July 7, 2011

		OTHER MUSIC STAFF PICKS ON YOUTUBE The Other Music staff recently curated a music video playlist which was featured for a day on YouTube's homepage. If you missed it, click here where you will see a nice variety of clips by our favorite new artists and great obscurities, along with a few head-scratching surprises, as well as an introduction from OM's Josh Madell, who proves to be quite skilled at talking about music while walking backwards. Other Music also got some love in the Huffington Post last week, the news website running a video interview that the UK's Crane.tv recorded with Josh.

		FEATURED NEW RELEASES Andy Stott (Limited LP) Omar S Memory Tapes Googoosh Biosphere The Caretaker Ada Brian Eno Tiger & Woods Wet Hair LP West Indies Funk Vol. 2 Clams Casino (Now on CD)     ALSO AVAILABLE Animal Collective (Sung Tongs 2LP - OM Exclusive for Month of July) Pure X The McTells (Two Cassettes) Captured Tracks T-Shirts Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/othermusicnyc Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/othermusic

		JUL Sun 10 Mon 11 Tues 12 Wed 13 Thurs 14 Fri 15 Sat 16   Sun 24 Mon 25 Tues 26 Wed 27 Thurs 28 Fri 29 Sat 30 Photo by Mike Orlosky   ANTIBALAS AT FORT GREENE PARK CONSERVANCY Other Music is again teaming up with our friends at the Fort Greene Park Conservancy this summer to present a pair of free shows in Brooklyn's oldest (and coolest) park. First up, on Tuesday July 12, is the incomparable Antibalas, whose blazing horn-driven Afro-funk will be the perfect fit for a hot Brooklyn night, plus special guests the Stepkids (newly signed to Stone's Throw) and DJ Frank Gossner (of the awesome Voodoo Funk label). And on July 26, stay tuned for Charles Bradley & Beans. ALL SHOWS ARE FREE, ON THE MYRTLE LAWN OF FORT GREEN PARK (enter Myrtle and N. Portland)

		JUL Sun 10 Mon 11 Tues 12 Wed 13 Thurs 14 Fri 15 Sat 16   UPCOMING OTHER MUSIC EVENTS OTHER MUSIC WEDNESDAYS AT ACE HOTEL RETURN Back by popular demand, members of the Other Music staff will be DJing the gorgeous lobby of NYC's Ace Hotel every Wednesday this summer, through to the end of August. Next Wednesday, Daniel Givens will be taking over the decks, and you can get a sneak-peek of what kind of musical goodness he's got in store by clicking to his new playlist on Other Music Digital. WEDNESDAY, JULY 13 (8PM-2AM) ACE HOTEL: 20 West 29th Street NYC

		JUL Sun 17 Mon 18 Tues 19 Wed 20 Thurs 21 Fri 22 Sat 23   WIN TICKETS TO EMA Other Music is giving away a pair of tickets to see EMA, a/k/a Erika M. Anderson, formerly of the West Coast duo Gowns. Her recently released solo album Past Life Martyred Saints is one of 2011's most striking debuts, Anderson delivering as honest and withering a performance as you're going to hear this year or any other. To enter, email tickets@othermusic.com, and we'll notify the winner on Friday, July 15. WEDNESDAY, JULY 20 MERCURY LOUNGE: 217 E. Houston Street, NYC

		OTHER MUSIC + EYEBEAM BOOKSTORE Summer is always a great time of year to explore NYC's art galleries, and we imagine that many of our readers may find themselves visiting Chelsea's Eyebeam Art & Technology Center. While you're there, make sure to check out Eyebeam's Bookstore Gallery Wall, where we're presenting selections of vinyl and CDs, curated by Eyebeam Honorary Resident Tahir Hemphill and Other Music's best kept secret, avant-garde electronic music producer/performance artist Daniel Givens (Aesthetics recordings). On display through August 6. EYEBEAM ART & TECHNOLOGY CENTER: 540 W. 21st Street, NYC

