The Other Music Update

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	March 26, 2008


	FEATURED NEW RELEASES Quarteto Em Cy El Barrio: The Bad Boogaloo (Various) Excepter Crispian St. Peters Margie Joseph The Raconteurs Thee Silver Mt. Zion Ersen Richard Lainhart Dominique Grimaud J Dilla Reiko Kudo		Gnarls Barkley Guilty Simpson FEATURED DIGITAL DOWNLOADS Four Tet (Exclusive Advance) Caribou ("She's the One" single) Silje Nes Daniel Higgs Don Zientara Camphor Andrew Bird

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Snow

OTHER MUSIC PRESENTS: DIAL RECORDS NIGHT
This Saturday, Berlin-based DJ/producer Snow (Dial) will be spinning deep, warm modern house along with Other Music's very own Scott Mou at Monkey Town. There's no cover, the night getting under way at 10:30PM with the two DJs trading sets right up until last call at 4AM. See you there!

SATURDAY, MARCH 29
MONKEY TOWN: 58 North 3rd Street (btw. Kent & Wythe) Williamsburg, Brooklyn

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The Dirtbombs

Antipop Consortium

UPCOMING OTHER MUSIC IN-STORES

JOE CARDUCCI (Book Reading): APRIL 2 @ 7:30PM
Joe Carducci, former SST label head and author of one of the seminal books on rock 'n' roll, "Rock and the Pop Narcotic," will be on hand to read from and discuss his latest memoir "Enter Naomi - SST, L.A. and All That..."

YA HO WA 13 (Poster/Book and Record Signing): April 8 @ 6:30PM
Members of Father Yod's Source Family will be stopping by Other Music to sign records and copies of the book The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod, and to share some food made from the family's original recipes before their performance at the Knitting Factory later that night. Surely, to be one of the most unique psychedelic cult bizarro shows of the year!

THE DIRTBOMBS: APRIL 7 @ 8PM
Back with their first album in five years, Mick Collins and his Dirtbombs are one of rock 'n' roll's best live bands -- fuzzy, ragged and loud!

ANTIPOP CONSORTIUM: APRIL 21 @ 8PM
Reunited and it feels so good! Legendary experimental hip-hop group Antipop Consortium are back together performing at Other Music!

OTHER MUSIC: 15 East 4th Street NYC
Free admission / Limited Capacity


	$15.99 CD		QUARTETO EM CY Aleluia 1964-66 (El / Cherry Red) "Reza" "Zambi" What can I say; this is simply some of the most sublime music to have ever been created in Brazil. If you've ever heard Baden Powell and Vinicius De Moraes' Os Afros Sambas, arguably the greatest Brazilian LP ever recorded, and on which the four sisters who comprise Quarteto Em Cy sang such an integral part, then you know what I'm talking about. A review couldn't even do it justice, so suffice it to say that charms of this CD are in direct proportion to the complexity of Quarteto Em Cy's beautiful and mysterious harmonies, of which they know no bounds. Matchless, peerless, unparalleled... [MK]


