As the abnormally unprolific the Normal, Mute Records founder Daniel Miller released one of the greatest 7” singles ever: 1978’s “TVOD”/“Warm Leatherette.” With its sparse, Korg 700 underbelly and half-sung lyrics care of the only automotive paraphilia classic I know of (that is, JG Ballard’s Crash), this B-side’s already been covered by a heavenly host of maladroit cherubs and malcontent seraphs: Grace Jones, Chicks on Speed, Trent Reznor, Die Tödliche Doris, and, uh, Duran Duran.

So, ok, I wasn’t expecting the Melbourne-born JG to add much to the Shaghai-born, Cambridge-read JG’s tale of car crash coitus. But just as David Cronenberg’s film put a face to Ballard’s names, so does Thirlwell’s rendition—the darkest one to date—succeed in furthering Miller’s sinister agenda. And, strangely, Thirlwell is almost able to make that final macabre invitation, “Quick let’s make love before you die / On warm leatherette,” copacetic. Almost.

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Wherein Barnes shows us his stuff, so to speak.

“Triphallus, to Punctuate!” is, I think, about bell-shaped bottoms, or at least it capsules sex talk into the wackiest, most bell-ended, chorus-nebulising panic track this side of Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer (2007). Which was a really good album, Chet.

I don’t ever want to envision the bit where Kevin Barnes stops being the whiner. Thank fuck. “Triphallus, to Punctuate!” like all songs about everything ever, might have turned out the ass-end; some more rummy droning from the bed. As is, it works—alongside next month’s totally un-Insomniatic wildhog Skeletal Lamping—as pure, lush pulp. The same pulp Barnes has been making much in since, like, David Bowie. This is his zone. David Bowie is his treehouse. Meaning: more latching hooks, orgiastic deliverance, rerouted love, some peddling on the rhythmic gas-meter. It’s all loopy, disgusting and often deeply bracing stuff. Nothing is off limits now to this man Kevin, because, well, Kevin’s come home. As a black shemale, but still. The guise is the perfunctory part—one wishes, vaguely, that Barnes would ditch the boner schtick and plunge full-bore into the phenomenal sense of melody and humour (that Bowie impression) that he’s slowly eked out since, I dunno, the beginning. I still think The Gay Parade (1999) is a fantastic album. “Triphallus” is way better.

I choose to listen on, unperturbed and, presumably, horny.

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Danny Boyle’s sci-fi saga Sunshine was given a strangely stifled reception upon its limited release last year. Sure, it wasn’t without its flaws, but it certainly raised some interesting questions about fanaticism and man’s understanding of sacrifice. Moreover, it was a deep feast for the senses—-none so much as aural, as all parties privy to a Surround Sound screening would gladly attest. As soon as the film had landed, audiences were quickly smitten by John Murphy’s rousing soundtrack, widely regarded as being able to outlive the impact of the movie itself. However, in one of Hollywood’s blackest ironies, the simultaneous release of the latest LP from Underworld—who collaborated on the recording with Murphy—meant that the planned release of a soundtrack CD was put firmly on pause. Not wanting to put a dent in the projected turnover of their new album, Underworld called in the lawyers and the score was sent to the icehouse, entombed in red tape and destined to live only as a myth.

One year and much legal wrangling later, Murphy’s seen fit to take the law into his own hands. In a last-ditch attempt to get his output to the fans—who so far have had to make do with glitch-ridden extracts ripped from the DVD—he’s burnt off 100 copies of his would-be soundtrack and sent it to a treble-figured few. Of the twenty collected tracks on the autographed CD-R, it’s the recurring titular suite that’s the one everyone’s going potty about. Already being groomed as the new “Requiem For A Tower” (trailer count to date: Cloverfield, Fringe, a Timberland commercial, and Christiano Ronaldo: The Story So Far), the piece is little more than a looping chord formula of i-VI6-III64-VI, a musical Fibonacci Sequence that targets multiple receptors in the brain causing endorphins to gush like an iPod version of the Videodrome signal. However, it’s Murphy’s work on the background detail that cements the track as such an utterly esoteric movement: digital rotors engage, pianos quiver, and guitars combust at all the right moments, tightening your spine like a rail of uncut coke.