		$21.99 LPx2 $5.99 MP3   ANDY STOTT Passed Me By (Modern Love) Preview Songs on Other Music's Download Store Manchester-based producer Andy Stott delivers his finest album yet in Passed Me By, 33 minutes of gritty, dread-filled electronic doomscapes with creeping beats and a thick, hypnotic ambience that leads to constant over-the-shoulder gazing. Tempos here hover around a slowly creeping 100bpm, owing much to the spatial dynamics and atmospheres of dub, blending it with the noirish technologic hauntology of Shackleton and labelmates Demdike Stare, and the syncopated sampledelica of Actress' Splaszh album. It's a disorienting yet kinetic listening experience, expertly crafted and seriously HEAVY; the bass on this record consumes you like a huge low-end black hole, sucking in everything that gets in its way while pushing small flickers of rhythmic debris out into orbit, with the arrangements turning inside out on themselves. That same bass vortex absorbs sonic influence like 2-step, dubstep, and good old fashioned house, and spits it all back out into crunched-up, sawed-off mutations of themselves; it's that simultaneous sense of alien familiarity that makes this such a compelling, visceral listen. What really drew me in, though, was the subtle sensuality of these tracks; rather than pummeling you with such extreme, stark textures, Stott gives everything ample breathing room and lets his creations swim in a deep, almost aquatic environment. Anyone with even a passing interest in recent electronic music of the kinetic persuasion needs to hear this. It's one of the most important and relevant electronic releases of the year, and also very limited. [IQ]

		$19.99 CD   OMAR S Just Ask the Lonely (FXHE) "Just Ask the Lonely" "Congaless" Over the past few years, the legend of the mysterious Omar S has grown quickly and exponentially. Via some 20-odd 12-inches and a few "albums" -- typically released as CD-only affairs on his FXHE imprint (such as this one) -- he's established himself steadily as one of those producers; the kind who unite fans of disparate strands of rhythm-oriented pattern music; the kind who confound and intrigue; the kind who exist in a sort of rarified air akin to Theo Parrish, Carl Craig and Moodyman. Just Ask the Lonely is as good an introduction as any. It's full of contradictions -- brilliant and incoherent, nuanced and lazy, dynamic and monotonous -- and it works. The production would suggest, with its roughshod sound and curious levels, that you may be listening to demos of late-'80s Chicago house or Detroit techno. You also might guess, listening to much of Just Ask the Lonely, that the past 20 years of technology hadn't come to pass. Omar has retained the gritty sound of late-'80s/early-'90s digitalia -- he promotes a sort of anti-gloss. Few of these tracks are tailored for the predictable dance floor, lacking formulaic builds intended for group-inspired mayhem. Instead, one finds either minimalistic repetition bordering on the mystical (or pathological, depending on your mind state), and an idiosyncratic approach to arrangement. Omar favors intuition to technology; one often gets the feeling he does live passes of a track, dropping things in and out and deciding he just likes what he likes, rather than mapping out an arrangement beforehand like 99 percent of dance producers. He uses imperfect, elliptical loops that don't line up in any traditional sense. This lends things an organic quality that seems to defy the music's mechanical origins but in essence makes things all the more interesting. Defying expectation is part of his magic. All of these things may be philosophical principles, a return to the way things used to be done before the stale "perfection" of Ableton Live sterilized the soul of so much dance music. It may be punk ethos or just pure idiosyncrasy. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. What matters is that he's making some of the best minimalistic dance music in 2011. [AGe]

