Over the last two weeks, I’ve been generalizing Americanly on the musics of two of the world’s three major religions, in an effort to divine some cultural signals from their modes of musical communication. It has been a remarkable failure. If you missed it, and are lacking the requisite fingers or neurons to scroll down, I’ll summarize: a dollop of curiosity, a teaspoon of research, a soup�on of delicacy and sensitivity. Also, a sprinkle of MP3s, and the occasional “joke” for garnish. But now we’re on the subject of my people, so the gloves are fucking off. Because, really, If you can’t be honest about your own horned, penny-pinching, media-running people, then what can you be honest about? Cue the Shylock pic, for real this time!:

[Didn’t I fire you two weeks ago? –Ed.]

The Jew [Stop that! –Ed.] has an entire book consisting of one song, called the Haftorah. Its history is under some dispute, but most Jewish authorities agree that it was created after the Greeks conquered Judea in the second century, B.C.E., and banned all public reading of the Torah (Hebrew for “Old Testament”). So, the rabbis got together and cobbled together the early Talmudic writings of the Prophets (like the Gospels, with more complaining) and used the teachings in the Haftorah, derived from the original anyway, in their services. Showed them. They did a fun thing with the Haftorah too, etching in little dots, lines, and curlicues above the letters, representing notes, which are “sung” to this day by tone-deaf rabbis and hormonally-crazed thirteen-year-olds. I have a few MP3’s of real, synagogue readings of some portions, and you can find some more with a bit of Googling, but, honestly, spare yourself. We’re not singers. As a people, we have abnormally large sinuses. Think Bob Dylan, without the cool mystique.

So your friendly local temple (or “synagogue,” if you, like, really mean it) must go on an exhaustive search for the one Jew in any given 100-mile radius who can actually sing well, and this person is called the cantor. He leads the congregation in all the sung prayers, and gets all the tail. Not that Jewish prayers are a particularly snappy lot; they exist in deep minor keys, and roll by in dissonant hunks, with word-length peaks and valleys. Entire congregations of sinusoidal folks stand up and recite these weird contraptions on a weekly basis In Hebrew. It’s fucking crazy. It’s been so long, I forget how it’s done, but when it’s done correctly by a professional, as here�an archival recording from the Golden Voices Of the Synagogue compilation�it can have a strange, melancholic beauty to it. This particular prayer is one of atonement, and it sounds from the outside as if Sin is looked upon some shameful, sad human farce, with its doleful moans and impossible anti-phrasings, but I assure you, the hymns of Praise for the Almighty sound like that too.

More recently, John Zorn has been having his Judaica and eating too, throwing down half his label for his Radical Jewish Culture series of albums inspired by Jewish traditions or specific Jewish musicians (Serge Gainsbourg, Marc Bolan). So that’s your avant-jazz-klezmer niche covered. In 1993, Zorn inaugurated his new series with Kristallnacht, a horrifying take on the Night of Broken Glass that you only have to listen to once, and has put out dozens of records, featuring the best downtown boho Jewsicians that no money can buy, featuring the dulcet tones of my people mined through filaments of jazz, cool and skronk. Naming his ever-expanding song book and one of his bands Masada�after the fortified mountain taken from the Romans by Judah Galilee’s Zealots�and the other band Bar Kokhba�after a guerilla army raised against Hadrian a little earlier�is no small matter, beyond Zorn’s own long-standing affection for old-timey violence. His deconstructions have a similar way with history and tradition, and here, on a track from 1998’s Circle Maker, one of literally zillions of Masada-related discs, we hear the undulating downward-turns sheets of notes from violinist Mark Feldman and cellist Erik Friedlander, quickly devolving into chaotic scrapings and crashing about. This may or may not symbolize persecution. It probably symbolizes persecution.

Speaking of persecution, I haven’t mentioned straight klezmer really. Thing is, I don’t love it. It sounds like polka with a complex. I know that isn’t a reasoned, thought-out statement, but what is these days? And while we’re on the subject of reasoned, thought-out statements, we have here “Giuliani Uber Alles,” a semi-cover of the Dead Kennedys’ chestnut by Hasidic New Wave. Now, if you aren’t a virulent anti-Semite, the name Frank London should ring some bells as one of the founding members of the Klezmatics, the most renowned, and shred-happy, Western klezmer band. He broke off and formed the Hasidic New Wave with saxophonist Greg Wall, bringing with him a sack full of punk rock maneuvers, funk grooves, and screamin’ winger politics. This one here isn’t precisely representative of their hot megillah, but it is a klezmer-fied cover of a stone-cold punk-canon classic, complete with blaring horns on the chorus and a shout-down fervor unmatched by any of their peers.