When you think of the sheer ease at which Fox could have marketed this CD, you can’t help but wonder who’s really had the last laugh here, especially now that it’s been leaked into public domain by one of the select hundred (not guilty). Nevertheless, compositions this emotive can be used for more than just propelling Cillian Murphy into infinity, and, as one ardent commenter posted on YouTube: “This music gives me superpowers!”

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Despite the doughy lyrics, “The Hope That House Built” feels about right, a proper single for a proper, nameless new album by a band that has had past enough to award a bit of diligence and theatricality. “In the end, everybody wins.” Um, yeah, ok. As clear as it may seem, Future of the Left are going in the direction they probably should, which at this point amounts to little more than some melodic expansion of their greasy underwear blat-attack and some Ringo Starr back-up vocals. Falco’s voice ruins whatever awkward mixing emphasizes the tension between rhythm and sludge guitars by sitting squat on top; it’s fine and it makes for dynamics to stomach and there still are winks to be had. It also just plain sounds slicker, Adoni of squawky souls finally waiting in line where before they fought their way out of the oil mess that was Curses with an equally callous peal of thunderdook. Muscle-y thighs quivering. Remember that? Awesome.

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With an array of transformative vocal cries and pitch-shifting whispers, the music of Tanya Tagaq Gillis invites you into a realm of sensuality and intuition that can be found on few maps. With a well honed radical style of Katajjaq, a traditional Inuit throat singing, she bravely explores the extreme vocal ranges and oblong soundscapes traversed by many contemporary improv and noise musicians. The songs diverge sharply from areas of western pop conformity, but collaborations with a host of provocative guests have aided in providing a new points of entry for interested audiences. However, one disconcerting low point in her ambitious collaborative streak is “Gentle,” a song with Buck 65 that doesn’t seem to achieve full symbiosis with Tagaq’s nether world.

Over what could best be described as a quintessential trip-hop beat, the meeting of Tagaq and Buck plays out exactly as someone familiar with their respective works might imagine it would, if they didn’t actually use their imagination. The track puts most of its weight on Buck, but his uninspired raps fall short and sound out of place, far less vibrant than any of the material from last year’s throwback gem, Situation. Tagaq is unfortunately found dwelling ghost like in the background, painting a mural of echoed breaths and groove-stained hums that remain relatively static throughout. She also suffers between Buck’s verses; left out in the open on the monolithic beat, she fails to come up with much more than a wayward melodic variation on the rhythm.

Good intentions just aren’t enough here because these artists have provided music with so many paths for moving forward. While Tagaq has only begun to make waves in the music world over the past few years, she has constantly taken chances with dissonance and vocal experimentation. And, even though it isn’t possible for Buck to break ground every single time that he records, his long legacy of deviating from the norm should have counted for something more on this track. For artists of their calibre, this all seems like a poor shortcut to a less than novel collaboration. Lucky then that “Gentle” is such an oddity on Auk~Blood, a minor blight.

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No longer content with merely waging blog wars against all rival acts inside bitching distance, Stuart Braithwaite and chums have progressed to addressing their influences directly, this time crossing swords with some poor anonymous ruffian in what could be their most divinely ridiculous (and cheekily misleading) song title to date. Composed in solitude by the band’s piano and laptop section, John Cummings and Dominic Aitchison, “Stupid Prick Gets Chased By The Police And Loses His Slut Girlfriend” feels vaguely like a kidsafe trailer for the upcoming The Hawk Is Howling LP, especially when compared to the jarring brimstone of its more feral “Batcat” A-side. For five miraging minutes, the band waft guitar subtitles from the Withnail & I OST past a peal of chiming harpsichords, turning their intentions just a little acrid once the bass brings organs and drums softly tumbling. The calm before the proverbial inclemency, it’s like watching a seasoned pool pro coolly apply the chalk, gauging the table for potential flaws as he prepares to plant a nuke in the triangle. Think hard and you can almost imagine Newman’s eyes cutting in close-up while he’s staring his foe into a panic.

