The Other Music Update

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	June 21, 2007


			We'd like to remind our local customers that Other Music buys, sells, and trades used compact dics, records, and DVDs. If you have a large collection that you're interested in selling, feel free to call 212.477.8150 to make an appointment, otherwise, drop by anytime for immediate service. It's a barely-kept secret that we have the best curated used bins in the city, with new arrivals showing up constantly, whether they be impossible to find rarities or brand spanking new releases. Come by and take a look!!!


	FEATURED NEW RELEASES Bumps Fridge (mp3 available) Sir Richard Bishop The White Stripes Panda Bear 7" Ellen Allien Fabric Mix David Vandervelde EP (mp3 available) Amiina Von Sudenfed (mp3 available) Art Brut Arthur & Yu Savath & Savalas Jaylib Chrome Children Vol. 2 The Polyphonic Spree Maps Digitalism Wiley Dizzee Rascal (mp3 available)		PRE-ORDERS New Pornographers No Age ALSO AVAILABLE Memphis (mp3 available) Tied & Tickled Trio (mp3 available) Maserati (m3 available) Chromeo (mp3 available) Dimitri From Paris Disco Cocktail Mix Panda Bear Person Pitch (Double-LP) FEATURED DIGITAL DOWNLOADS Panda Bear (Digital Only EP) Grand National (Digital Only) Strategy Matthew Dear Deerhunter EP

JUN

Sun 17

Mon 18

Tues 19

Wed 20

Thurs 21

Fri 22

Sat 23

WIN TICKETS: FORRO IN THE DARK & MIHO HATORI
This Friday, NYC's Forro in the Dark will bring their Brazilian pop-inspired sounds to the Highline Ballroom stage along with their good friend and collaborator, Miho Hatori! Other Music has two pairs of tickets to give away for tomorrow's show, so enter right away by emailing tickets@othermusic.com. Please include a daytime phone number where you can be reached. The two winners will be notified by Friday afternoon, June 22.

FRIDAY, JUNE 22
HIGHLINE BALLROOM: 431 16th Street NYC
$15 Tickets available at Other Music


	$14.99 CD		BUMPS Bumps (Stones Throw) "A Safe Balm" "Bin Johnston" It's like the second coming of Niagara or something -- Tortoise members John Herndon, Dan Bitney, and John McEntire let loose with an album that's entirely percussion; all breaks, no filler (or all filler, depending on how you hear things), and top quality. Employing a mix of traditional drums and cymbals, hand percussion, and drum programming, Bumps the album comes off glistening and pushing a lot of air across 23 short blasts of beats, with only a couple of tracks augmented with synth squiggles or, really, any sort of melody (thanks, thumb piano). The universal vibration speaks to you, gets a message to the coasts and back faster than a telephone. It's funky, it's soulful, and if these beats don't make you move then you better get yourself down to the emergency room, because you might not be alive. Highly recommended! [DM]


	$14.99 CD $15.99 LP $9.99 mp3		FRIDGE The Sun (Temporary Residence) "Eyelids" "Lost Time" For a moment I thought I was still listening to the Bumps record. Such is the case with the in-the-pocket swing and grooves that kick off this new Fridge album. You might remember them prior to involvement with Badly Drawn Boy, Kieran Hebden's moonlighting as Four Tet and with Steve Reid, Adem Ilhan's solo career ... you get the picture. Veering sharply away from the carefully constructed, ethereal chill of albums like Eph or Happiness, The Sun announces that Fridge is humming once again. They got their groove back, swinging defiantly in the face of a post-rock mecca that's since been refined and put to bed by their peers and labelmates. The Sun makes like early Tortoise, full of grooves and soul and the willingness to get hot and experiment within those confines, and it's a spectacular return to the wild form of their earliest works -- Ceefax with more brawn and less glitch, and much better off for it. Rather than breaking any new ground needlessly, Fridge opt to inhabit a space that most folks had cast off, and it makes for one of their most listenable and engaging works yet. Beautiful, human music that defies criticism and encourages celebration. It's hard work being this good! [DM]