Sublime Frequencies has been a largely underappreciated dynamic in the archival and safekeeping of recorded music in unlikely worldly locales. Having only been active for a few years, the imprint has dished out scores of indispensable compilations showcasing impossible-to-find artists, folk standards and even entire genres of music. For their three most recent releases, the Seattle-based label unearths music from �70s Myanmar, current day North Korea and Saddam-era Iraq.

As explained in the liners of Choubi Choubi!: Folk & Pop Sounds From Iraq, the lifestyle of an Iraqi musician isn�t often smiled upon. Choubi singers tend to be outcasts and/or gypsies. And apparently, the music is quite unique to its region. The anonymously uncovered �Oh Mother, the Handsome Man Tortures Me� is no doubt one of the strangest rackets to ever grace my set of West-saturated ears. Right out of the gate, the spastic wind instrumentation and clangy percussion provide a uniquely spare and otherworldly backdrop. The khishba hand drum sputters and bursts along like muffled machine gun fire. Touches of Western pop ideologies seep their way in here and there but most likely remain practically undetected.

The oldest and perhaps most Western-leaning song of the three, �Lam Sai-Tahlo� by Saing Saing Maw, harnesses the security of electric guitars, tambourine, drum set, etc. Essentially, this is as easily classifiable as �rock� as it is �world.� Maw, a former Shan truck driver, is cited in certain circles as a pivotal figure in fusing rock stylings with traditional Burmese folk music. Compiled from spare 1970s Burmese cassettes, Guitars of the Golden Triangle: Folk and Pop Music of Myanmar (Burma), Vol. 2 provides excellent documentation on a long-ignored psych-friendly Southeast Asia.

Along with happening across some fairly agreeable tracks here and there, Sublime Frequencies also showcases the utterly bizarre. Radio Pyongyang: Commie Funk and Agit Pop From the Hermit Kingdom features programming culled from North Korea�s national �public� radio station, Voice of Korea (formerly Radio Pyongyang). As you probably could guess, several of the tracks pay blatant homage to the ever-spunky Kim Jong-Il, and most of the content dives headfirst into the nationalist mind state of the region. The tastefully titled �Start �Em Young� is a peppily orchestrated children�s song employing theatric child-sung chorusing and the occasional spell of spoken dialog. While Radio Pyongyang may not include any straight on instances of funk as implied by the title, it�s an interesting and somewhat surprising look at the modern day Hermit Kingdom.

[buy stuff here]

Sublime Frequencies has been a largely underappreciated dynamic in the archival and safekeeping of recorded music in unlikely worldly locales. Having only been active for a few years, the imprint has dished out scores of indispensable compilations showcasing impossible-to-find artists, folk standards and even entire genres of music. For their three most recent releases, the Seattle-based label unearths music from �70s Myanmar, current day North Korea and Saddam-era Iraq.

As explained in the liners of Choubi Choubi!: Folk & Pop Sounds From Iraq, the lifestyle of an Iraqi musician isn�t often smiled upon. Choubi singers tend to be outcasts and/or gypsies. And apparently, the music is quite unique to its region. The anonymously uncovered �Oh Mother, the Handsome Man Tortures Me� is no doubt one of the strangest rackets to ever grace my set of West-saturated ears. Right out of the gate, the spastic wind instrumentation and clangy percussion provide a uniquely spare and otherworldly backdrop. The khishba hand drum sputters and bursts along like muffled machine gun fire. Touches of Western pop ideologies seep their way in here and there but most likely remain practically undetected.

The oldest and perhaps most Western-leaning song of the three, �Lam Sai-Tahlo� by Saing Saing Maw, harnesses the security of electric guitars, tambourine, drum set, etc. Essentially, this is as easily classifiable as �rock� as it is �world.� Maw, a former Shan truck driver, is cited in certain circles as a pivotal figure in fusing rock stylings with traditional Burmese folk music. Compiled from spare 1970s Burmese cassettes, Guitars of the Golden Triangle: Folk and Pop Music of Myanmar (Burma), Vol. 2 provides excellent documentation on a long-ignored psych-friendly Southeast Asia.

