Tom Daily / The Burlington Northern / Thick Daily seems to have pulled that vaguely displaced feeling into his music, toying with listeners' comfort levels via subtle lyrical and thematic needling. It's a step forward from last year's Happily Deceiving Culture, which sometimes seemed a little too melancholy for its own good. Here, Daily indulges in gleefully vengeful vandalism on "Your Walkman", picks naggingly at the generation gap in "The Kids are Not Alright" and mixes sex, death and big power chords on the charming "Reese Witherspoon"...more» FEATURED ON THE BOOMBOX!
		L'Altra / Music of a Sinking Occasion / Aesthetics Once you get past the title track, Music of a Sinking Occasion is really and truly jaw-droppingly beautiful. "Slow as Cake", besides having a brilliant title, reminds me more than a little of one of my favorite bands, Ida. It has a lugubrious tempo and almost static harmonic rhythm (it seems like there's structural harmonic movement only every minute or so), plus understated, feminine vocals that ambiguously hint at something between lamentation and boredom...more» FEATURED ON THE BOOMBOX!
		Salvo Beta / Abrasive Stuttering / Someoddpilot The album begins with the heavily distorted sound of someone trying to tune a transistor radio, then erupts into the chaotic metallic clatter and spindly beats of "Loader". The first track sets a precedent that will be overrun and demolished throughout the remainder of the album. "The Gritting Chase of Salvo Beta" sounds like someone trying to shove a drill through his skull, while the methodical duck-in-a-pinball machine beats of "Shift" create a morose ambience that certainly wouldn’t be out of place in a John Carpenter film...more» FEATURED ON THE BOOMBOX!
		Nina Hynes / Creation / Reverb "This Magic Stuff" is the stunner of the six tracks here. The song has the same sort of power that Seefeel hinted at back in the mid-'90s, though Hynes utilizes a much finer sense of melody. Reminiscent of Heather Nova's dark atmosphere, though injected with a cuter tone, the song springs and bounds across a dark, dreamy soundscape. Her backing band never betrays any hint of pretense throughout the blissful three and a half minutes...more»
		Christopher Lawrence / United States of Trance / Moonshine His opening track is a bold gambit: the beats of "Genesis" grab you by the hips, immediately getting your body swaying and your feet moving. Unlike some other electronica artists -- for instance, Carl Cox or Sasha and Digweed, who build the music slowly and then let it peak and dive throughout an album's run -- Lawrence never really lets the dancer rest. He also keeps his mix jumping with non-trance styles. "AM-Pacific" has a junglist feel; there are no vocals, and the track's beats move at the speed of light, with some touches of bass that invoke Keoki...more»
		Maraca Five-O / Headin' South at 110 Per / Smooch To a great degree, these Denver instrumentalists stake out the same surfing grounds as Dick Dale, the Ventures and the Lively Ones, but there's a greater sense of humor working here ("Gidget's Guns", "Jesus Wrecked My Stuff"), and a stronger garage rock component. Bands within this genre have an easy time making a ton of songs that sound more alike than different, so Maraca Five-O have to be commended for all the variations they work into each track...more»
		Deepak Ram / Searching for Satyam / M.E.L.T. 2000 Trained by Indian flautist Pandit Hariprasad, Ram gives his meditative masterpieces a soothing warmth that's reminiscent of other Indian musicians. However, Ram obviously has a penchant for those musical items of Western nature, especially jazz, and he tackles this constantly changing genre with a dedicated, methodical approach. Carefully walking the line between traditional classical Indian music and feverish, melodious jazz, Ram creates a cross-cultural hybrid from these two seemingly different genres...more»
		The Rocking Horse Winner / The State of Feeling Concentration / Ohev Jolie Lindholm's sugary vocals make for immediate stylistic comparisons to the Sundays, Kristen Hersch and Lisa Loeb. Although such comparisons indicate the kind of heart-felt songs you'll find here, the pleasure of listening to this disc makes them fade quickly. Beginning with "From Miles Away", the quartet instantly draws you in with Lindholm's candied croon, which overlays the agitated interplay between bassist Jeronimo Gomez and drummer Matt Crum...more»
		Tram / Frequently Asked Questions / Jetset Everyone seems to mention Low when they talk about Tram, and truthfully, they've got so much in common that it would seem a bit silly not to mention it. But Tram makes my ears a lot happier than Low does. In particular, Paul Anderson's half-boy/half-girl voice just kills me, and the quiet lushness of the songs adds a depth that many of the other "slow/lo-fi" bands seem to lack. Frequently Asked Questions sounds a lot more like the last Mojave 3 CD than anything else I've heard recently...more»
		Various Artists / The Rough Guide to Bhangra / World Music Network American readers might recall a brief and largely unsuccessful effort by US labels to turn the Bhangra concept into a catch-all marketing term for the ethno-techno of the mid-nineties. However, Bhangra actually began its life a couple of hundred years earlier in the Punjab region of India, as a folk dance celebrating the harvest. Bhangra steps even went so far as to pay tribute to "agricultural activities" -- planting seeds, reaping and so forth. The dance owed some of its catchiness to the rhythmic qualities of the dhol...more»