	$14.99 CD $17.99 LP		SIR RICHARD BISHOP While My Guitar Violently Bleeds (Locust) "Zurvan" "Mahavidy" Another burnt offering of guitar iconoclasm from Sun City Girls' chief occultist, Sir Richard Bishop, While My Guitar Violently Bleeds is a strong, and thankfully, much more readily available follow-up to his last release, the limited Latitudes LP, Fingering the Devil. This album's opener, "Zurvan," is more Old Europe than Americana, and references flamenco in a way that nods heavily in the direction of the Moorish and Indian strains of that music's origins. The next track, "Smashana," is a droney, reverb-soaked screed of electric guitar howl whose anxious, hallucinatory aura is the perfect setup for the album's closer and crown jewel, the 25 minute Gypsy-raga, "Mahavidya." Roughly translated, the word means "Great Wisdom," but it more specifically refers to the 10 aspects that together comprise the totality of feminine divinity in Tantric Hinduism, with each aspect being represented by a goddess either beautiful or terrifying, the most well-known of whom must be the black destroyer goddess, Kali. Over a bed of delicate tambura drones, Bishop's guitar begins plaintively and works itself into an ecstatic trance full of rapid flurries of notes and modulating melodic phrases, all the while maintaining a sense of balance and grounded-ness, even during its most dizzying, virtuosic passages. Bishop's playing has a hypnotic, devotional air to it here -- call it Goddess worship -- and this is truly some of the most gracious guitar playing I've ever heard cut to disc. His conscious and sophisticated synthesis of worldly traditions -- both musical and spiritual -- and technical prowess is reminiscent of the late Robbie Basho, and While My Guitar also manages to approximate the energy of Bishop's live shows, which have been consistently great in recent years. Recommended. [CC]


	$16.99 CD $31.99 LPx2		THE WHITE STRIPES Icky Thump (Warner Bros.) "Bone Broke" "Icky Thump" Say what you will about the sad state of mainstream music today, I think it's hard to deny the fact that if the White Stripes can support an album as twisted and idiosyncratic as Icky Thump with a headlining arena tour taking them to Madison Square Garden and beyond, all is not lost. The White Stripes are not the only legitimate underground band topping the Billboard charts in 2007, and they have not truly been an indie band for some time. But you can't escape that Jack White makes music how he wants with no compromises to success, producing and mixing the records himself and keeping it decidedly raw and real. His simple trick, besides consistently great songwriting and the twin attack of raw and thrilling guitar playing and a rich, unhinged vocal delivery, is his inspiration. Drawing on blues, primal rock and roll and classic bombast like Zeppelin funneled through a brash D-I-Y aesthetic, The White Stripes can appeal to dedicated fans of classic rock and punk equally and honestly. Icky Thump is a pounding whirlwind of rock and roll, built around White's crushing power chords and truly insane Electro Harmonix Poly Octave Generator guitar leads, anchored by Meg White's simple, pounding rhythms, and embellished here and there with trumpet trills, bagpipe swirls, and classic organ swells. There are undeniable classic rock hits like "You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told)" and blues stomp like "Rag and Bone," but the album veers into glam, Tex-Mex, prog and several yet-to-be defined genres with the drive and tenacity of a pit bull. Icky Thump is another slab of classic, often thrilling White Stripes rock and roll. Love them or not, it's hard not to root for this band. (Deluxe gatefold vinyl edition also available.) [JM]


	$4.99 7-inch		PANDA BEAR Take Pills (Paw Tracks) "Take Pills" The singles series continues, Panda Bear doing it up breadcrumb-trail style for each of the tracks on Person Pitch (which now, curiously, also has a double-vinyl counterpart -- featured a little lower in the update). "Take Pills" comes from that massive cerulean slab of good vibes, and "Bonfire of the Vanities" reps here as the B-side, recorded in Portugal in 2004, all time-delay dub immediacy, movie dialogue snippets, and soulful vocalizing. Will your summer be complete without this single? Doubtful. [DM]