Along with happening across some fairly agreeable tracks here and there, Sublime Frequencies also showcases the utterly bizarre. Radio Pyongyang: Commie Funk and Agit Pop From the Hermit Kingdom features programming culled from North Korea�s national �public� radio station, Voice of Korea (formerly Radio Pyongyang). As you probably could guess, several of the tracks pay blatant homage to the ever-spunky Kim Jong-Il, and most of the content dives headfirst into the nationalist mind state of the region. The tastefully titled �Start �Em Young� is a peppily orchestrated children�s song employing theatric child-sung chorusing and the occasional spell of spoken dialog. While Radio Pyongyang may not include any straight on instances of funk as implied by the title, it�s an interesting and somewhat surprising look at the modern day Hermit Kingdom.

[buy stuff here]

TATU - Cosmos (Outer Space)

The best EP released in recent years was made by two Russian faux-lesbians managed by an evil psychologist that formed the group by combining the two things that people googled for more often than any others. It was both not at all surprising and the most incredible success story of all time. This is the story that I try to focus on with my girlfriend when talking about the appeal of the group. She, predictably, tends to focus on the Russian faux-lesbian angle when thinking about why I like the group.

She must�ve been pleased, in a way, then to see that the group had completely dropped off the radar, another one-hit wonder that hit the skids never to be heard from again. And while that may be true for the general public (I don�t listen to the radio or watch MTV enough to ascertain), the pro-pop contingent are probably finally sated seeing as the duo is back again for more.

�Cosmos (Outer Space)� is typical second album fare, if you think about it. Most rock bands get a bit pretentious and make concept albums about otherworldly attributes, be it wizards, dragons, or, um relationships in outer space. Because �outer space� is where they �get together� you see. I imagine if this was true, Yuri Gagarin�s wife would�ve had second thoughts about him being a cosmonaut.

[buy stuff here]

David Banner ft. Pastor Troy - Fuck �Em

Obscenities are our last resort. The final vestige of the English language�s birth on the gutter tongues of Germanic tribes who raided and fucked everything on the European continent a few hundred years ago. It�s our first undoing; the jump we take in front of our parents, the shocking utterances as a child. Someone swears � in a classroom, a bank, even on a common grey street corner � and we�re all back wearing animal pelts.

But the notion of the curse (an, all curses are just secondary to �fuck�) has always had a role in rap. Using the curse is really the essence of rap; it�s vocal rebellion, the true �punk� of the human voice. And as an article last week in The New York Times pointed out, it�s something pretty much every culture on the face of the earth has in common. Swearing and the slang that accompanies it evolve in punctuated periods of growth and the contemporary establishment rarely gets it.

So for someone so consumed with space as David Banner is with his Mississippi home, the creeping time that molds slang doesn�t hold him down. Quite the opposite. Each guttural curse and bark on the horrifically stunning �Fuck �Em� has Banner sliding further and further up the curve of linguistic time. He gets the purpose of curses: they get at the base emotions better than anything else. The rest of his haunting, clarion howl debut album � Mississippi � may touch on subtler notes surrounding the abandoning, destruction and ridicule of his home, but when Banner, like his comic book namesake, shuts off his �higher� emotions, the real ground shaking power takes hold.

At first, the surging, endless Bayou Classic marching band drum fury is announcement enough. Banner and Pastor Troy whip the track into a righteous fury. All haters, regardless of race, age or gender are �bitches� or �niggaz.� Call it �troubling,� call it �obscene,� whatever. It�s so forward thinking a slice of raw and new slang that we (the privileged online community of music consumers) have no real reaction but shock. That�s fine. How many kids drop �this sucks� in classrooms today with nothing but confidence? How many times do you stop and think what that actually means? Banner gets at the word that dig at us, the curses and syntax of curses so uniquely American and vicious

I�m not sure who Banner is railing against, but in a move of authority, he lumps everyone � white apologists, haters in the club, record labels who turned their noses up on Mississippi, black men and women ignorant of their shared past in Mississippi, Mississippi itself, himself, the whole world � into one army of detractors. He slanders the whole world.

