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| dj/rupture Special Gunpowder [ Tigerbeat6 ] d o w n l o a d |
Let's get this straight: reggae, jungle, hip-hop, industrial, folk, dub, and jazz, spun together by a Black American émigré to Spain who, before making his debut record, released mix after mix of barrier-breaking dance music? A true musical polymath, dj/rupture and his international coterie of collaborators collapse musical time and space on Special Gunpowder. It is what rupture himself says music is meant to be: not a snapshot of culture, but culture itself. |
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| Q And Not U Power [ Dischord ] d o w n l o a d |
Over the course of three albums, Washington D.C.'s Q And Not U have taken it upon themselves to update the venerable but virtually moribund genre of political punk rock. On Power, they take another step ahead by updating punk rock as well – with chiming synthesizers, falsetto harmonies, and a widening eye towards the dancefloor. |
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| Taylor Deupree / Christopher Willits Invisible Architecture 08 [ Audiosphere ] d o w n l o a d |
New York sound designer Taylor Deupree and California guitarist Christopher Willits join forces on an absorbing, ambient collaboration for the Invisible Architecture series. Though virtually all of the material originates from Willits' guitar, a vast network of digital processing in the interim break the six strings down into a shape-shifting goo of vague harmony, smudged melodies and dangling ideas. |
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| Interpol Antics [ Matador ] |
Interpol's meteoric (for indie rock) rise is the result of big hooks, good timing and a charmed balance of image and substance. Antics doesn't reinvent their debut, 2002's Turn On The Bright Lights, so much as definitively restate its central thesis. The new album insinuates itself with simple gestures of melody and arrangement that, nonetheless, suggest a visceral, darkening complexity. Interpol is still having no fun whatsoever, but they sound damn good doing it. |
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| Luna Rendezvous [ Jetset ] d o w n l o a d |
Over the course of a decade, The New York quartet Luna became something of an indie-rock institution. The groups' serpentine guitar lines and endearing, bemused lyrics attracted the kind of cult following it's hard to turn away from. But Rendezvous is Luna's final album because, according to singer Dean Warham, "rock and roll is killing my life." |
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| Matthew Dear Backstroke [ Spectral Sound/Ghostly ] d o w n l o a d |
The "mini-LP" Backstroke is a snapshot of Detroit producer Matthew Dear's musical evolution from whip-smart minimal techno to something approaching electro-pop. The results are brilliantly open-ended and strange, incorporating a dogged, crooning vocal style and wild production touches that hint at a career artist just now revving up his engine. |
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| Danger Mouse The Grey Album d o w n l o a d |
LA-based DJ and producer Danger Mouse, known previously for wearing a full-body mouse costume, struck a pop culture nerve with his ingenious mash-up of Jay-Z's a cappellas from The Black Album and the Beatles' White Album. Organ swells, chopped-up Ringo fills and Paul's "Helter Skelter" howl are re-imagined as back-up for Jay-Z's rhymes in a manner that hints at the malleability of each, laying bare the weird, powerful prescience of great art. |
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| Le Fly Pan Am N'ecoutez Pas [ Constellation ] d o w n l o a d |
Fly Pan Am are the perennial class clowns of Montreal's oft-serious Constellation Records. But the band, which functions (or at least sounds) more like an unruly collective, struck a profound nerve with N'ecoutez Pas, a dense, chaotic tug-of-war between hope and dread. |
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| The Streets A Grand Don't Come For Free [ Vice ] d o w n l o a d |
On his second album, British rapper Mike Skinner proves himself a master storyteller of urban malaise, weaving together a tale of lost money, lost motivation and lost love, assembled from failed cell phone conversations, drugged observations, and minute gestures. |
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| The Walkmen Bows + Arrows [ Record Collection ] d o w n l o a d |
Along with the hands-down best album of the year, The Walkmen may yet win the ancillary 2004 award for Hardest Working Band in Rock. Following the January release of Bows + Arrows, the New York band has been on tour seemingly forever, capping the year off with a string performances on late-night TV and a surreal visit to "The O.C." On Bows, their sophomore release, the band expand the palette of their strangulated, emotional songs, vacillating between nervy, bellicose rockers and woozy barroom ballads, building discordant walls of atmospheric guitar in the former and surreal, pre-dawn piano melodies in the latter. |