	$16.99 CD		ELLEN ALLIEN Fabric 34 (Fabric) "S1 (Don't Believe the Chord-Pop Hype)" Schubert "Orderly Kaos" Don Williams The combination of Ellen Allien, whose reputation has been sealed by her ability to put together a great mix CD whether its limited to her label releases or not, and the Fabric series, who most likely cannot be refused usage of a track at this point, can only add up to a nice mix. Ellen Allien knows how to pick cuts with tons of personality and then weave 'em together with a solid ear for compelling beats and plenty of effective/restrained drama. Right off the bat Schubert's "S1" comes in with a palette-readying, tone-setting, chirpy acid-pop-house feel. From there, the mix manages to gracefully touch on love song acid house (Larry Heard/Mr.White's "Sun Can't Compare") and floating deep techno (Damian Schwartz's "Tu Y Yo" and Melody Boy 2000's "Sound Stealer"). Also notable, her mix from Roman Flugel to Aste (Mika Vainio) to Thom Yorke (!) to her own vocal-less track. Overall, the selection leans toward synthetic, modern but not soul-less acid house varieties (not the neo-Kraftwerk/electro-pop/breaks thing so much) with that bit of moodiness that she injects so well. An effortless, graceful ride through what seems like another group of her favorite tracks. We didn't think we'd get any less. Great mix! [SM]


	$8.99 CD-EP $3.99 mp3		DAVID VANDERVELDE Nothin' No (Secretly Canadian) "Nothin' No" The big hit-that-should-be from David Vandervelde's full-length from earlier this year gets the single treatment here. "Nothin' No" is all T. Rex glam swagger with a completely irresistible melody that would make even Jeff Lynne or Barry Gibb proud. One of my favorite songs of the year. In addition, we get two new tracks and a session version of "Feet of a Liar." [AK]


	$14.99 CD		AMIINA Kurr (Ever) "Hilli" "Kolapot" On the cover of Amiina's Kurr we find the four ladies sitting at a table, knitting what appears to be a rather long sweater. Each woman crochets a section, with each color forming a stripe in the overall piece. The cover is a perfect illustration of the way Amiina work separately in order to collectively create something cohesive. From their beginnings as the string section for Sigur Ros and later, Efterklang, Amiina are establishing their own sound and technique, and what results is the beautiful merging of minimal classical structures with slight pop overtones. Quiet passages of small percussion, faint voices, music box chimes, toy xylophones, and, of course, strings weave together into a calming and tranquil listening experience. Fans of Colleen, Phillip Glass and Stars of the Lid will warm up to this quiet storm brewing from the Artic Region. [DG]


	$14.99 CD		THE ALIENS Astronomy for Dogs (Astralwerks) "Robot Man" "Glover" No, this has nothing to do with Roky Erickson's old band but chances are that you might have a record or two from this trio's previous group in your collection. The first time I heard Astronomy for Dogs I remember thinking "this sounds like the Beta Band on a bunch of happy pills." Sure enough, the Aliens just so happen to feature three original Beta Band-ers: Gordon Anderson (a/k/a Lone Pigeon), Robin Jones and John Maclean -- had singer Stephen Mason signed on, they could have called it a reunion. Okay, that might be a little inaccurate, because even though the Aliens have a similar whimsical sense of everything-but-the-kitchen-sink self-indulgence, most of the songs on Astronomy for Dogs actually go "somewhere." Hell, there's even a track called the "The Happy Song" that sounds like it could have come off the first Kaiser Chiefs record. There's still plenty of genre-hopping going on, however, the Aliens mixing and matching harmony-drenched psych-pop and folk with glam, funk and hip-hop. And then you get to the epic, almost nonsensical 12-minute closer, which tears through all the aforementioned styles above (add Krautrock to the list) before magnificently imploding. Astronomy for Dogs is definitely not The Three EPs, but it's filled with some of the catchiest, most memorable tracks that we've heard coming from this Beta bunch ever since. [GH]