		$12.99 CD $14.99 LP+MP3 $9.99 MP3   MEMORY TAPES Player Piano (Carpark) Preview Songs on Other Music's Download Store Safe to say, with the release of Memory Tapes' sophomore album, Player Piano, we can finally lay to rest the clever names like chillwave, glo-fi, and whatever else we've been calling our favorite bedroom producers with an affinity for masking pop nostalgia behind a warbled lo-fi wall of synths and effects. Dayve Hawk and his one-man Memory Tapes project (along with the limited releases he previously recorded as Weird Tapes and Memory Cassette) produced some of the most accessible and often danceable music of this so-called genre, with songs like "Bicycle" coming across as a gauzy blend of New Order and French house. So when Hawk announced that Player Piano would be inspired by "keyboard-based psychedelic girl group songs," you had to wonder what he had up his sleeve. There aren't any "Leader of the Pack" moments on Memory Tapes' new album, but he has clearly shifted gears with a more streamlined approach to his music and melodies. Gone are most of the dance beats that propelled so much of Seek Magic as well as that shimmery haze which enshrouded the entire recording. It's not that any of the dreaminess in Hawk's pop songs has diminished, but the ambiance is different now, and yes, a little more psychedelic, with rich textured synths and keyboards whirring like carousel organs at times. Tracks like "Wait in the Dark" have more of a proper band feel; here Hawk's reedy voice sits high in the mix delivering a bittersweet chorus of "This is it, don't make me wait/ you save it for tomorrow and I'll say it's too late," over live drumming, electronic beats and crystalline layers of surround-sound keys. The following "Today Is Our Life" taps into that same catchy, end-of-summer kind of melancholy, the track see-sawing between slow passages of floating synths and jaunty refrains complete with a stuttering guitar solo and handclaps. While cuts like the exotic mid-tempo electro-funk of "Offers" and "Sunhits," which juxtaposes Byrdsian guitar lines and Mamas and Papas-styled harmonies over a new wave bounce, prove to be some of Memory Tapes' most infectious moments to date, Hawk hasn't abandoned his love of atmosphere -- the former features playful layers of fluttering Baroque horns while the latter dissipates unexpectedly into a trippy bed of Mellotron. (The same Mellotron appears in the reflective psychedelia of "Yes I Know," the song reminiscent of what a collaboration between Panda Bear and Broadcast might sound like.) Of course, Hawk places his trademark interludes of sonic ephemera throughout the album, from the music box melodies of the player piano that bookend the record to the sun-kissed bedroom electronica of "Humming." Like Ariel Pink and Toro Y Moi, Memory Tapes has successfully moved past the chillwave years, and as such Player Piano may be a grower for diehard fans of Seek Magic. But with the frost of Hawk's earlier productions melted, the listener is ultimately rewarded with a deeper, more personal set. Word has it he is already working on album number three, and it's supposedly going to be in his words, "space rock, kind of Sabbath." (Dayve Hawkwind, anyone?) It seems that Memory Tapes is just getting warmed up with many more chapters to come, and we imagine that each one will be different than the last. [GH]

		$15.99 CD   GOOGOOSH Googoosh (B-Music/Finders Keepers) "Shekayat" "Pishkesh" The Pomegranates compilation, issued on B-Music/Finders Keepers and documenting the fertile psychedelic pop sounds of '60s and '70s Iran, was one of my favorite albums and one of Other Music's best selling reissues of 2010. The label has been on a creative hot streak lately (no small feat considering their releases are always of the highest curatorial and musical quality), and their newest release ups the ante on Pomegranates by devoting an entire compilation to one of that record's shining stars. Googoosh (or Gougoush, among numerous other spellings of her name) is a pop legend in Iran even today; a singer, movie star, and symbol of national pride among her people, she has become one of the most influential figureheads in Middle Eastern pop music. I first heard Googoosh about seven years ago thanks to an Iranian friend who grew up listening to her; she played me a compilation of vintage tunes and I sat there, hypnotized. I was hooked from the first song, and I've sung her praises ever since (thanks, Yvette!). This collection focuses on lesser known and seldom-compiled deep cuts from the early to mid 1970s, a period when her fame was at its peak, not to mention her creativity. Her voice could blow holes in concrete walls; it's a powerful, deeply emotional, yet highly sensitive instrument, and here it inhabits arrangements that throb and ache with propulsive drums, complex, bubbling bass lines, and some of the most lush, incredible string and woodwind arrangements I've ever heard. Fans of Jean-Claude Vannier need to hear this record ASAP; those strings are a foundation of Vannier's arranging style, their eastern motifs wrapping themselves around western pop styles like funk, bossa nova, and rock, only here those stylistic foundations are the exotic element rather than vice versa, with composer Andranik's arrangements providing as essential a backing as Vannier provided for Gainsbourg on classics like Melody Nelson and Cannabis. Andrank also has a master's ear when it comes to percussion arrangements, much like Vannier; it's remarkable to hear even the ballads percolate with ringing bells, hissing shakers, clattering hand drums, and the chime of a triangle, as those strings lift Googoosh into the stratosphere like wings slowly unfurling in a heavenward motion. I think it's easy to tell how highly I regard this music, and I'm absolutely thrilled that Finders Keepers has issued this collection; I'd secretly hoped and wished for such a comp, and I say without hesitation that this is one of FK's landmark releases, up there in essentiality as the Sarolta Zalatnay and Selda collections, and of course, their reissue of Vannier's L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches. Buy this without hesitation. [IQ]