However, despite the hints of menace, “Stupid Prick” definitely belongs on the lighter end of the Mogwai litmus, rich in the “Andy Miller returns as producer” lore that’s set the fans raving, yet still as roundly travelled as 2006’s Mr Beast. The best of both worlds, then? Not exactly—but, even if you’re unfamiliar with the bulk of the band’s output or are put off by the gimmicky mood-swings, you’ll no doubt still appreciate the journey.

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On 2006’s Return To Cookie Mountain, TV On The Radio frontman Tunde Adebimpe was noticeably a less up-front presence, content to mesh in with Kyp Malone’s airy falsettos and a chunky stew of backup voices. New single “Dancing Choose,” from the upcoming Dear Science, features Adebimpe in his most grabbing and foreground performance to date. This is due primarily to the fact that, for the verses, Adebimpe is left mostly on his own, to let loose with a, er, rap, of sorts. He’s not exactly a MC, nor is this flowing poetry, but rather it’s the kind of manic chanting that’s somewhere between “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It” and “We Didn’t Start The Fire.”

TVOTR works best lyrically when the words fit in that symbiotic niche with the music—think of a line like “why don’t you save yourself / I’ll save you all the time,” from “Blind”; it’s nothing special on paper, but that’s the magic of music and lyrics. Unfortunately, Adebimpe’s stiffly awkward rhymes are at odds with the minimal drums, bass, and sax stabs that garnish the verses. The effect is that, for much of the verses, the rest of TVOTR are making a beat, sure to stay in the background. And when, in the midst of lyrics that vaguely convey confusion in this wired, always-on society we live in, Adebimpe name checks “every young man in American Apparel is…” I can’t help but think “…listening to TV On The Radio on his iPod?” The pseudo-rapped lyrics can’t help but feel like misfired novelty.

The little epic Brooklyn band that could hasn’t completely struck out, though. The urgency is still there, particularly in the chorus, in which the band resumes playing as a unit, complete with Malone’s ethereally pained vocal strains. Also still apparent is the sincerity factor: Adebimpe might be spitting some flailing, eccentric verses, but whatever it is, he clearly means it. With a little tweaking and perhaps an increased instrumental presence on the verses, this could be gold, and Dear Science is still likely to be a doozy of a record. The title is a pretty lame pun, but then again, who’d have thought an album called Return To Cookie Mountain would be any good?

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Yup, Toadies. That Toadies.

Fourteen long years since “Possum Kingdom” first rocketed their career atop the last crest of the post-Nirvana grunge wave, and seven years since their sophomore effort Hell Below/Stars Above marked their demise long after the crash, Toadies are back. They’ve reunited sans original bassist Lisa Umbarger, which isn’t really a game-changer since replacement Doni Blair handles her simplistic style with ease, but it is odd considering Lisa was the reason for the group’s breakup in 2001. Jumping ship after (but not necessarily because of) the flop that was Hell Below, the other members—singer/guitarist Todd Lewis, guitarist Clark Vogeler, and drummer Mark Reznicek—called it quits, claiming they just couldn’t go on without her.

As it turns out, that’s not entirely true. And so, all these years later, they pick up exactly where they left off: not a single fucking thing has changed. “No Deliverance” sounds like a geriatric, recycled version of the same derivative shit, Lewis still unable or unwilling to move beyond Rubberneck‘s most simplistic grunge-isms, let alone capitalizing on what made “Possum Kingdom”—hell, even “Tyler,” despite blatantly ripping off “Where Is My Mind”—so singular and, frankly, un-Toadies.

In contrast, this is vintage just-as-you-remember-‘em-and-you-probably-don’t Toadies, as exciting and inspired as a rock band perpetually stuck in 1994 can be. It’s tepid three-chord blues-rock, limping along on a lazy Black Keys riff and all the inflected anger Lewis can muster. The distorted vocals in the verses are near laughable, and the chorus is a chugging bore, Lewis stuck growling the title over and over until, by song’s end, he’s a “leave the lady alone or I’ll gladly kick your ass” lyric away from being Chad Kroeger. And yeah, ok, that’s a little harsh; even in 2008 this anachronistic, totally unnecessary spell of déjà vu is leagues above Nickelback’s ilk, if just for Vogeler’s lead guitar, but…really, what does it say if that’s the biggest compliment I can bestow?