	$14.99 CD		VARIOUS ARTISTS El Barrio: The Bad Boogaloo Nu Yorican Sounds 1966-1970 (Fania) "Mercy Mercy Baby" Ray Barretto "Happy Soul with a Hook" Dave Cortez As clichéd as this may sound, it's about this time every year, when winter is in its dying throes, that I begin pulling out all my old Fania albums and start counting the days until I can put all my jackets and sweaters into storage. Needless to say, this compilation made it to the shop in the nick of time, and as far as boogaloo collections, you're not going to get a bigger bang for your buck than this one. Featuring a great mix of staple bandleaders and lesser knowns, there's something here for both aficionados and those who are just now getting bitten by the boogaloo bug. Kicking off with the Queen of Latin Soul, La Lupe's spirited cover of "Fever" sets the tone for the next 15 tracks that follow -- 50 minutes of joyous call-and-response sing-a-longs, rollicking piano and horns, handclaps and groovy rhythms. No boogaloo record collection is complete without cuts like the vibe-filled "Gimme Some Love" by Joe Cuba Sextet; hard hands conga king Ray Barretto's "Mercy Mercy Baby;" Eddie Palmieri's "Ay Que Rico" (the song title says it all!); Joey Pastrana's breakthrough "King of Latin Soul;" and an early recording from famed Fania All-Stars bassist Bobby Valentin (playing the trumpet here), delivering his funky ode to halitosis, "Bad Breath." The all-but-forgotten cuts are equal highlights, including the swinging instrumental "Morris Park" taken from bandleader Lenni Sesar's one and only album, and Puerto Rican trumpet player Ralph Robles' "Come and Get It." A few personal faves: Dave Cortez and the Moon People's funky horn and organ groover "Happy Soul with a Hook" (which lifts the rhythm of Archie Bell's "Tighten Up"); King Nando's hard-to-find mod-soul stomper "Mama's Girl;" and another incredible slice of Latin soul, George Guzman's "Marilu," produced by Fania great Harvey Averne (whose own "You're No Good" has been an Other Music staff favorite for years, via Terry Riley's infamous spliced and diced twenty-minute re-working -- not included here). Every spring needs some shing-a-ling! Highly Recommended!! [GH]


	$13.99 CD $13.99 LP $9.99 MP3		EXCEPTER Debt Dept (Paw Tracks) "Any and Every" "Sunrise" Excepter's first full-length on Paw Tracks and fourth overall, Debt Dept conjures the haunted, confrontational vocal passages and industrial-psych-dub freak-outs they've (im)perfected over endless hours of performance (some of which is offered via free live streams available on their website). There is a feeling on Debt Dept though that contrasts well to that mode of production. While the parts characteristically deconstruct and sub divide, dissipate and dissolve, the album is more than just a compacted version of their performances; it is an articulated glance at the boundless mystery that is Excepter. In just over 40 minutes, the New York electronic performance troupe (which counts OM staffer Dan Hougland as a member) present without pretension their ability to thrive on contradiction, often celebrating the dynamics of tonality, texture, and rhythm in the same passage as which they negate these very qualities, challenging the notions which traditionally circumscribe our experience of music. In the compressed time/narrative format of this album, the big payoffs are that much more present, and the paranoid, precarious routes taken to get there become slightly lucid. Hypnotic and intelligent beats slowly piece themselves together from minimal chaos into bona-fide jams, vocal quips shift simultaneously from humorous to sonorous to sinister. Warped synths swim about, recalling Suicide (both the band and the act) -- sustained passages of engaging texture that swiftly change connotation, seemingly demonic one minute, revelatory the next. Surprise, though: these are very well-crafted "songs," with a profoundly logical unfolding, which, however disturbing, becomes more rewarding through close listening and patience. Quite clearly, Excepter isn't out to win everyone's (or maybe anyone's) hearts or accolades, but to dismiss the project as offhand seems way too easy, and downright absurd when something as beautiful and immediately satisfying as "Walking Through the Night" exists on this earth, a mighty, cascading wall of sound that is simply gripping and unstoppable. Something like laughing and crying at the same time, Excepter may be challenging to comprehend and will definitely take you by surprise, but in the end the confusion that arises from this conflict may be more satisfying than whatever functional clarity you had expected from your own emotions. After all, this is life, this is art, take a chance. [JW]