		$15.99 CD $9.99 MP3   BIOSPHERE N-Plants (Touch) "Genkai-1" "Ikata-1" Such strange and sad timing -- at the beginning of this past February, Norwegian musician Geir Jenssen wrapped his first studio album as Biosphere since 2006, having shifted his focus from a general treatise on Japan's post-war recovery to one inspired by the country's power plants and their oft-perilous-seeming locales. The album wrapped on the 13th; less than a month later, on March 11, an undersea megathrust earthquake ravaged Japan, its people, and its seaside nuclear power plants. The idea here was to soundtrack the plants, reflecting on the beauty of their design and the inherent dangers they could pose due to positioning. Thus, while N-Plants undoubtedly began life as another pensive addition to Jenssen's oeuvre, its release in light of all that has happened in the past few months carries with it a distinctly elegiac feel. It may sound strange to suggest, given the restrained nature of much of the man's work, but N-Plants arrives then as one of the most subdued Biosphere recordings. Quietly rhythmic (yet in a way that differs markedly from the pronounced jazz influence of 2006's Dropsonde), the album is remarkably unobtrusive, one that scores the silent, precise design of a power plant in simple ways that seem to mirror the efficiency of those constructions -- nothing wasted, nothing superfluous. Tracks like "Sendai-1" and "Shika-1" come on slow, favoring the barest of elements (a simple beat here, and repeating synth phrase there) while gradually bringing them to the fore to shape and mold the tracks. As always, faint melodies dance around the edges, with spare, muted drones added for texture. Never breaking from its pensive atmosphere, pieces like the brief "Monju-1," with its echoing beeps and Japanese monologue, evoke a simplistic sense of wonder and awe, while the rhythms of tracks like "Genkai-1" and "Oi-1" take the record into darker, colder extremes. Given the gauzier, oft-beatless textures of Biosphere's previous records, N-Plants undoubtedly takes a few listens to fully establish itself. Once it does, however, it's clear that it belongs on the same level as many of Jenssen's other highlights. [MC]

		$15.99 CD   THE CARETAKER An Empty Bliss Beyond This World (History Always Favours the Winners) "Treetop" "Natural" Man oh man, I love this record. Leyland Kirby returns with a new full-length under his Caretaker moniker, creating one of the year's best, most beautiful albums with some of the most simplistic means. On An Empty Bliss Beyond This World, he creates haunting, eerie, yet deeply romantic soundscapes out of loops plundered from old pre-war jazz and big band 78s, with the final results sounding like an extended suite scoring the end credits of Kubrick's The Shining (if you're familiar with the film's final shot, you'll know exactly what I mean -- no spoilers here!). The album is mixed as though it were a field recording of a ghost playing records through a phonograph at the end of a long, lush, cavernous hallway, EQed for maximum spectral quality and with the hiss, crackle, and pop of the dusted grooves adding to but never overwhelming the musical content. Kirby is also perverse enough to edit these loops in odd, off-kilter ways; horns will stop abruptly, only to restart when unexpected over piano lines that tunefully but never logically intersect with the rest of the song. It is said that Kirby's work as the Caretaker is making comment on the concepts of memory loss and retention among amnesia and Alzheimer's patients, where recollections remain stuck in endless locked grooves, forever repeating as the rest of their thought processes decay around them. It's perhaps the ultimate statement in hauntology, the most listenable experimental album you'll hear all year. [IQ]

