Armenian music. There’s something about the warbly, melancholy tones of the duduk that speaks to the pain and suffering of the Armenian people. Many claim that the instrument’s sound most closely resembles the sound of a human voice in pain. I’m not sure how accurate that is, but I can tell you that “Anush Garun,” which means “Sweet Spring,” is an unbelievably elegiac song. I don’t know the context for the song, but I’m guessing it is about loss and memory. Perhaps the “sweet spring” in the title is a hint of a place that the composer remembers fondly from his childhood but is now lost, thanks to politics, age, or culture. I’ve heard a lot of music from Central Asia and the Caucuses, and this is one of the finest works I’ve encountered.

[visit Dabaghyan’s web site here; buy Miniatures here]

Upper Class Records burst onto the indie scene last year with a rash of stellar indie-pop records that mixed the joyous strains of 60s guitar melodies and the new wave of the 80s. The label has called their aesthetic �newer wave�. Derek Miller called the debut album of one of those bands, the Cansecos: �woozy with electronic bliss and chomping at the bit with bottom-heavy beats and pummeling drum machines�. We asked one half of that group, Gareth Jones, to talk about some of his favorite recent tracks.

girlsareshort� I Wonder If I Take You Home

girlsareshort released two absolutely brilliant albums and then, in these past few months, broke up to pursue individual projects. This is the final thing they did. A cover of Lisa Lisa & The Cult Jam�s 80�s dance anthem. It is not available, but I think Upper Class will release a 12� of it in the spring. Go check out the two girlsareshort albums if you enjoy being excited about music. Only 300 copies were ever pressed of their first album, Contact Kiss (you can get one at www.hi-hat.ca), while the second album, Early North American is probably available from Insound. If not, go to Upper Class Records.

[visit the Upper Class website here]

The Russian Futurists� Still Life

The Russian Futurists (Matt Hart) is about to release his new album. It is another 10 songs of psychotic fun hooks and beats. Every song on the new album is fucking incredible. I pick this song to share because of the rhymey smarts that Matt brings:

Are you getting the sense that your days are numbered, but still hoping they end fast?
Is it consolation to know that it will end; you just have to be patient
I don’t mean to be bleak but that’s the sense that I get when we speak
I don’t like to showboat because everything that I’ve done, you co-wrote
I scored a film on a notepad; you’re in the credits so you should know that
In subtitles I wrote that “Oh I Love You, How I love You”
When I die, put a ring on your finger, you were always mine
And we both know we’re just painted on canvas but it’s still life

I�m pretty sure this is the first mp3 posted anywhere from the new Russian Futurists album, so go tell your friends!

[visit the Russian Futurists website here, buy Russian Futurists stuff here, read Kareem Estfan�s review of Let�s Get Ready to Crumble here]

The Leak Brothers� Gimmesumdeath, [Water World]

Cage and Tame1 recorded a rap record about PCP and Dipped cigarettes. Do you need any more reason to listen to this? It�s fucking hot. The above-mentioned Russian Futurist Matt Hart calls this the best hip hop album of 2004. I hereby agree. And this is the #1 song.

[visit the Eastern Conference Records website here, buy Water World here]

Vast Aire feat. Akrobatik� Fly, [The Way Of The Fist]

Another recent favourite album of mine was Cannibal Ox�s �The Cold Vein� a few years back. Then Vast Aire, � of Can Ox put out a pretty good album. Then in the fall of this year somebody decided to start pushing these bootleg CDs called The Way Of The Fist � Vast Aire Collabo�s and Classics Vol. 1 and 2. �Fly� is one of many, many, many hot tracks spread across the two discs.

[visit the Vast Aire website here, buy Look Ma No Hands here]

Scott Plagenhoef is the managing editor at Pitchforkmedia.com.

The Flatmates� Heaven Knows, [Love and Death]

One of the most pleasant surprises to land in the Pitchfork mailbox in recent weeks was a career-spanning compilation from C-86′ers the Flatmates. In part, the Love and Death comp was so welcome because despite making a lengthy search for the band’s final two singles, I’d not listened to them in years. The other surprise is that some of the songs hold up so well, none more than their final Subway Organization A-side “Heaven Knows”. It’s crisp and jangly indie pop, but the track is more girl group than pale boys�and it’s self-deprecating where forerunners like the Shangri-La’s and Ronnettes were bruised and melodramatic. “Don’t say if when you mean when” they insisted on the b-side.