There�s no apology for the righteousness, only Ronin death-wishes (�If I die tonight, man fuck �em all good / Cause I left this bitch grippin� leather and wood�) and uncompromising vengeance (�I ain’t did nothing but praise God and my clip / So come to Mississippi and we taking yo hoes, pick in yo dome�). Banner isn�t just celebrating his home, he�s fiercely protecting it. Each treat sounds provoked; we�ve done something and Banner is coming at us with a fury. There�s not a pause in the song, and there�s no way the song could exist with any of them. I don�t want to call Banner the most dramatically human figure in rap, but he takes everything we think of the �south,� the nothing we thought about Mississippi and crashes them together in the same song. It doesn�t matter what the mood or tempo or length is. When you�ve got the past and future on your side, a single curse can stop time.

Weakerthans - Aside

I was going to write about �Aside� even before I saw the movie. For years before that Left And Leaving was a record that meant a lot to me�that still does mean a lot to me, if for different reasons now�and it had become clear to me over the last couple of years that �Aside� in particular had been adopted by a number of people, far more than I would have thought.

Like the first song I ever wrote about for Seconds, �Aside� and Left And Leaving will always be First Year music to me, the stuff I grabbed tight to myself after leaving home. But whereas �The Cedar Room� was raw, open wound territory �Aside� had a bit of snark to it, a little bit of ironic distance. John K. Samson writes tremendous lyrics for this type of music, zippy but never quite falling into punk or hardcore (or rock or whatever). Standard slower verses into swelling choruses, but with some wiseass singing about being �Terrified of telephones and shopping malls and knives / And drowning in the pools of other lives.�

But the lines right after that are what everyone remembers, because everyone quotes them: �Rely a bit too heavily on alcohol and irony / Get clobbered on by courtesy / In love with love and lousy poetry.� Of course we all went nuts for those lines. In the midst of a song about �losing all those stupid games [we] never thought [we�d] play,� don�t we all want to think we�re the type of people whose main failings are that we�re too ironic, that we drink a little heavily, that we take love and �lousy poetry� too seriously? Doesn�t that lend a little bit of extra dignity and cool to those nights where we don�t get what we want or think we need?

I�m not knocking our sincerity, or Samson�s, or the band�s, but in retrospect it all seems a bit too obvious, too close to what we might have wanted to be and not close enough to what we actually were. For every early-20s night that �Aside� fit perfectly, there were ten we spent sitting in a bar or a friend�s apartment, having a good time. Maybe in Toronto or New York you can always be so perfectly devastated, so wittily distant from the events of your own life, just like you were writing a song about it, but life as I�ve known it has always worked out a bit more prosaic.

None of which detracts from the pure adrenaline rush in the way the guitars power up for the first brief, wordless chorus section, or the joy in Samson�s voice as he dissects a whole bunch of stupid crap he used to do. I�ve listened to this song probably hundreds of times, I�ve heard it live at least three times (always a highlight, naturally), it has meant an immeasurably huge, wordless amount to me. Left And Leaving is a great album for all sorts of reasons, but the way it sums up to me the ambivalence and terror and elation of a certain period early in my second decade will always be both the most personal and the most important, and �Aside� was/is the biggest part of that, the entry route and the perennial favourite, the one quoted on a million Livejournals and Myspace accounts.

And then, on a friend�s birthday, I went to go see The Wedding Crashers. As brainless comedies go I quite enjoyed myself, but I�m not here to make a case for it as great cinema; I just want to point out that as the credits started rolling, �Aside� came on. And I laughed, and laughed and laughed.

Not derisively�a part of my delight was that the band from Winnipeg started by the ex-bassist of Propaghandi was doing so well. And whatever I found funny about the sudden juxtaposition would only have carried laughter so far. But I kept going, red in the face and gasping for breath, friends staring at me.

By the time I got out of the theatre, a little shaken and feeling oddly emotional, it was clear to me that my laughter had been a catharsis. I used to get a little disdainful and maybe a tad resentful when I saw other people quoting �Aside�; I think subconsciously I was assuming they couldn�t really �get� the song the way I could. But of course it wasn�t my song and it never had been. Those people I saw singing along or scrawling lines on a bathroom wall could mean it just as deeply as I did, if not more�heck, it could easily have meant as much to the person responsible for selecting it to blare out over the end credits.