		$15.99 CD $21.99 LP + 7"   ADA Meine Zarten Pfoten (Pampa) "Faith" "The Jazz Singer" Seven years have passed since the German electronic chanteuse Michaela Dippel a/k/a Ada released Blondie, an epic and lovely album of startling, banging house jams. That record included a fantastic re-imagination of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' moon-eyed anthem, "Maps," and seemed to push Dippel close to something resembling prominence. Her cover of "Maps" is what I consider to be Ada's peak; Dippel's mostly unadorned vocals are captivating, replacing Karen O's pained howl with breathy yearning. Even the rough and propulsive textures of the club-stomping production can't keep the hopeful joy out of her voice when she sings, "They don't love you like I love you." So how does Meine Zarten Pfoten, the proper follow-up to Blondie, measure up? Seven years definitely changes a person. On opener "Faith," Ada melds a sultry, hypnotic bossa nova beat with rolling synthesizer pads and plucked acoustic guitars. Her voice seems more mature and assured, but also bare without the four-on-the-floor to back her up. "Faith will come humbly down," she sings, "fear will come tumbling down." For the first half of the album, all signs point to a calmer, less frenetic artist than the one who made Blondie. "On the Mend" extends the bossa beat of "Faith" with more ambient textures, and "Likely" is a fine and jaunty blend of Brazilian folk guitar, topped with tinny accordion licks. Following "Likely," Meine Zarten Pfoten turns bipolar, as Dippel ditches the acoustic/electronic marriage and goes clubbing. "The Jazz Singer (Re-imagined by Ada)" is sprightly and groovy, as is "At the Gate," which has a nice push-and-pull dynamic as the kick drum bleeds in and out of the mix. The second half of the record is where old fans of Ada will find what they love, while the first is where new fans, enticed by her siren's voice, might fall in love. There is a secret track, attached to the end of closer "2 Likely," which finds Dippel semi-faithfully covering Little Joy's "Keep Me in Mind." It's a bizarre choice for a cover song, but it suits her vocal style well. It also reveals that when Ada isn't programming heavy house beats (or taking an extended vacation from music altogether), she's probably listening to the same smart love songs that we are. [MS]

		$14.99 CD $38.99 CDx2 + BK $9.99 MP3   BRIAN ENO Drums Between the Bells (Warp) Preview Songs on Other Music's Download Store Brian Eno took just about everyone by surprise when it was announced that he'd be releasing albums on legendary underground electronic label Warp Records; his first record for the imprint, last year's Small Craft on a Milk Sea wasn't really a drastic game changer nor did it add a new chapter to Eno's creative playbook, but it was a tidy, sufficient set of instrumentals filled with the contrasts of synthetic and humanized textures rubbing together. On Drums Between the Bells, again released on Warp, he takes that contrast to its extremes, collaborating with poet Rick Holland and setting his words, recited by an ensemble cast of characters gathered from Eno's everyday life (a woman who lives near his studio, his local greengrocer, that sort of thing) to some of the most digitally brittle soundscapes he's ever recorded. There's a cold detachment throughout that touches upon many of the stylistic highlights of Eno's recorded solo career but places them side by side with no context or transition, as if the blurred ambiance of Apollo were sitting on a shelf next to the electro-jazz percussive workouts of Nerve Net. Because of that jarring juxtaposition, the album at times feels less like an Eno album, and more like someone else trying to make an Eno album. It's a mixed bag, and as much as I love some of these tracks ("Pour It Out," "Seedpods," and "The Real" provide a triptych of highlights in particular), others leave me cold; it frustrates me that for someone who pays so much attention to detail, the drum programming on this record sounds so half-baked. He's keeping people guessing for sure -- the last thing people expected at this point was a floetry record by Brian Eno -- but it's sometimes to his detriment. Thankfully, there's plenty to enjoy on this album, flimsy machine drums be damned, and if you can't get with the poetry, the deluxe CD edition features a second CD which includes the instrumentals, with the poetry included in a hardbound book. Listen to those tracks and recite the poetry yourself; something tells me Eno would enjoy that. [IQ]