[visit The Flatmates website here, buy Love and Death here]

The Razorcuts� I�ll Still Be There, [R is for Razorcuts]

Another member of the “anorak brigade”, and one of the better lost pop singles of its era. Yeah, yeah, so it’s guitar pop rather than the “why isn’t Girls Aloud/M.I.A./Annie/Rachel Stevens/etc.” in the U.S. charts, but it’s pop nonetheless, a celebration of small moments and simple gestures, expressing oneself through action and experience rather than words, and embracing life with your heart and letting your intellect sort out it later�and what’s more pop than that?

[visit an unofficial Razorcuts website here, buy R is for Razorcuts here]

Blueboy� Clearer, [Clearer 12�]

Except for the stray Field Mice single, I was a Sarah-Come-Lately, engaging with that label near the end of its lifetime. So by the time my head was cocked, Blueboy was one of Sarah’s key bands. But this is their first single, so for me this wistful little track is the sound of nostalgia for unremembered times. Unlike the jangle indie pop above, this is a slice of the bedsit kind; about midway through, however, the track seems to leave the should-be comforts of home in search of human contact�only to have its sense of loneliness echoed and magnified.

[visit an unofficial Blueboy website here, buy Blueboy material here]

Utada Hikaru� Exodus �04

Utada may be Japan�s biggest homegrown pop star of the moment, but she�s always been distinguished from other J-Pop hitmakers by her decidedly Western predilections. The cultural curiosity and multi-genre comfort that made Utada such a sensation in her native country translates beautifully into wide-eyed populism and ultra-precocious global-pop veracity now that she�s once again a small fish in a big pond. Working with Timbaland was less about calculated urban-market inroads and more about fortuitous schedules and the long arm of Island Records. You can feel that lack of premeditation in the song itself, a makeshift epic that�s satisfyingly undercooked, strange as that may sound. The year-specific tag is the surest sign it�s been slapped together, but in the context of the song it works perfectly and poignantly. Maybe Utada hasn�t thought things all the way through, maybe this exodus is nothing more than a silly gambit, maybe she�s just been entranced by the �new music on the radio�. Like Nellie McKay, she�s young and wholly self-possessed, just not yet ready to sound like a careerist.

[visit Utada�s website here, buy Exodus here]

We Versus the Shark- See Carolina�s Fastest Trees (Live)

On Saturday we went downtown to see local math-rock sensation We Versus the Shark (or simply �The Shark� in our parlance). On the way back to the car we walked past the Georgia Theatre and heard a few bars of Leftover Salmon�s jam-band circumlocutions. Made me realize just how much by-the-book math-rock and by-the-book jam-band music have in common�same white-boy wankery, same emphasis on proficiency over popcraft, same feigned but sorely-missing grasp of funk. Both camps probably listen to way too much Zappa. Thankfully, WVTS is anything but by-the-book, adding genuine melodicism, occasional technical restraint, pretension-free post-punk vocalisms, and perhaps most importantly, an actual girl (singer/guitarist Samantha Paulsen, who sings like Carrie Brownstein but plays geetar like Don Cab) to the mix.

[visit We Versus The Shark�s website here]

Toby Keith� Stays in Mexico, [Greatest Hits 2]

I hate Toby Keith. Wait a minute, maybe I don�t, this one�s actually pretty great, morally bankrupt of course, but I�ll take morally bankrupt and hilarious and undeniably well-written over simple-minded jingoistic reactionary claptrap any day of the week. Since so much of pop-country can be suffocatingly hegemonic in terms of moral dieting (take a cup of nu-cue-ler family values and a tablespoon of �tough on terror� and call Bill Bennett in the morning), unapologetic sinning�s strangely refreshing in this context. Country single of the year, Non-Muzik Mafia Division.

[visit Toby Keith�s website here, buy Greatest Hits 2 here]

Ben McOsker got into the business of running a label on a whim and now, after more than ten years of operation, Load Records has become one of the preeminent names in noise music. By signing acts like Lightning Bolt, Sightings and Noxagt, McOsker has expanded the notions of noise and helped bring numerous Providence bands to the ears of discerning listeners. The label�s fall releases include a new record from Sightings and Burmese. Stylus asked Ben to pick a few tracks or albums that he�d been enjoying lately and he responded with a number of possibilities. As such, we�ll be posting another post early in the new year with even more tracks for your listening pleasure�

Die T�dliche Doris

The German late 70�s/early 80�s scene was an odd bird if there ever was one. A truly local scene not really paid any mind by most of the planet. Synth damage, sheet metal on stage, robot sex, they had it all. Tribally equipped and broken drum machines, wafer thin guitar vibrations, and echo chamber �verb ping pong like psy-ops speakers in Falluja neighborhoods blasting N� Metal from beer bong equipped Special Forces dune buggies.