	$14.99 CD		CRISPIAN ST. PETERS Follow Me (Collectables) "When Your Love Has Gone" "Sweet Dawn My True Love" There was a customer who was coming in pretty regularly last year selling lots of obscure secondhand oldies type stuff, but one disc he sold in particular has become an abiding obsession. Crispian St. Peters was a 22-year-old wonderkid and apparent musical reactionary from Kent who had the good fortune of having two singles rocket up the charts in 1966. He described himself in an early NME article as being a "rather sad person," who "either likes to be alone or with a girl," but within months he was flush with success, buying a Jaguar, and telling that same magazine he was going to be bigger than Elvis and that the Beatles were "past it." This naturally created a firestorm of controversy that he has backtracked from ever since. He gigged with everyone from the Walker Brothers to the Small Faces, but future singles failed to chart and by the eighties he was working the oldies circuit till ill health forced him into retirement. His first album, Follow Me, was produced by his 19-year-old manager David Nicolson, and it seems to operate in some weird no-man's land between Roy Orbison's early work and what the Beatles and Byrds were up to in 1965. He was quoted explaining how he felt more affinity with the work of Orbison, Presley, and Gene Vincent than any of his peers, and it clearly shows. The best songs have a real timeless feel that totally remind me of what Nick Lowe and Richard Hawley have been trying to get at lately. They're stripped down, or simply added to in layers, occasionally drenched in reverb, and nearly always about an unrequited love. It's a romantic album for sure, but a new facet seems to emerge every time I listen to it. [MK]


	Margie Joseph $12.99 CD Sweet Surrender $12.99 CD		MARGIE JOSEPH Margie Joseph (Collectors Choice) "Let's Stay Together" "You Better Know It" MARGIE JOSEPH Sweet Surrender (Collectors Choice) "To Know You Is to Love You" "Come Lay Some Lovin' on Me" Margie Joseph is probably one of the most talented soul vocalists of the '70s who never had a crossover hit, but it wasn't from lack of tryin' or that the right people weren't paying enough attention. Legendary producer Arif Mardin sat behind the console for most of her Atlantic records output. Al Green handpicked a 23-year-old Joseph to join him on tour immediately after hearing her sing, and she counted Stevie Wonder, Bonnie Raitt and Paul McCartney among her small yet loyal fan base. For whatever reason, it never quite happened. That said, her albums are loved by many and have been sampled by everyone from RZA to Kenny Dixon and Dilla. After leaving Stax Records, these two albums were her first for Atlantic, the label immediately pairing her with Mardin, who was riding high from his recent success with Aretha Franklin. Joseph's self-titled album is an awesome collection of southern soul complemented by Mardin's impeccable string and horn arrangements. Her voice is oft compared to Franklins' -- almost to a fault -- but to these ears, Joseph was much more bluesy and Ann Peebles would probably be a better comparison. Joseph sang with a depth of emotion and phrasing that belied her youth. Strong re-workings of "Let's Stay Together," "I'd Rather Go Blind" and Dolly Parton's "Touch Your Woman" are highlights here and some of the best examples of the classic Atlantic soul sound of the '70s. While the album enjoyed modest success on the R&B charts, it would be unfairly labeled an "Aretha knock-off" by most critics at the time, if you can believe that. With Sweet Surrender, Joseph teamed up with Mardin once again and came out with a slightly more successful formula. The mood is mellower and the choice of covers a bit more radical. Here, Joseph rips through a gospel reworking of the Billy Joel chestnut "(S)he's Got a Way" and turns in strong covers of "Baby I'm-A Want You" and "To Know You Is to Love You." Her chill-inducing version of McCartney's "My Love" would become her biggest charting hit, even prompting Sir Paul to send her a gushing telegram. Highlights also include the slinky, self-penned "Riding High" and the slow-burn funk of album opener "Come Lay Some Lovin' on Me." Although Joseph never quite got the mainstream recognition she deserved, her records are revered amongst soul aficionados and she still performs to this day. I've been a fan for years and it's nice to finally see these available on CD. All of her '70s output is worth hearing and these two albums are definitely counted as some of her best work. Excellent! [DH]