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Seven years (yup, it’s really been that long) since first coming to sub-culture prominence for their prodigious, homemade hip-hop delusions, San Francisco’s Restiform Bodies are finally reuniting and releasing their Anticon debut. And, yeah, I’m sure they had their reasons for taking their sweet fucking time, but c’mon: what a huge tease for fans of the Bodies and their rich psychedelic oeuvre. However sonically delinquent and unapologetically lo-fi they might have seemed, they were so widely loved because they actually were really good. Ahead of their time, even. Passage’s lyrics were confessional abstractions uttered with the innocence of a child; Bomarr’s beats were upbeat and sometimes discothèque; and Telephone Jim Jesus introduced absurdist samples and sound elements that were the antithesis of hype. Spun together, it was an anarchist’s carnival of musical disregard, the proverbial thumbing of the nose to big time America.

“Bobby Trendy Addendum” is the blazing, synth-heavy first single from that long-awaited LP, TV Loves You Back. Unlike their earlier material, this is a hi-fi affair that forefronts their signature layers of lazer-warped, bass-heavy synths; tinny drums and bass loops are left in the background as rhythmic supports instead of carrying the entire track through to some illogical conclusion. Yet, despite the formalist influences of each member’s solo work, this is generally still the same party that we left a while back. Passage returns as the the master of ceremonies, standing at the ready on the soapbox with the mic, ready to reign down cultural indictment upon everyone, including himself. Here, he becomes Bobby Trendy, the all too real embodiment of contemporary consumer gluttony. He’s glibly confident about emulating icons (“I’m gonna get it like Joan and Melissa got it, don’t sweat it”) and smugly brags about pathological middle class privilege (“Just enough language to become instantly famous and a pony every birthday regardless of our behavior”). In the last verse, our narrator reminds us, “the finest thing in life is always yours, not what I got”; the horizon turns darker still, leaving Passage gasping with horror in the corner.

So, yeah, phew. For rabid fans of independent music, waiting for your favorite artists to deliver new material after significant time away from the spotlight can amount to emotional torture, especially if things don’t return in recognizable form. Even at the ground level of Independent music, people like you and me still idealize and enfranchise the music that we love into our hearts and our psyches. If this track is any indication of what the album will be like, Restiform Bodies devotees can expect to find the sublime electricity of the crew mostly intact, ready to do battle with bougie credit card surfers and wack remote control wielders alike.

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As an unofficial third member of Ninja Tune rap unit Nephlim Modulation Systems and frequent collaborator of Dadaist hip-hop luminaries like Noah 23 and Busdriver, K of the I??? has been responsible for some of the most bright, if secret, moments in hip-hop over the past few years. A son of the internet-based indie rap scene that exploded throughout North America and Europe in the early 2000s, his music is that of a mind attached to the spectacle: cybernetic stream of consciousness poetry wrapped around electro beats and data clouds, like schizophrenic satellites seeking a thousand truths in the vastness of human civilization. While many rap artists have more output or greater media presence than K, few possess such a natural descriptive cadence or visceral hunger for inspiration.

Produced by hip-hop alchemist Thavius Beck, “Cell-Shaded DayDreams/ Nightmares” portrays a progression in K’s complex, often confounding work. Rather than adhering to the classic “beat + rhymes= song” formula, the duo have innovated a more fitting structure, Beck doing his best to bring K’s entropy governed, information saturated rap to life. An introductory cascade of up-tempo synth blips and back-streamed melodics invites you into K’s neon dimension, where he immediately begins reciting an ascertation of how things look from his space: “Candid cameras, cantaloupes, frontal lobes, microbes and tenants dissolved / Rework angles to evolve status cleansing till the riddle of the puzzle solved / My timeframe nameless as it seems, with no direction.” This vibrant scenery is brought to life by K’s rapid, associative flows and fractious blues inflections.

Minimally crunked electro beats drive K through stargate harmonies, steering his raps from bandwidths into material statements and poetics: “With every breath I take / an earthquake takes place … Man, if I condense space and time / You can adapt to a place like mine.” By envisioning himself and the aural world he inhabits objectively, K successfully breaks from the frenetically insulated headspace that characterized much of his earlier work, departing into the relative terra firma of the creative pop song.

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