The link above takes you to their LP debut on the deadly consistent ZickZack label. Vinyl-On-Demand.com has reissued some of their other stuff, I�d recommend checking out �Das Typische Ding�. All of their records are available for download for FREE at their website.

While they have some of the anti-art baggage that the Throbbing Gristle terminal carousel spins with, this one spins in a decidedly less militaristic direction. Not so much terrorists as engaging pranksters. Not wank in the least, though.

Proof positive that major cultural innovation almost never comes from the big cities. As a matter of fact Brooklyn, San Francisco and Chicago seem to cough nothing up but hairballs lately.

[visit Die T�dliche Doris�s website here]

Crude� Slapper, [Inner City Guitar Perspectives]

Something about the 80�s/90�s Xpressway scene was timeless. Crude is Matt Middleton. He plays too many instruments to really list here shortly (saxophone, clarinet, guitar, drums, synthesiser, bass, vocals as a start though), but the dude can write songs. Sounds like a fax from another planet re: the subject of Cuban detention facility management. A true outsider classic in the vein of Skip Spence�s �Oar�, Swell Maps �Jane from Occupied Europe�, and Roy Harper�s �Folkjokeopus�. I come back to this album again and again, most of the time forgetting it�s mostly just a one man band.

[read a bio on Middleton here, buy Crude material here]

Metalucifer� Heavy Metal Chainsaw, [Heavy Metal Chainsaw]

While this does not bring the spectacle of having Iron Maiden over the house for pizza pillows, it does summon up the ghost of power metal of days past. Of course it�s ridiculous and never fails to bring a smile to my face. This is the kind of music that people lifted weights to in Japanese medium security prison yards in, say, 1985. Really combines some of the punk energy that made destructo units like G.I.S.M., Gasmask, and LSD the wrecking balls they were, with some of the party magic of the parking lot scenes of countless B-level metal shows throughout the years. Whippets and bong hits!

[buy Heavy Metal Chainsaw here]

Shitmat� On A Ragga Shit, [Killababylonkutz]

I am a sucker for the current dancehall scene (Ward 21, Elephant Man etc.). My girlfriend hates it though. Shitmat combines some of the fuckery that The Bug brings with slammin� mushmouth booty beaters. Its not like I�m rockin� noise jams 24-7. A gentleman must put on the smoking jacket and enjoy some of the people movin� power of booty music with �informed sensibilities�. Another one I can�t help but smile when I listen to.

[visit Shitmat�s website here, buy Killababylonkutz here]

I’ve tried something a bit different this week for the Utopia Burns column. Leave a comment and let me know what you think of the idea (not neccesarily the execution (I’ll get better, I promise)). For those of you not interested in hearing me talk about the tracks, you can find unedited versions below for your listening pleasure. Download the audio for Utopia Burns: That Sound.

Sparks� Tryouts for the Human Race, [#1 Song In Heaven]

[visit Sparks� website here, buy #1 Song in Heaven here, read my Seconds piece on this track here]

Discoteque� Disco Classic, [Unclassics]

[visit Environ�s website here, buy Unclassics here, check Stylus Monday for an interview with Morgan Geist]

Kelis� Caught Out There, [Kaleidoscope]

[visit Kelis� website here, buy Kaleidoscope here, read Nick Southall�s Stylus review of Tasty here]

Jens Lekman� Tram #7 To Heaven, [When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog]

I know this comes a little late after my review of Lekman�s album, but more people need to hear this song. It�s the little things that elevate Lekman above most of his peers (I love the way he sings �Fifteen heart attacks / Later� here, for example), but unlike some of the subtler songs on When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog this one demanded my attention. This was, mind you, partly because I�d kind of tuned out the song after the first minute, and so when it finally collapses upwards into a wintry blast of strings and some harp my awareness was rather forcibly redirected to the music. You won�t get the same surprise, of course, but this is still a thing of utter exquisiteness, and the first time in ages that I�ve heard something that sounds like lo fidelity was a genuine aesthetic choice.

