Ten up. Way up.

Oh God. I got hired as an English teacher up here. I start early next week.

TV on the Radio
Return to Cookie Mountain
2006 4AD (for now)

I've been trying for two weeks to come up with something coherent to say about this album, but words have been eluding me. I suppose that's part of the mark of a "genius" album. Maybe it's just the mark of writer's block. Whichever happens to be true, Return to Cookie Mountain is exactly what I thought it'd be: beautifully literate. It's the kind of album you can lose yourself in for hours on end, without really knowing why or how. Ikey Owens (The Mars Volta/Free Moral Agents) once told me he thought TV on the Radio were the future of Black music. Return to Cookie Mountain solidifies that future.

Mr. Lif
Mo' Mega
2006 Definitive Jux

Speaking of Black music, political hip-hop king Mr. Lif returns with Mo' Mega, a carefully crafted collection of tracks dealing not only with favorite target President Bush, but also exhibits an artist coming to terms with the fact he might have to sacrifice personal relationships for his craft, or vice versa. El-P's production slows Lif to a verbal crawl, but he's never sounded so powerful. On the eve of his 10th anniversary, Lif told me he's already half-done with his next album, a self-described masterpiece. He might just be selling Mo' Mega a bit short.

Uzeda
Stella
2006 Touch & Go

These Italians have been trying to infiltrate American ears for the last decade, and if Stella doesn't do it, nothing will. You can tell vocalist Giovanna Cacciola has taken over the role of "Steve Albini's muse" from former Jaks/Love Life/current Celebration vocalist Katrina Ford while her band mates (Raffaele Gulisano, Davide Oliveri and Agostino Tilotta) tear through Shellac/Big Black/Rapeman influenced industrialized doom. In the words of Tilotta:

Stella (in english 'star') is a fashinating enlightened point in the sky;
Stella is the individual unit, an identity and original part of a constellation;
Stella is the name of a girl, of a daughter, of a mother, of a grandmother, of a woman;
Stella is the name of a dog;
Stella is a creature in the sea;
Stella is a name for a guitar;
Stella is the focal point of our dreams;
Stella is the joy of our hopes;
Stella is the centre of our Imagination;
Stella is the untouchable secret of our Freedom;
Stella is the neverended beginning of the Creation;
Stella is the most intimate and private colour in a will's desire;
Stella is the colour that nobody can reproduce;
Stella is "sharing together heart to heart";
Stella is the history of the Universe;
Stella is the magic of a smile;
Stella is the world without poverty and prejudice;
Stella is the power of an idea;
Stella is the energy of the Ideals;
Stella is the flag of the Human Wrights;
Stella is the unknown singing of the Whales;
Stella is the deep eye of the Eagle;
Stella is the golden wings of Peter Pan;
Stella is the keyword for Peace;
Stella is the interspace of Pure Silence;
Stella is the perfect cut of a razor blade;
Stella is a sugarcube in a cup of hate;
Stella is the sound power of a bees storm;
Stella is the weapon against a poisoned lie;
Stella is the victory of a sincere truth.

I couldn't have said it better myself--except to add that Stella is a
harrowing beauty waiting to be heard.

Daughters
Hell Songs
2006 Hydra Head

After a few years of admittedly playing music that sounded pretty derivative of The Locust, Alexis Marshall and company seem to have accidently stumbled upon a sound that's at once the bastard child of Arab on Radar and the Get Hustle. The resulting Hell Songs plays like a futuristic debutante ball gone horribly wrong: imagine Carrie mixed with 28 Days Later and Apocalypse Now.

Thom Yorke
The Eraser
2006 XL Recordings

Who didn't think this would at least be a little bit listenable? I actually bought this with less trepidation than I approached Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief (which I still haven't picked up). Anyway, imagine an entire album built around Kid A's "Idioteque" and you'll get some idea as to where The Eraser will lead you.

Margot & the Nuclear So and So's
The Dust of Retreat
2006 Artemis

Even wussier than an entire album of Thom Yorke's musings, I hate myself for liking this band. Their lyrics are simplistic. Their name is horrible. Their record label is pretty awful. Yet, The Dust of Retreat is as utterly infectious as Chutes Too Narrow, another album I'm completely ashamed of liking. I blame Richard Edwards' flawless voice, though the delicate orchestration certainly helps.


Miss Violetta Beau Regarde
Odi Profanum Et Arceo
2006 Temporary Residence Ltd.

I think she might be a Suicide Girl, and if that's the case, I think it adds to my description of what Miss Violetta Beau Regarde is. She's Peaches, but pissed. She's early Le Tigre but not nearly as danceable. She's Eva Inca Ore circa-Alarmist, but more electronic. Fear her, but love her.

Red Sparowes/Made out of Babies/Battle of Mice
Triad
2006 Neurot

I'd have been ecstatic with a live two-song EP by post-apocalyptic instrumentalists Red Sparowes, but No! They decided that wasn't enough, so not only did they ask good friends Made out of Babies to do a split--the two center pieces of the bands (Josh Graham and Julie Christmas) actually got together and formed a whole new entity called Battle of Mice to take on the world. Christmas's voice takes some getting used to--try to imagine a much more alluring Norah Jones crooning over doom rock. But now that I've written that, Battle of Mice sounds nothing like that would sound. That would be awful. Maybe mix some "chick from Pretty Girls Makes Graves" in there and we might have a deal.

Xiu Xiu
The Air Force
2006 5RC

After La Foret and Fabulous Muscles, I was a little worried that Jamie Stewart might be wussing out on us. Fortunately The Air Force hearkens back to Knife Play and A Promise. Stewart told me it wasn't any sort of conscious decision, so I assume the brief mellowing had something to do with his father's suicide. He's not one to reveal anything beyond what his lyrics say. Perhaps the return to form has something to do with the infusion of Deerhoof's Greg Saunier. I could go into that irony, but I'd prefer just to say that The Air Force bleeds the usual uninhibited Xiu Xiu emotions. That is to say, they're gut-wrenching, haunting songs that maul your soul but somehow leave you craving to be abused again.

McLusky
McLuskyism
2006 Too Pure

For someone who completely missed McLusky when they were the saviors of European punk no one had ever heard of, this collection (I got the single CD, not the box set) shows three dudes from Wales experimenting on archetypes first set by Nirvana (via Scratch Acid) and, as their musicianship developed, Fugazi. Very few bands play original punk music like these guys did: energy sweats, experimental vocals and bruising instrumentation. I might have missed them, but I still feel their absence. Where have all the punks who can play gone?