		$17.99 CD   TIGER & WOODS Through the Green (Running Back) "Dr. Burner" "El Dickital" The mysterious yet infamous production duo Tiger & Woods is going to need serious help keeping their anonymity after releasing one of the best dance full-lengths of the year. After teasing us with single after perfectly executed single -- white label 12"s on their own Editainment label (who also released great, somewhat suspicious singles from artists going under the names Pop & Eye and Cleo & Patra, but T&W swear it's not them) -- the disco recluses finally give us a proper album to sit back and sink our teeth into. While many of their previously released edits get center stage here, there are a few strong tracks only found on this CD. One of Tiger & Woods strengths is their immediate mass appeal. Like Tensnake or Shit Robot, Tiger & Woods are able to pack their samples so tightly in the pocket that their builds and climaxes are totally jubilant dance floor revelations. Also, they pick samples that sound vaguely -- okay, sometimes obviously -- familiar, giving the trainspotters something to come back for. The slow burner "Gin Nation" and the up-tempo "Kissmetellme" are immediate summer jams. Three tracks have original lyrics by a guest vocalist known only as 'Em, and she really carries her disco diva weight, pushing these songs beyond the realm of the edit and transforming into their own disco-boogie epics. While you may be trying to guess their next nom de guerre, the one thing we can rely on from these two is to consistently feed us some of the best dance tracks around. [BCa]

		$17.99 LP $9.99 MP3   WET HAIR In Vogue Spirit (De Stijl) From the dissolution of beloved noise rock band Raccoo-oo-ooon to the formation of weird pop duo Wet Hair, Iowa City musicians Ryan Garbes and Shawn Reed have been kicking around the Midwest scene for over five years. While Garbes and Reed are most known for their ability to create meandering, albeit beautiful textural sounds, their latest release for outsider specialist label De Stijl is their most focused work yet. Funneling their brand of noise and acid-tinged touches of Krautrock (e.g. Cluster, Neu!, Can...) through the framework of pop music, In Vogue Spirit sees Wet Hair finally harnessing the structure of their sound. Hooky, raw and unrelenting, opener "Echo Lady" is what you would get if you fused bands like Moon Duo/Wooden Shjips with the dubby Peaking Lights: perfectly blissed-out space rock. And the album continues in that tradition -- oscillating drums, deep, groovin' basslines, wonky electronics and Reed's muddy monotone with hints of Spacemen 3 ("Liquid Jesus," "Fame Hate"), Stereolab ("The Garden Room") and those great German '60s/'70s psych bands ("Cosmic Radio") cropping up as you go along. Great, great vibes. [PG]

		$13.99 CD $9.99 MP3   WHITE HILLS H-p1 (Thrill Jockey) Preview Songs on Other Music's Download Store The self-titled Thrill Jockey debut of New York space-rock wrecking crew White Hills represented the clearest and purest distillation of their freewheeling sound to date, refining a couple of albums' worth of scorching psychedelic rock into one sharp buzz saw of a head trip. While H-p1, the band's follow-up, doesn't deviate too significantly from the map that the quartet (with the addition of synth player Shazzula Nebula) drew up, it does find them in an angrier, denser, and a bit more exploratory frame of mind. Budgeting out nine blasts of over the course of some 70 minutes, H-p1 bounds from the pounding, full-throated roar of tracks like "The Condition of Nothing" and "Upon Arrival" to the extended meditative zone-outs of the Kraut-y "Paradise" (aided in part by Oneida's Kid Millions on drums) and the album-capping title track, a fully immersive seventeen minutes worth of droning groove and absolutely wailing guitars -- a dense sonic journey in its own right. Elsewhere, the band finds room to mix things up a bit with cuts like the raw percussion and synth-heavy "Monument" and the frigid textures of "Movement" taking the group's psych impulses into starker, more experimental territory. All in all, another solid effort from White Hills, and one that leaves me curious to hear where they're off to next. [MC]

		$16.99 CD $18.99 LPx2   VARIOUS ARTISTS West Indies Funk Volume 2 (Trans Air) "Funky Good Feeling" The Troubadours "Get Down" Blue Rhythm Combo The Trans Air label offers us West Indies Funk Volume 2, a follow up to their excellent collection of Caribbean steel pan soul and calypso funk burners from earlier this year. It's officially summertime, and this set offers up some prime tunes for your heat-stroked activities, with covers of soul classics like Sly & the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song," Young Holt Unlimited's "Soulful Strut," the Meters' "Look-Ka Py Py," and James Brown's "The Big Payback;" this set's subtitle of Spicy Island Funk is right on the money. There's less steel pan action here than on the first volume, though a few cuts deliver those goods with aplomb; Roosevelt Johnson & His Spice Islanders' "Mt Royal" offers up ethereal synth pads and cool, low-register pan rumbles over a galloping disco-funk beat, while Steel Image's show-stopping "Shango!" starts with an odd slide-whistle intro and proceeds to burn down the joint with a blown-out pan orchestra, vocal chants, clattering thickets of percussion, and more slide whistle, turning the party into a trippy, cartoon Vodoun adventure. Elsewhere, we get some reggae-flavored jams that could have come straight out of prime-era Studio One, and some pretty wicked and greasy JB's-style groovers. This one is definitely more straightforward and a tad less "island" flavored than its predecessor, but still entirely fun, funky, and full of heat. It's most highly recommended to all of the heads who love their Numero, Strut, and Dusty Fingers reissues. [IQ]