[visit Jens Lekman�s website here, buy When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog here, read Ian�s Stylus review here]

REM� Electron Blue, [Around The Sun]

I admit to being the guy who actually likes some latter-day REM. Both New Adventures In Hi Fi and Up are great, although I�ll admit both Reveal and this record are pretty weak. But �Electron Blue� is both good and strangely depressing. If you�d played it for an REM fan back in the Murmur days (or hell, even in the Monster ones) they absolutely wouldn�t believe you that this was the same band. It�s atmospheric as all get out, driven by a repetitive piano figure, softly burbling beats and miles of becalmed ambience. But, as Josh Love correctly pointed out in his on-point review (I think all we disagree about is the worth of this song), what makes it work is the ache in Michael Stipe�s voice. REM may have become a pretty lackluster band, but he�s still an awfully great vocalist. The lyrics here are basically gibberish, but Stipe�s phrasing is brilliant. The way he sings �You / You know how to run� may be almost parodically Stipe-ish, but it works nonetheless. What could easily have been boring becomes stately.

[visit REM�s website here, buy Around the Sun here, read Josh Love�s Stylus review here]

Radiohead� Morning Bell/Amnesiac, [Amnesiac]

Oddly enough, Alfred Soto and I dislike Amnesiac for completely different reasons. I like the band, I think their sense of humour and etc. get overlooked at times (and rightly so, since they�re pretty hard to notice unless you posit their existence and work backwards from there, but I do think they have one), but the album still leaves me cold. I think his metaphor comparing the album to an aloof object of affection is pretty apposite. Still, no matter how much I like most of the album as individual songs, the collective impact of the album is pretty much lost on me. I don�t like listening to the whole thing at once. I don�t think it�s impenetrable, just poorly sequenced.

Still, even Alfred admits there�s a few moments of beauty, and of those I�d like to highlight the reworking of Kid A�s �Morning Bell�. Where the original was perhaps a bit too sleek for its own good (as on much of Kid A, Thom Yorke sounds trapped inside the music), �Morning Bell/Amnesiac� is exquisitely crushed. Even the softly chiming backdrop sounds more human, and Yorke responds by singing the same words as before, only with sadness rather than angst. I�m glad both versions were released, they seem like necessary opposites to me, but this version is maybe the only example on Amnesiac where the music presents a less than forbidding front; even the gorgeous �Pyramid Song� is too chilly to touch.

[visit Radiohead�s website here, buy Amesiac here, read Alfred Soto�s On Second Thought feature here]

Ben French is the editor of both Nude As the News and Measure Magazine, two publications that the Stypod highly recommends.

Coati Mundi� Me No Pop I, [Mutant Disco: A Subtle Discolation Of The Norm]

Just after I got my MP3 Player, I grabbed a few hundred songs off my friend Harold�s computer without ever hearing any of them. Now, months later, I am still being treated to previously unknown-to-me gems popping up on random play. This oddball of a track came up a few months ago and has remained on my top playlist since. The performer is Andy �Coati Mundi� Hernandez, a member of the classic Ze records outfit Kid Creole and the Coconuts, and the song comes from the 1981 12-inch of �Que Pasa / Me No Pop I.� While it was Coati�s ridiculous lyrics that initially drew me in (�You love to get it on / Like Mr. King Kong and a sexy blond�), it�s the head-nodding production that keeps me coming back.

[buy Mutant Disco: A Subtle Discolation Of The Norm here]

The Only Ones� Another Girl, Another Planet, [The Only Ones]

I don�t consider myself a punk expert, and I am sure many of you are already fans of the Only Ones, so I�m posting this for fellow punk neophytes and the Only Ones uninitiated. I�ve been listening to No Thanks! The �70s Punk Rebellion box set a lot lately. There are many great treats on this set � including rare Patti Smith and Television singles � but I am especially enjoying hearing songs by smaller acts (like the Only Ones) that I�ve never heard before. Led by singer Peter Perrett, these guys put out only three albums before splitting up in 1981, and they�ve clearly had a big influence on many folks. This is their one big hit, a great rock ballad that raises the question: Is this song about a woman or heroin? Listen to lines like, �You get under my skin, I don�t find it irritating,� and be the judge.

[visit Perrett�s website here, buy The Only Ones here]

Bruce Springsteen� Thunder Road (demo)

Yeah, so I am a Bruce Springsteen freak, always have been. But I�ve been especially proud of my boy Bruce recently, as he played a big role in Move On�s Vote for Change tour and become a vocal critic of both the current administration and the lame duck media that enables its existence. (Jesus, I need to lighten up). Anyway, this is an alternative version of Springsteen’s career-defining �Thunder Road.� At one point, the Boss considered having this acoustic (and rather dark) version at the start of Born to Run and the existing take at the end of the album. This stripped down performance offers a fresh look at an already well-known tune. This is must-listen shit for fans of Nebraska-era Bruce.

