Opening their latest album with "Hot Stenographer" communicates a clear message: this Seattle quartet is bent on blowing up stereo speakers and washing their musical style with a new approach.

Autonomous Addicts seems set up in every way to be yet anotherdisposable compilation of computer dance music that pads discographies,but it winds up being something much more interesting and essential.

The new EP from Andy Cabic’s group Vetiver is a subdued affair.Cabic and Vetiver are best known for their Devendra Banhart connection(Banhart performed on Vetiver’s self titled album and Cabic is now partof Banhart’s band, Hairy Fairy).

Witha list of remixers like Prefuse 73, Four Tet, and Danger Mouse as theprinciple selling point, I expected this single from Pedro to beindulgent or repetitive, but thankfully it is neither.

Though nowhere near as willfully experimental as some of hisearlier releases, Resilience promises to be an album that will find aprominent place in Kid 606’s body of work as his most meditative and(egads!) mature.

On his first solo release, Tamburo’smastery of the guitar is on clear display. The five tracks arebeautifully resigned compositions which explore not just the musicalpossibilities of the acoustic guitar, but also its ability to—pardonthe cliché—speak to the soul.

Likea sweet and sour sauce that's been haphazardly whipped together, KFC Coremanages to balance its hard, aggro side with its silly, playful side,despite the lack of effort that seems to have gone into some of theconstruction.

This release compiles various singles, covers,and odds and ends from the Bloomington-based post-hardcore group.

Anyone who has seen 24 Hour Party People will probably remember severalscenes involving A Certain Ratio. At various points they get smearedwith sunless tanner, are told to dress like boy scouts, and play theinaugural show at Tony Wilson's towering pipedream to self-indulgence,the Hacienda, to an empty house.

From this debut’s title, the simple typeface and ‘take me as Iam’ earthy tones of the artwork a pretty good picture can be drawn ofwhat Richard Dawson is all about; simplicity. Dawson manages to mergethe territories of traditional English music, Nick Drake miserablismsand a tipsy Daniel Johnston into an Autumn Folk collection of songsabout everyday life.

Nowadays, most people would associate the term "electronic music" withbedroom musicians and beardos tweaking samplers and laptops; runningsoftware packed with a ridiculous amount of synth pads and beats in avirtual studio environment. It's easy to overlook the fact that one ofthe more common elements in music from the latter half of the twentiethcentury, the electric guitar, was one of the earliest "electronic"instruments.

While Sleeping People are a talented group, with a secret weapon in theacrobatic drumming of Brandon Reif, the mathematical riffage and roughand tumble timekeeping strikes me as ho-hum and fairly bland. Theintricate fingerprints of Don Caballero, King Crimson, and any numberof duel guitar bands that recorded for Dischord throughout the 1990s areon clear display here.

I’ve never really understood the glam-rock tag that Bobby Conn gotsidled with in his solo work. Sure, the dude and his band, the GlassGypsies, dress in sequins and gold lame stage outfits, all but invitingcomparison to the coke addled heyday of Ziggy Stardust.

Et Sans latest release (and first) on Canadian label Alien 8 is analbum that finds the band pushing themselves in familiar yetchallenging directions. The four tracks here burst at the seams withideas and inventiveness, all while managing to remain uniquelyaccessible to those unfamiliar with their influences.

Did you ever wonder where Grace Jones and Miss Kittin learned all their moves? Look no further than Gina X Performance's 1979 electro new-wave classic Nice Mover.  This, along with their follow-up, X-Traordinaire, have been reissued by LTM and given the special LTM treatment with restored artwork and bonus tracks.

When I was in high school, my friends and I used to have thisdiscussion all the time about how Jack Dangers had such a signaturesound that he could take anyone else's song and remix it into somethingthat was unmistakably Meat Beat Manifesto. It shouldn't come as anysurprise then that some fifteen years later when Dangers has taken onthe task of producing a jazz record for Thirsty Ear, that the result still sounds like quintessential Meat Beat.

For this, the final issue of The Brain, I thought I'd sendthings off by examining the prolific work of Mat Sweet, the owner andoperator of Blue Baby Recordings, and the main musician, visual artistand creative force behind the label's releases. 

Infraction has been a label to watch for some time. With each newrelease the label showcases a list of consistently excellent artistswhom are always trying to bend sound towards new pleasures.

Few records have the severity of depth that this one carries with it:developing and fluid in its every contour, ever-present, but alwayshiding behind the shape of a shadow. There is no resting point, nosound or simple feeling that these four pieces lean on in order tocarry out their miles-deep melancholy.

While the cover of this album is headache-inducing (a dizzying designusing the usual black, white and red motif), the musical contentmassages the brain's pleasure centers. The deviant pleasure centers.