	$16.99 CD $32.99 LPx2 180 Gram		THE RACONTEURS Consolers of the Lonely (Warner Bros) "Consoler of the Lonely" "Pull This Blanket Off" Jack White is nothing if not a superlative storyteller, and he's has found the perfect accomplice in Brendan Benson who performs "sing, string, ring, ding, dong" (according to the liner notes) in the Raconteurs along with Patrick Keller on drums and Jack L.J. Lawrence on bass. White and Benson are all over the map experimenting with different genres and stories on their follow-up to their 2006 Broken Boy Soldiers. Let's see, we've got the punk-driven "Five on Five," the melodramatic, R&B infused "Many Shades of Black," the anthem rock of "Rich Kid Blues," and, dare I say, a little '80s hair-band during "Attention," which has a chorus of "you have some kind of vice-like grip on me," along with a high-pitched guitar solo and some handclapping thrown in for good measure. But the band's bread and butter lie with the classic blues riffs; "Top Yourself" is a bitter tale infused with a fierce slide guitar and banjo followed later by the Dylan-influenced "Carolina Drama," a ditty about a bottle of milk saving a priest's life that closes out the album (don't ask). Better yet are the tracks accompanied by the Memphis Horns, who add a dramatic flair to the normally stripped-down White, specifically on the western outlaw ode "The Switch and the Spur," which could take a spin as the theme song to Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. It's nice to see the omniscient Jack sharing the songwriting -- and singing -- with someone who complements him so well. Benson keeps White's nose clean, along with the production of the tracks, which makes for a more rounded, polished sound than the White Stripes, the exception being "Salute the Solution," which is a classic, trashing WS joint. [TL]


	$16.99 CD $22.99 LP $9.99 MP3		THEE SILVER MT. ZION 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons (Constellation) "13 Blues for Thirteen Moons" "BlindBlindBlind" With recent rumors dispelled in regards to the retirement of Montreal "post-rock" monolith Godspeed You! Black Emperor, anyone who hopes in their temporary absence for Thee Silver Mt. Zion to be Godspeed 2.0 can relax, and truly relish the intense dynamics of 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons. In the 10 years and five albums since their inception, Thee Silver Mt. Zion has gone a far way from side project curiosity, growing comfortably into a tender yet bombastic ideology all its own. Exhibiting a violent clash between the tense, punk rock vocals of Efrim Manuck & Co. with brooding drones and soaring heights that share a similar spark as GY!BE, Silver Mt. Zion's 13 Blues is true musical antagonism, an emotional insurgency that is painful and beautiful. Listener's may find Manuck's warble harsh to the ears, but rest assured that after repeated listens, the epic musical dispatches that shift underneath his repetitive phrases contextualize this scrappy fervor, to the point where his battle cries and the groups' chants and choruses become another hypnotic instrument in the dizzying peaks and troughs of a punk rock orchestra. 13 Blues is full of poetic tension and release that will swallow you in the moment, but which will linger for a long while after the album has finished. "We want punks in the palace," cries Manuck on closing track "BlindBlindBlind." I couldn't think of a better epithet for this record, which searches for a sense of raw, incorruptible power in a mix of the confrontational and the sublime. [JW]


	$21.99 CD		ERSEN Ersen (Finders Keepers) "Temek" "Gazan Mubarek olsun" A little-known genre of Turkey's indigenous rock music, the so-called Anadolu Pop scene has recently arrived stateside courtesy of Finders Keepers with this comp of '70s-era tunes from Ersen. A Turkish folk singer with a taste for the experimental, Ersen Dinleten made a full transformation from old-school Anatolian balladeer to psychedelic rock maestro in a period of a decade, and it's a shame that his hooky sound is only now beginning to stir up the West. Though Dinleten's delicate, mournful voice isn't that unusual for traditional Middle Eastern music, these are songs with an unquestionable funk swagger and rock-and-roll heart. Armed with a vast array of electric instruments (both western and eastern) and backed by an unbelievably fierce rhythm section, Ersen charges through head-nodders recalling everyone from Led Zeppelin to Sly & The Family Stone, executing unmistakably Turkish music with prog and psychedelic flair. And as a strong endorsement from Stones Throw beatmaker Oh No would suggest, Ersen's infectious and aggressive rhythms will have hip-hoppers drooling. What's perhaps most pleasing about this record is the fact that it comes to us straight out of its context. Usually the words "rock with middle eastern flavor" are cause to brace oneself for territory already well-trampled. But Ersen isn't trying to market its exotica directly to its audience; it's such a part of their sound that it doesn't matter any longer. Ersen Dinleten is legit. [DS]