It took hearing �Aside� in such a different context, so totally wrenched away from what it meant for me, to truly hear it for the first time in years. There are still some nooks and crannies of the musical world that I�ll jealously guard as being �mine,� but the time for �Aside� to reside in that cul de sac is years past. These days, I hear it just as a great song about what I used to be, not what I am, and I think John K. Samson would find it amusing or maybe fitting that it has become just another bit of the never-ending process of slowly growing up. Now that it�s no longer �mine,� now that my subconscious has released it from the heavy weight of melodramatic metaphorical burdens, it sounds better. �Aside� hasn�t been weakened by not holding it so close to my heart; like everything else you love, if it comes back to you then maybe it really was meant to be.

Previously published on Stylus here.

The wonders of the ancient world! Apparently, as history would have it, human life began in Africa, grew and matured; moved up the Nile, whither it flourished on its sedimentary banks; moving thence over the Suez, settling again on the Mediterranean, and at the crossroads of the Tigris and Euphrates; then venturing further, out to the Caspian and beyond. Along their travels, they built towering monuments, thriving communities, and powerful religions that speak to billions around the world to this day. And now these very places are some of the most impoverished and desperate in the world, save a handful of petroligarchs (you can use that). Of those, Tajikistan is one of the poorest, and the fact that some 90% of the country is Muslim had no small part, indirectly, to do with that. During the Great Game, the Tournament of Shadows, the seething, century-long battle between Britain and Tsarist Russia for control over central Asia, Moscow took control over what is now Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Once the Bolsheviks took over, and the State became the state religion, they had no idea what do with these… religious folk, and decided to make them essentially autonomous. This meant investing nothing in the region, while their rule under the Soviets entailed no contact, let alone investment, with anyone else, and the region slid slowly backwards. When the USSR broke up in 1991, Tajikistan declared itself a sovereign nation, and immediately plunged into civil war.

During all this, culture was still happening. As stupid as it sounds, this always surprises me, and kind of blows me away, when the most depressed, down-trodden, war-torn regions can still beat with the pulse of collective life. Stories are told, goods are made and used, songs are sung. This particular song comes from a late ’60’s collection of field recordings by ethnomusicologist Marc Slobin called Afghanistan Untouched. It’s a Felak song�the word being a derivative from a local Persian dialect meaning something like “divinity,” or “heaven,” or “fate,” depending on the context�and is roughly akin to our blues tradition; born of hardship and struggle, generally taking the form of a lament or a “rag;” only the tone of it is a bit different. It’s not quite a keening cry or a hoarse bellow, more a simple statement of fact, stinging of reportage, even if I can’t understand what the anonymous singer is singing about; he may be entreating Allah, but his voice speaks only to his humanity. He strums furiously at his dambura, never stopping, and uses the voice he has, in the only way he can.

Oh, but we’ve gotten on the subject of divine voices, haven’t we?, which brings us to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, that venerable monument (literally�ha!) to towering ragas. Well, not specifically ragas, but a certain possible raga derivative known as qawwali, a mystical Sufi tradition aimed at bringing the participants�singer and listener both�closer to Allah via a trance-like state. It begins with short, devotional phrases, pregnant with meaning, and through repetition and repetitive elision, the words slowly fall away into sound, as it spins ever higher, and ever faster, forever and ever and ever. Here, from one of his few Western-produced albums�Night Song, with Canadian guitarist Michael Brook�he’s constricted to a shorter time span than usual, closer to Western pop song length, but loses none of his wrenching, eye-rolling, trance-inducing power, while Brook keeps to the sidelines, laying out an appropriately large canvas.