[visit Springsteen�s website here, buy Born to Run here]

Who says artists must record great albums? All it takes is one great performance. Below are three examples of inspiration surrounded by lyrical banalities, producer carelessness, or bad ideas.

Alison Moyet� Invisible, [Singles]

Tony Swain and Steve Jolley, chairmen of Corporate Synth Pop Ltd, gave the big-voiced belter of Yaz a Lamont Dozier tune, figuring that if they could turn Bananarama into the �80s model Supremes they could transform Alison Moyet into�who, Tammi Terrell? It didn�t work�how could it, with Swain and Jolley overdoing the chintzy programmed arrangements until it sags like a Christmas tree after New Year�s. But enter Moyet, singing with a fear and trembling that must have scared the shit out of Annie Lennox, and you immediately wonder how a voice this generous can inspire the indifference the lyrics describe. It�s probably my favorite �80s love song, and proof positive that a song needn�t be something special in order to be something special.

[visit Alison Moyet�s website here, buy Singles here]

Electronic� Get the Message, [Electronic]

Forget years of hackdom, bad hair, and singing lead for a band called the Healers. Thirteen years ago, when Johnny Marr formed Electronic with New Order singer/guitarist Bernard Sumner, he sought to combine the lilting melodies of his Smiths work with New Order�s rhythmic smarts. Electronic�s first album promised more than it delivered, but on this one track, it all comes together: elementary strumming, synth lines that swell like the rush of blood, and Sumner�s usual incoherence (�I don�t know where to begin / Living in sin,� argh). It might be the most spine-tingling song either man has never composed.

[buy Electronic here]

Loretta Lynn� Portland, Oregon, [Van Lear Rose]

Imagine a coal miner�s daughter fronting Led Zeppelin. The atmospheric guitar textures in the song�s first two minutes make Elephant seem like a bad dream you forgot; and when Lynn, voice as wide as a smile, takes White out for a night of sloe gin fizz, you wish they�d consider a threesome.

[visit Loretta Lynn�s website here, buy Van Lear Rose here, read Josh Love�s Stylus review here]

Black Dice have moved from the confines of hardcore punk music to the expansive realms of improvised noise music in a few short years. A transformation, which Stylus writer Joe Panzner said �earn[ed] them a place alongside innovators like Wolf Eyes and Boredoms in the electronics-damaged rock pantheon� in his review of their newest record, Creature Comforts. Stylus asked vocalist/knob-twiddler Aaron Warren to pick three tracks that he�s been enjoying lately for the Stypod. The results:

Belle Epoque� Miss Broadway, [Italo Deruggiero]

The first song I’ve been chilling with is Miss Broadway by a band called Belle Epoque. I picked this up on CD-R mix of Italo disco at Other Music�the whole CD is really good, but since it’s a burn my CD player wouldn’t play it. I first checked this last weekend driving my rental Buick Century all over Orange County in LA. And it�s really good music for that: super man-made and very artificial, especially the sped-up vocals. This song also has the weirdest mix ever�everything sounds far away, but without succumbing to echo-iness really. It�s just super-compressed and canned-sounding. I guess the bass is the only slightly warm sound. A really weird and cool mix.

[buy Italo Deruggiero here]

Kool Blues� Can We Try Love Again?, [Eccentric Soul: The Capsoul Labe]

The next song I’m into right now is on an awesome comp of the Ohio based soul label, Capsoul, called Eccentric Soul. The song is �Can We Try Love Again�, by the Kool Blues. It�s a totally mellow funky jam, and really solid song. I especially like the ultra-round guitar tone for the minimal lead section in the bridge towards the end of the song. It’s a really restrained tight catchy riff that surprises when it gets to the all-out outro. Awesome.

[read more about Capsoul here, buy Eccentric Soul here]

Ras Michael and the Sons Of Negus� Tenoryestiling

Last is Tenoryestiling, By Ras Michael and the Sons Of Negus. This track is an unlikely mix of Rasta chanting, loose VU-style rhythm guitar and fuzz leads, and heavy hand drums. The record on a whole is really good, though sometimes I fear I’m listening to like a Paul Simon Graceland record or something, but it�s definitely worth checking out. I am into the primitive quality of this recording. Everything is really separate and distinct, but the whole mix is totally raw. I like the funky rhythm guitar’s scaly riff that builds into the jangling chords that cut against the group’s wailing chant. This guy has some cool Lee Perry-produced reggae records, but I think I prefer the uniqueness of this jam to any of that stuff.

[visit Trojan�s website here, buy Nyabinghi related material from Michael here]