	$14.99 CD $9.99 mp3		VON SUDENFED Tromatic Reflexxions (Domino) "Fledermaus Can't Get Enough" "Duckrog" As everyone knows, save Mark E. Smith, the Fall is made up of a revolving cast of players handling second fiddle while Boss Smith takes the limelight. Not that he hasn't had some talented musicians in the group, and I don't just mean during the band's salad days with Riley, Scanlon, Hanley, Brix and the rest -- even back then they came and went with dizzying frequency. But Smith is known to be harder on his band members than James Brown ever was (or at least more arbitrary), and he was famously quoted a few years back as saying: "If it's me and your granny on bongos, it's the Fall." So why exactly ISN'T Von Sudenfed The Fall? The group is clearly constructed around Smith's acerbic, abusive rants and undeniable charisma, but rather than the latest crop of 22-year-olds holding up the backline, Von Sudenfed is filled out by none other than Mouse on Mars, the groundbreaking German electronic duo famous for their dark and bubbly instrumental grooves. Jan St. Werner and Andy Toma craft meticulous, off-kilter electronica, a riot of rhythm and sound both undeniably joyful and irrefutably unsettling. Whose idea this unlikely collaboration was, I can't say, but it has an uncertain logic to it, as Smith's current "songwriting" technique of repeating seemingly random stream-of-consciousness rants against everything finds a welcome home in Mouse on Mars' swinging, seething grooves. St. Werner and Toma have done a great job at creating a sonic palette with just enough movement and melody to buoy their frontman without overwhelming him, and Smith jumps in head first with a great batch of rants on nightclubs, chickens, a bunch of stuff I can't understand, and a few interludes in German that I'm sure his bandmates can't understand. If this WERE a Fall album, it would be one of their better ones of recent memory. And as a fan who has seen Mark E. Smith spend an entire show disassembling drum mics and kicking over amps in a seeming attempt to foil the audience's chances of hearing his band at all, and has also seen Mouse on Mars flatly refuse to perform for a packed room of rabid heads until the P.A. was rebuilt from scratch because the stereo separation was not to their exacting standards, I can't wait to see the tour! [JM]


	$13.99 CD		ART BRUT It's a Bit Complicated (Downtown) "Pump Up the Volume" "Sound of Summer" Art Brut's classic "Formed a Band" says it all, really: "And yes, this IS my singing voice," frontman Eddie Argos wryly intones to an imaginary interviewer. "It's not irony and it's not rock 'n' roll. I'm just talking, to the kids." And talk he does, a trademark careening mix of rapid-fire speak-singing that he wears like a pair of pinstriped pants on his equally despised Top of the Pops. It's a Bit Complicated is an open invitation to full-tilt rock voyeurism, chock full of sweet, addictive vitriol. In possibly the most perfectly Brut-ish album opener ever, Argos vocalizes his decision to ruin a one-night snogfest long enough to turn up a song he likes more than his girl du jour ("Pump Up the Volume"). His bandmates ride shotgun, reeling out vampy brass, lock-jawed rhythms, shrill guitar blurts and faux-geniuine "oooohhhh" choruses paying regular, jubilant homage to insomnia and paranoia. On "Late Sunday Evening" (a possible allusion to Morrissey's "Suedehead") the popular logic is "When I feel my friends have been conspiring against me/ I break into their bedrooms and write in their diaries." They're against everything, but they're with you -- and that's key. This is an ode to old-fashioned yet failed self-improvement, and musically, it all moves very fast, begging for a replay -- did he really just say that? From a family that doesn't give a damn on holidays to hiding out in hotels or ditching a relationship simply because "People in love get old and get fat," the loose, self-aggrandizing anthems here work because, like it or not, there's always truth in fiction. In abundance are vulnerable odes to various modern-age ills: drunken texting and poverty ("Post Soothing Out"); two friends trading mix tapes all summer without really holding a face-to-face dialogue ("Sound of Summer"); headphones as a paltry weapon against aging (the stellar "Nag Nag Nag Nag"); skipping a party to stay in bed with someone ("Blame It on the Train"). The humanity here is rich, the raggedy punk roots deeply rewarding. It's even a bit Robert Altman, celebrating the nakedness of human doubt, and Arctic Monkeys, knowing you can't waste your youth if you refuse to have a funeral for it. [KO]