And now, the trick. Originally, the spur of this article was to end on Muslimgauze, an artist I thought might typify some modern recreation of ancient devotion. If only I’d bothered to look him up. Turns out he was an Englishman named Bryn Jones, was never a practicing Muslim, and had never ventured to the Middle East. Over his nearly-two-decade career (with a vault stacked full of posthumous releases, unloaded one after another upon his death in 1999), he fixated on the Islamic world and a free Palestine with a vigor that seemed to border on the fanatical. In a 1990 interview with Network News magazine, he said of his project, “Muslimgauze have not, and will not impose themselves on any country in the Middle East. A short visit as a tourist does not improve things. Viva PLO.” So… what? Never going at all, releasing minuscule-edition copies of dozens of albums that not many heard during his lifespan, sending out cryptic missives of support for even the most despicable, genocidal autocrats�one of his most artistically successful albums is called Vote Hezbollah�is supposed to accomplish something? I now wish I didn’t know; it was difficult enough to get behind him thinking he was a local supporter of the politics of death (nota bene: this is in no way to suggest I think much of the Sharon regime either, but that’s a different article, for a different webzine, preferably written by a different person), let alone a… a what? A political tourist tossing transgressive imagery around willy-nilly, like that Great Jewish Punker Joey Ramone holding up a swastika flag? Is this an indictment of Western policies in the region? The West only comes up in the context of rhythm�beats swiped from hip-hop or local dance grooves; the rhythms of the poor and disenfranchised here. Muslimgauze, to put too fine a point on it, raises nothing but questions of the most intense-screaming-argument sort, which I suppose makes him one of this most interesting artists to turn to in a discussion of Islamic music and its portrayal in the West. On this track, from the posthumous Box of Silk and Dogs box set, he loops and strings together bits of Islamalia, into another raga of sorts, with an undercurrent of industrial stomp and tumult just under the surface. It seems so right and appropriate, but how would I know? What was this guy up to? We will probably never know.

[buy untouched/nusrat/muslimgauze]

Delia Gonzalez and Gavin Russom - Black Spring

This duo has remained a sideline act under the DFA umbrella since the release of their single, �El Monte,� in 2003. Come October 4, we�ll finally get to see what these two are made of in the full length spectrum. Judging by �Black Spring,� the album will have been well worth the wait. The Days of Mars will feature four tracks, each clocking in at around 12 minutes. The comparison to ambient music pioneers like Tangerine Dream and Steve Hillage is indeed a valid one. And at times, the pulsing, driving dreamscapes of vintage synth attire recalls a young Steve Reich. The previously released DFA remix of the album�s opener, �Rise,� likely gave certain people the wrong idea about Delia & Gavin, as there�s not one disco beat to be found on the album. Nostalgic as it may be, this is likely some of the most forward-thinking ambient music you�ve heard in half a decade.

[buy stuff here]

Delia Gonzalez and Gavin Russom - Black Spring

This duo has remained a sideline act under the DFA umbrella since the release of their single, �El Monte,� in 2003. Come October 4, we�ll finally get to see what these two are made of in the full length spectrum. Judging by �Black Spring,� the album will have been well worth the wait. The Days of Mars will feature four tracks, each clocking in at around 12 minutes. The comparison to ambient music pioneers like Tangerine Dream and Steve Hillage is indeed a valid one. And at times, the pulsing, driving dreamscapes of vintage synth attire recalls a young Steve Reich. The previously released DFA remix of the album�s opener, �Rise,� likely gave certain people the wrong idea about Delia & Gavin, as there�s not one disco beat to be found on the album. Nostalgic as it may be, this is likely some of the most forward-thinking ambient music you�ve heard in half a decade.

[buy stuff here]

Is there something in the water in Switzerland? Probably not. That being said, the two most recent albums on the, ahem, eclectic house/electro/techno/something else entirely label Mental Groove have been from, possibly, the two most talented Swiss producers working today (not named Luciano). They�re also women, if you must know.

The �weird� one�s album is called Reflections Of The Dark Heat (Kate Wax). Appropriately, each track seems to operate at that point where things are just out of reach, as though some sort of shimmery effect has been thrown on top of the CD after the mastering process. Most everything here couldn�t be termed techno, but it also couldn�t be termed much anything else besides electronic. Call �Beetles & Spider� pseudo-proto-liquid-house. Or just call it a goopy, melted messy masterpiece. Perfect for the unseasonably humid temperature that my room still hits even though we�re nearly on the cusp of Fall.

Also perfect for that nether region between the two seasons, where any day could end up being either strikingly cold or unbearably hot, is Water Lilly�s nervous electro. Certainly Lilly is much more self-assured on record than Wax�s catch-yourself forays into the digital world, but there�s something not quite �right� about Lilly�s electro anthems either. It�d be easy to produce the easy anthems that previously earned her spots at Luxx and other high-profile DJ gigs, but on her debut album Sputnika, it seems like she�s going for something a little bit darker than before. �Misfit Fuzz� is an obvious example, where the bass gets fuzzy, but not warm, in providing a backing for a simple pointillistic melody and Lilly�s vocal. Whereas you feel dark and sexy when listening to things like Fischerspooner, this just sounds a tad bit creepy. And that�s a good thing.

[buy stuff here]