		$13.99 CD $4.99 MP3   CLAMS CASINO Rainforest EP (Tri-Angle) Preview Songs on Other Music's Download Store Now available on CD. Somehow, the image of stuffed clams is appropriate for the music made by the Tri Angle label's newest artist, the much-hyped producer Clams Casino. Mike Volpe hides pearls in his beats and stuffs them with textures, distortion, field recordings, synths, and other iridescent sounds. Having made a name for himself producing tracks for Soulja Boy and Lil' B, Rainforest is the first official release of his instrumental work, and it falls in-between the spacious beats of Burial, the stoned slow-jam work of How to Dress Well, and the spook-hop of Salem, yet with a grittier, sharper, more natural AND more industrial edge than any of them. For the label, this is one of their darkest releases, due to the harsh nature of the sounds, with less of the soft-focus bliss they were becoming associated with, although the EP has its share of celestial moments. Among the five songs that make up the record, like the music of Salem or Hype Williams, the beats are heavy, disoriented vocal samples burst and hover into the atmosphere, and sounds shimmer with subtle nuances. The track "Drowing" sounds like a dub version of Depeche Mode or Arthur Russell, with creeping piano, 808 pulses, loose snare and bass, and echoing, looped and pitched vocal samples. There is a deep melancholy covering the brittle textures, as on "Gorilla," like an anthemic gothy-post-rock meltdown filled with crying eyes and trashed rooms. There is a strong sense of tension and balance throughout the layers of sound and Clams Casino handles it with a strong and at times abrasive hand. Edgy, brittle, emotive, and heavy, yet somehow quite beautiful at times. I couldn't imagine what a rapper would do atop these tracks, and I don't need to know; they work best on their own. [DG]

		$18.99 LPx2+MP3   ANIMAL COLLECTIVE Sung Tongs (Fat Cat) Fat Cat Records have made Animal Collective's 2004-released Sung Tongs available on vinyl again, and for the month of July Other Music is the exclusive seller in the States for the LP! Just in time for the band's Celebrate Brooklyn appearance next Tuesday in Prospect Park.

		$12.99 CD $9.99 MP3   PURE X Pleasure (Acephale) Preview Songs on Other Music's Download Store Shortening their name to Pure X (thanks to a Bay Area cover band who already had dibs on Pure Ecstasy), this Austin trio 's debut album fully lives up to the promise of their early singles. Slow, psychedelic, heartfelt and slightly sinister indie pop that at times reminds us of another great group from their hometown, the dearly missed Bedhead, fans of Real Estate, Galaxie 500, and Spacemen 3 will also find much to love.

		The McTells $7.99 CS Expecting Joe $7.99 CS   THE MCTELLS The McTells- Cassette (Captured Tracks) THE MCTELLS Expecting Joe - Cassette (Captured Tracks) Brooklyn's inimitable Captured Tracks reissues the first two albums on cassette by the little known English band the McTells. Specializing in their own brand of noisy, C86 indie pop, the McTells featured Mark Flunder of the Television Personalities on drums and, we're pretty sure if these albums were released today, the band would be a hit. We also have Captured Tracks T-shirts now in stock. They're 100% percent black cotton and feature the label's logo very, very prominently. Fun! Only $11.99 and available in Small, Medium, and Large.

		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 [BCa] Brian Cassidy [MC] Michael Crumsho [PG] Pamela Garavano-Coolbaugh [AGe] Alexis Georgopoulos [DG] Daniel Givens [GH] Gerald Hammill [IQ] Mikey IQ Jones [MS] Michael Stasiak THANKS FOR READING - all of us at Other Music

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