	$11.99 CD		ARTHUR & YU In Camera (Hardy Art) "Absurd Heroes Manifestos" "Afterglow" Many have tried and many have failed when it comes to the art of recording an album that successfully sounds as if it were created during an earlier decade. Although plenty of current artists are fixated on the folk-pop lullabies of the late '60s and early '70s, none carry the sound with as much ease as Arthur & Yu. Following in the footsteps of Lee and Nancy, Jack and Misty, and John and Michelle, Arthur & Yu's debut has an irresistible tenderness to it. With a gently swaying sound and sincere, poetic lyrics, the duo avoids the trappings of both irony and over-production that spoil so many likeminded projects. Arthur & Yu came together in Seattle, WA, disguising their real names (Grant Olsen and Sonya Westcott) with the same playful nicknames that they had growing up. On almost every song the pair sings together, yet it never gets tiresome or predictable. Perhaps it is their warm fuzz or soft imagery talking, but I sure hope that these two stick together for a second album. [AC]


	$14.99 CD		SAVATH AND SAVALAS Golden Pollen (Anti) "Olhos" "Paisaje" For Scott Herren, one alias has never been enough to flesh out all the stylistic ideas floating around in his head. Over the course of nearly 10 years he has morphed into a half-dozen distinct characters, each with a specific stated purpose. Prefuse 73, perhaps his been known project, scratches his hip-hop itch while Delarosa & Asora lets him explore glitchy soundscapes. And while A Cloud Mireya gives him an outlet for ethereal folk experiments, it's quickly becoming apparent that Savath & Savalas is where Herren goes to investigate the richness of details that can be achieved through well-balanced acoustic exploration. The overall mood is decidedly subdued and lush; electronics largely fall to the wayside in favor of grand pianos, upright bass, various percussion and a multitude of Latin guitars and stringed instruments. And for the first time, Scott becomes the primary vocalist and surprisingly it works very well. His moody, understated delivery perfectly complements the richness of the music and very often the Spanish lyrics work more as an instrument than the focal point -- which is a good thing. Though there are some pretty high-profile guest appearances, including the likes of Jose Gonzalez, Mia Doi Todd, Triosk percussionist Laurence Pike, Tortoise member John McEntire and the Battles' Tyondai Braxton, this still feels like Herren's most personal and individual statement to date. [GA]


	$14.99 CDx2		JAYLIB Champion Sound (Stones Throw) "The Heist" "McNasty Filth" The now-legendary collaboration between J Dilla and Madlib is back in a new, deluxe edition, with a bonus disc of instrumentals. Arguably, Dilla's finest moment ("Heavy") lives here, as do sixteen loose, leftfield examples of production, shored by sturdy rhythms and a preternatural sense of aural awareness recalling David Axelrod. Ignore this and you turn your back on one of the cemented-in classics of this decade in hip-hop -- simple as that. [DM]


	$9.99 CD		VARIOUS ARTISTS Chrome Children Vol. 2 (Stones Throw) "Reverse Part Two" 'Percee P "Selah's Children" Madlib the Beat Konducta Adult Swim and Stones Throw are back together again to give the grown folks, and kids, what they want. Chrome Children Vol. 2 finds the ST crew offering some of their most animated and freaky tracks yet. Lots of nice artist/producer pairings like MED with Dabyre, Guilty Simpson with Four Tet, Aloe Blacc with Four Tet, and Percee P with Koushik, not to mention appearances from the rest of the crew, including Madlib, Gary Wilson, Baron Zen, Chocolate Star, J. Rocc and more. Bright and frantic production, top-notch vocalists, and cartoons on cable, what more do you need? [DG]