	$18.99 CD		RICHARD LAINHART White Night (Ex Ovo) "White Night" Phil Niblock's XI Records has been a pretty indispensable source for minimal and drone-based music, and if pressed to name my three favorite releases on the label I'd have to pick Niblock's own YPGPN, Eliane Radigue's Kyema, and Richard Lainhart's Ten Thousand Shades of Blue. Lainhart is, perhaps, not as well known to our customers as Radigue and Niblock, but that disc, a retrospective of his work spanning the years 1975-1989, is simply exquisite. Not included on that album for reasons due to length no doubt, was his 1974 piece "White Night," recorded on the Moog synthesizer at the Electronic Music Studio at the State University in Albany, and here finally given its first ever release by the German label Ex Ovo. Lainhart had begun experimenting with early synthesizers a couple of years earlier while under the influence of Morton Subotnick's Silver Apples of the Moon. By 1974 he'd found his own voice, setting aside the percolating beeps and bips for a more measured and contemplative approach. "White Night" proceeds slowly, with carefully modulated sine waves and shifting tones interacting subtly across four tracks like a tempered music of the spheres. No great heights are ever reached, it's just perfectly ambient, a long, deep, thirty-minute exhalation of breath. A very beautiful release that seems totally modern -- I'm thinking here of Mountains and William Basinski in particular -- that I can't recommend highly enough. [MK]


	$14.99 CD		DOMINIQUE GRIMAUD Les Quatre Directions (Locust) "Les Quatre Directions" "Les Quatre Directions" From his legendary early '70s experimental psych-rock band Camizole to his no wave duo Video Adventures, to numerous collaborations with Jac Berrocal and his recent audio-visual collaborations with French electronic music darling Colleen, Dominique Grimaud's presence in the French underground cannot be overstated. Still, there is little in his catalog to prepare the listener for his most recent effort and, as far as I know, first American solo release, Les Quatre Directions. With a brief passage of incantations in an obscure language (which turns out to be Lakota-Sioux), Grimaud ushers us into an hour-long, shape-shifting sound world where shamanic chants, analog synthesizers, ritualistic percussion, guitars, vinyl and tape manipulation serve as the recombinant building blocks for one of the more intriguing and epic pieces of sound collage I have heard since last year's reissue of Tenno from Teiji Ito. While Les Quatre Directions does bear many similarities to the works of '60s electronic luminaries like Pierre Henry or Ramon Sender -- especially in its sense of playfulness -- the Teiji Ito comparison is equally appropriate because of a shared sense of spirit, the abiding spiritual hunger of outsiders living in the West, but obsessed with a non-European, pre-industrial sense of ritual and magic. While their interests are free from irony, they are not un-self-reflective, as Grimaud's choice of incantory words in the Lakota-Sioux dialect attests -- at one point he utters the words "wicaho oyuspe" which translates roughly to "tape-recorder". These incantations are almost always met with a deluge from Grimaud's AKS and Moog synthesizers, as if these pulsating thickets of electronic sound are the magic called into being by this secret language. But, if Grimaud is an earnest truth seeker, he is also one with a sense of humor. Les Quatre Directions is full of playful manipulations and juxtapositions that offer moments of lightness amidst the trance-inducing sonic maelstrom that is the rest of the album. A tweaked out, pitch-shifted big band break is pitted against a bevy of coruscating electronic textures at one point and tribal drum patterns are interrupted suddenly by intermittent game show sonics and ridiculous electronic noises that eventually give way to a schmaltzy jazz guitar solo. There is still room for humor and play here, and the ritualistic metaphors are all the richer for it. Les Quatre Directions strikes one as a mature statement from an artist whose interests and experience are as deep as they are far flung, as primary as the cardinal directions. Recommended. [CC]


