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Beirut
Gulag Orkestar
Ba Da Bing!
Give Zach Condon this: He doesn't pretend that he isn't a tourist. The 20-year-old Brooklynite, who put together his debut as Beirut while...
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When Madlib began making music in the late '90s, he did so from Oxnard, California. Oxnard seems like a suitably out-of-the-way place for an artist as left-field as...
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Yo La Tengo
I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass
Matador
Strip away the three monsters that begin, end, and shore up the middle of Yo La Tengo's dumbly (excuse me,...
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Bob Dylan
Modern Times
Columbia
Bob Dylan likes to front like an anti-techie, doing things such as avoiding the studio for five years at a time and telling Jonathan Lethem in...
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Of Montreal
The Sunlandic Twins
Polyvinyl
In the mid-to-late '90s, indie rockers were all abuzz over a group of emotive mushballs from Athens, Georgia. But unlike the...
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Various artists
"A Tom Moulton Mix"
Soul Jazz
"Former model" isn't usually a promising résumé-builder in the music world, but Tom Moulton was different. An A&R...
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Various artists
Sounds of New York, U.S.A., Volume 1: The Big Break Rapper Party
Queen Constance/Traffic
How loose were things in the early days of recorded hip hop? So loose...
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The Fiery Furnaces
Bitter Tea
Fat Possum
"Nobody loves a genius child," Langston Hughes once wrote. He was on to something, but he stopped short of saying what most people...
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The Bangers
Jon Moskowitz Presents Purple Reign
www.myspace.com/purplereign2006
John Shotti/Tapemasters Inc.
A Prince in Harlem
www.myspace.com/jshotti
Gimmicks make the...
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The Congos and Friends
Fisherman Style
Blood and Fire
It's a given among latter-day roots-reggae fans that 1977's Heart of the Congos, the Lee Perry-produced debut of Cedric...
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THE STROKES
First Impressions of Earth
RCA
The Strokes annoy people the way New York annoys people--without necessarily meaning to, but without being especially bothered...
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Various Artists
Good for What Ails You: Music of the Medicine Shows 1926-1937
Old Hat
Everybody loves a jingle. Well, maybe not, but try getting the damn things out of your...
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DangerDoom
The Mouse and the Mask
Epitaph
When Virgin announced that Danger Mouse would be collaborating with Damon Albarn for Gorillaz' spring '05 album, Demon Days, it...
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T. Raumschmiere
Blitzkrieg Pop
Novamute/Shitkatapult
Crazy Frog
Crazy Frog Presents Crazy Hits
Next Plateau/Universal
DJ-producer T. Raumschmiere may be lumped in...
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Scharpling and Wurster
Hippy Justice: The Best of Scharpling and Wurster on the Best Show on WFMU Volume 3
Stereolaffs
A few months ago in this paper, I called...
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various artists
Não Wave
Man import
various artists
The Sexual Life of the Savages: Underground Post-Punk from São Paulo, Brasil
Soul Jazz import
One thing...
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Basement Jaxx
The Singles: Special Edition
XL import
A warning: Some of Basement Jaxx's double-CD best-of-so-far (also available as a single disc, but who wants half...
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Even if you're wary of absolute statements, here's one that's pretty hard to deny: Ladbroke Grove, England's Scritti Politti underwent the single weirdest evolution of any...
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On the back cover of the Soul Providers' (Don't Look Back) Behind the Shack, a slab of Brooklyn-spawned retro-funk released by Desco Records in 1998, you'll find the following...
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Various Artists
DFA Compilation #2
DFA
Most of the time, hearing electronica-identified artists claim that they "want to start using real instruments" is a red flag that...