	$14.99 CD		THE POLYPHONIC SPREE The Fragile Army (TVT) "Section 22 (Running Away)" "Section 32 (The Championship)" The Fragile Army has been pre-billed as the dawning of a leaner, meaner Polyphonic Spree, subtitled perhaps "P. Spree: Life During Wartime." Indeed the sprawling indie rock chorus HAS stripped things back a bit for their third full-length release, pairing down to a sprightly 20-plus membership and trading in their flowing robes for fitted black military uniforms. And the group relies a bit more heavily on Tim Delaughter's Wayne Coyne-esque lead vocals to carry several of the new numbers before the chorus soars above his head. The album has a loosely-defined theme of life and love in these dark, politically fraught times, and the well-crafted pop songs let us glimpse occasional darkness and paranoia lurking below the surface of their triumphant, soaring sound. At its core, the Polyphonic Spree simply make uplifting orchestral pop in a long line drawn from the Fifth Dimension to the Flaming Lips, and without a doubt their sound has a gimmick. But solid songwriting, smart lyrics and a focused drive for innovation, as on the pulsing electronics of "Section 29 [Light To Follow]," have conspired to deliver another strong album from the Greek Chorus of Texas. [JM]


	$14.99 CD		MAPS We Can Create (Mute) "Elouise" UK soundsmith James Chapman gets a lot of kudos for being a bedroom revisionist -- like some sort of pagan conjurer working on a trashed 16-track recorder in Northampton, he composes with a blue-collar hand-splicing method that sounds nothing like his sweetly inspired, atmospheric palette. But it's not a gimmick or simple bio quirk that he refuses to support the Apple empire. Chapman gains serious mileage with his trusty equipment, delivering glorious bursts of psych-pop as on the very Mew-meets-Stars "So Low, So High," and crystalline I-can't-believe-it's-not-computer balladry ("Glory Verse"). Coaxing oft-inhumane, sometimes even icy sounds from his machine, Chapman balances them by distilling each song with manmade poetics. "Liquid Sugar" is a pretty sheen of vocals set to glimmering keyboards and soothing samples of guitar. Sometimes it feels like Maps is not stuck in, but recreating the early '90s (Slowdive, is that you under the covers?). And that feels very fine indeed. In that same vein of downcast optimism, "To the Sky" is the true highlight, a jaunty summer anthem sprinkled with quick-skip beats and cosmic harmonies. But don't take it from me: Last year, NME named "Lost My Soul" (previously released on Chapman's own label, Last Space, as a 10") one of its Top 50 Singles; it's a low-lidded slow dance of gauzy blips and whispered secrets building to a chorus of carefully glued-together voices that's part Polyphonic Spree with a sprinkle of pharmaceutical rampage. Either way, it's a good day not to get out of bed. [KO]


	$13.99 CD		DIGITALISM Idealism (Astralwerks) "Zdarlight" "Idealistic" The Daft Punk comparisons are going to be flying with this one. Not that Digitalism exactly sounds like our beloved French robot duo, but factor in all the vocoders, filter sweeps and anthemic dance tracks that dare you not to strut your stuff underneath the disco lights, there are moments during Idealism that the unsuspecting might just get fooled. But before you start thinking that you're hearing the makings of a '90s French house revival, remember that most of the club kids getting down to Kitsune and Ed Banger 12-inches today were probably still in grade school when Homework came out. So it's not surprising that the music that Digitalism create isn't straight-up house or neo-disco, but rather a complete blurring of the lines between electronic and rock music that makes you think that the person who coined the term dance-punk was a few years too early. Songs like "I Want I Want" and "Pogo" aren't too dissimilar to what the Klaxons are doing, with rock vocal melodies and live drumming, only the synthesizers buzz more and there's a heavier emphasis on the beat. My favorite tracks, however, are when the German duo opts for more of a crunchy electro-house aesthetic during cuts like "Zdarlight," "Moonlight" or the killer "Digitalism in Cairo" (which is based around a scrambled Cure sample). These might not be the most original moments of the album, but these songs sure do sound good on a dance floor -- I'd love to hear a DJ sandwich them between "Around the World" and "Music Sounds Better with You." [GH]