	$16.99 CD		J DILLA Jay Loves Japan (Operation Un) "Oh Oh" "in the Streets" Clocking in at just under 20 minutes (10 tracks total), Jay Loves Japan completes the posthumous trilogy from the late, great James "J Dilla" Yancey. Originally slated for release exclusively in Japan, Dilla's mama thought it fitting to give his short and sweet gift to the rest of world some two years later. Mostly instrumental, JLJ sits sonically between The Shining and Donuts -- synthy and cosmic without the added neo soul gloss of the former, and less loop happy than the latter. This version bares a different track listing from the original version from 2006, with less vocal collaborations; but it's still a nice bookend to the diverse career from, and still, one of the freshest producers of the past decade. [DG]


	$21.99 CD		REIKO KUDO Licking Up Dust (Hyotan) "Faraway Mountain" We always welcome another inscrutably charming solo release from Reiko Kudo, lord knows they're few and far enough in between. Her Rice Field Silently Riping In The Night is always referenced here at the store as a classic, and pretty much was upon the moment of its release back in 2001. She was also responsible for my favorite Japanese No Wave album, Noise's Tenno, and of course her contribution to her husband Toru Kudo's group Maher Shalal Hash Baz can not be underestimated. Licking Up Dust finds her continuing on with her own peculiar shambolic logic. As ever, her hold on structure is tenuous at best, even as the skeletal fragility of her compositions is never less than gripping. It's a music of quotidian struggles and gentle exhortation, a request to her lover to "hold tight the burr/that hurts, hurts, hurts your soft palm." Keiji Haino shows up as well to contribute guitar, drums, and one emotionally laden vocal, but he never dominates the proceedings. Very lovely. [MK]


	$16.99 CD		GNARLS BARKLEY The Odd Couple (Downtown) "Run" "Surprise" The much-anticipated sophomore album from Gnarls Barkley begins with the same video projector sample that kicked off St. Elsewhere, their 2006 debut, but here it immediately sets a different tone. The Odd Couple is far more mellow and brooding with fewer standout club hits that made Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse's first album together so iconic. But that's not necessarily bad; there aren't any references to vampires, for one thing, but the record still maintains that eerie, Twilight Zone-feeling straight through, from the moody lament "Who's Gonna Save My Soul" to the chilling "Would Be Killer" and "Run (I'm a Natural Disaster)," the ready-made single with a foreboding chorus full of paranoia -- just as we've come to expect from this duo. On the fun tip we get "Whatever," which has Cee-Lo channeling a whiney brat dealing with teenage (hipster?) apathy and some old school pop with the carnival-esque "Blind Mary." Not quite religious themed, but many of the songs contain some church-esque accoutrements like bells, flute (wait, is that a lute?) and a choir -- not to mention preacher Cee-Lo -- but then Danger Mouse turns this notion on its head, transforming midnight mass into a session of Space Invaders. Downright melancholy, yet magisterial, the record ends on a hopeful, neo-soul note with "A Little Better." No doubt that this album has plenty of new theatrical fodder for the odd couple to play out on stage, no telling if the Wookie drummer will make his return, however. [TL]


	$14.99 CD $9.99 MP3		GUILTY SIMPSON Ode to the Ghetto (Stones Throw) "Almighty Dreadnaughtz" "Pigs" Former J. Dilla protégé and Madlib running mate Guilty Simpson should be familiar to most Stones Throw fans by now. After turning in rugged cameo verses for everyone from Jaylib to Four Tet, the Detroit-based emcee lays his much-awaited debut album on us. As you might expect, the production is topnotch, with the Stones Throw all-stars Dilla, Madlib and Oh No all contributing beats. Still, Simpson's flow is more likely to draw comparisons to Jadakiss than Percee P. Make no mistake, this is a grimy, hardcore affair but not in any sort of mainstream, suburban thug sort of way, rather in a hardened, Kool G Rap, Gang Starr "Code of the Streets" sort of way. It ain't gangsta, it's just hard! [DH]


	EXCLUSIVE ADVANCE RELEASE $3.99 MP3		FOUR TET Ringer EP (Domino Recording Co.) EXCLUSIVE ADVANCE DOWNLOAD. Taking a break from recent collaborations with jazz drummer Steve Reid, Kieran Hebden delivers his first new Four Tet material since '05's Everything Ecstatic. This four song EP finds Hebden completely shedding the overused folktronica tag and delving into minimal, Kraut-influenced electronic music, blending hypnotizing Gottsching/Cluster-like ambience over a restrained techno pulse with occasional bursts of live drumming. Recommended! (Preview song clips on Other Music Digital.)


	$2.99 MP3		CARIBOU She's the One - Single (Merge Records) The breezy second single from Caribou's excellent Andorra full-length features two high profile remixes of "She's the One" alongside the original. Hot Chip's version draws the track out to twice its length, adding some tension to the airy chorus and gives way to many danceable, surprising twists. Kelly Polar's remix lends some heft to the '60s melodies with more emphasis on the vocals and a little spoken word throwback to the baroque pop of that era. (Preview song clips on Other Music Digital.)


	$3.99 MP3		SILJE NES Yellow EP (Fat Cat Records) A digital-only EP from the fascinating Norwegian songstress, the title track (taken from her debut album Ames Room) melts your heart like a more reserved Mirah. Underneath all four frail guitar songs, synthesized and percussive fragments proceed to bubble, pop fade and resurface, at times reminiscent of a cheery Mum or a less schizophrenic Architecture in Helsinki, and at others, like a back porch stomp-n-sing along. (Preview song clips on Other Music Digital.)


	$9.99 MP3		DANIEL HIGGS Magic Alphabet (Dischord Records) Leader of Lungfish, poet, tattoo artist, electronic improviser, and all-around shaman, Dan Higgs also plays the Jew's harp with a serious degree of skill. On Magic Alphabet, Higgs gathers 17 instrumental compositions of pure beauty and meditative simplicity. Quite unlike anything else in his canon, this is a unique statement from one of today's most intriguing and unpredictable arists. (Preview song clips on Other Music Digital.)


	$9.99 MP3		DON ZIENTARA Clocks & Watches (Dischord Records) Legendary Dischord producer (from Teen Idles til the present) Don Zientara is also quite the accomplished singer/songwriter. Clocks & Watches is less sparse than the debut, with the addition of keyboards most notably, and contains eleven great Neil Young-inspired tracks. Staying true to his HC beginnings, the lyrics take a political turn every now and then, and Zientara proves his pen is just as sharp as his production skills. (Preview song clips on Other Music Digital.)


	$9.99 MP3		CAMPHOR Drawn to Dust (Friendly Fire Recordings) Led by acclaimed film composer Max Avery Lichtenstein (Tarnation, Jesus' Son and The King), Camphor finds Lichtenstein bringing his dramatic sense of melody and expansive production to this great collection of conceptual, melancholic pop. Featuring members of indie all-star bands like Mercury Rev, Beirut and Bright Eyes, Drawn to Dust is a beautifully nuanced record that fans of Beck's more somber side (a la Sea Change), Sparklehorse and recent Black Heart Procession will want to check out. (Preview song clips on Other Music Digital.)


	$9.99 MP3		ANDREW BIRD Soldier On (Grimsey Records) On the wings of last year's acclaimed Armchair Apocrypha comes the worldly edition of Andrew Bird's Soldier On, eight tracks of rarities previously only available on his European tour. But B-sides these ain't; Bird continues to pull out some remarkably inventive music for this EP. (Preview song clips on Other Music Digital.)


	PHONE ORDERS Phone orders are accepted at (212) 477-8150 (ext. #2, mailorder) Mon-Fri, Noon - 7pm EST EMAIL For general inquiries or other information please email sales@othermusic.com. Do not reply to this message. REMOVE This is an automated list. If you would like to be removed for any reason, please visit: digital.othermusic.com/subscribe.php		THIS WEEK'S CONTRIBUTORS [CC] Che Chen [DG] Daniel Givens [GH] Gerald Hammill [DH] Duane Harriott [MK] Michael Klausman [TL] Tanya Leet [DS] Daniel Salas [JW] Josiah Wolfson THANKS FOR READING - all of us at Other Music

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