Collective Dreamwish of Upperclass Elegance

Bottom/ Neil Halstead is an English songwriter and musician. He was a founding member of shoegazer band Slowdive, and is currently the principal singer and songwriter in dream pop/country rock group Mojave 3, also playing guitar in the band. In 2001, 4AD Records released a solo album, Sleeping on Roads. Top/ Sumday (V2, 2003) is the third album by indie rock group Grandaddy from Modesto, California. Musically, the band features guitars in the indie rock style, keyboards reminiscent of Philip Glass's minimalist style and vocals in the key of Neil Young. The band's musical style (somewhat classifiable as indietronic) often combines experimental electronic sounds with elements of folk and high-energy rock. Lyrics generally focus on isolation in a high-tech world grafted onto rural America. Photography by Shinzou Maeda.

Being Bad Feels Pretty Good

Bottom/ You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into (Virgin, 2008) is the debut album from British electro-rock band Does It Offend You, Yeah? from Reading, Berkshire. Does It Offend You, Yeah? has been compared to acts like Daft Punk, Justice and Digitalism. However, NME has also compared them to bands like Muse and American dance-punk band !!! (pronounced as chk chk chk, to simulate mouth-clicking sounds) due to their heavier, more 'live' sound. The group is known for their raucous live shows, which often end in stage diving and broken instruments. Middle/ Chromeo is an electrofunk duo based in Montreal and New York City. The two have been best friends since childhood and they describe themselves as the only successful Arab/Jewish collaboration since the beginning of time. Fancy Footwork (Turbo/V2, 2007) is the second album by the Canadian Electronic / Dance Pop group. Top/ The Death Proof OST (Maverick/Warner Bros., 2007) is the soundtrack to Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino's segment of Grindhouse. It includes trademark audio snippets from various scenes in the film and the tracks "Jeepster" by T. Rex, "Down In Mexico" by The Coasters and
"Chick Habit" by April March. Quentin Tarantino rose to fame in the early 1990s as an independent filmmaker whose films used nonlinear storylines and aestheticization of violence. His films include Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), Jackie Brown (1997) and Kill Bill (Vol. 1 2003, Vol. 2 2004). Tarantino often makes references to and features music from cult movies and television.

Bringing It All Back Home

Bottom/ Killer soundtrack for the 1996 action-comedy-horror film, From Dusk Till Dawn, directed by Robert Rodriguez and written by Quentin Tarantino. The album (Sony, 1996) is predominantly Texas blues, featuring such artists as ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimmie Vaughan. The Chicano rock band Tito & Tarantula, who portrayed the band in the Titty Twister bar, appears on the soundtrack as well. Top/ In the mid-1960s, Bob Dylan was at the peak of his creativity, having broken into the mainstream with his popular and acclaimed albums Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. In the latter half of 1965, during the interim between those two albums, Dylan began touring with The Hawks (later known as The Band). As he recovered from a motorcycle accident during 1967, he called on The Band to help him experiment with themes of traditional folk music and Americana. Released eight years later, The Basement Tapes (Columbia, 1975) was hailed by critics, with John Rockwell of The New York Times calling it "The greatest album in the history of American popular music." The basement recording sessions laid the foundation both for the approach of Dylan's 1967 album John Wesley Harding, and for The Band finding their own voice on 1968's Music from Big Pink.

Schizophonia

Bottom/ Richard D. James Album (Warp Records, 1996) is an album by Richard D. James under his pseudonym Aphex Twin and is an archetype in the drill 'n bass genre. On "Logan Rock Witch", James sampled children's toys as percussion instruments. Some of the tracks, including the single "Girl/Boy Song", play plucked and bowed string sounds. Richard David James (born 18 August 1971), better known as Aphex Twin, is an electronic music artist who has been described as "the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music". Mr. James has also been quoted as saying, "I never listen to the same record twice, there's no point'. Richard's own Rephlex Records label coined the term "Braindance" in 1991 to describe Aphex Twin's otherwise uncategorisable music. "Braindance" applies to "forward-thinking" electronic music that can appeal to the mind as well as the desire to dance and party.
Middle/ Velocifero (Nettwerk, 2008), literally meaning "bringer of speed", is the fourth studio album from British electropop band Ladytron. "Black Cat" and "Kletva" are both sung entirely in Bulgarian. Ladytron are an electronic pop band originally based in Liverpool, England, although members originate from Sofia and Glasgow as well as Liverpool itself. Ladytron have a cult audience worldwide. Across Europe, they opened for Nine Inch Nails in early 2007 at the invitation of Trent Reznor. Top/ The Knife is an electronic musical duo from Sweden formed in 1999. The band consists of siblings Karin Dreijer Andersson (a.k.a. Fever Ray) and Olof Dreijer. One of the group's distinguishing characteristics is their unwillingness to cooperate with the media or the mainstream music scene. The group rarely makes public appearances, most of their promotional photos feature the members wearing masks, usually venetian masks and until recently, they outright refused to perform live concerts. The group has shown themselves in public wearing masks formed as birds' beaks, similar to the traditional Venetian Medico Della Peste (plague doctor) masks worn during Carnival. The Knife has listed David Lynch, Aki Kaurismäki, Korean cinema, Trailer Park Boys, Donnie Darko, and Doom as inspirations for their work.

Shiva In The Mix

Top/ Mother of Punk, so what the Funk? Nina Hagen is the Hindu goddess Kali on the cover of her full-on devotional album Om Namah Shivay! (1999). Artwork by Pierre & Gilles, whose collaborations include actress Catherine Deneuve, designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, model Naomi Campbell, musicians Marilyn Manson, Madonna and lo-fi duet CocoRosie. Although sometimes presented as dark and violent, Kali is often considered the kindest and most loving of all Hindu goddesses. Bottom/ Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! (Mute, 2008) is the fourteenth studio album by alternative rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. It is the second Bad Seeds studio album without Blixa Bargeld and features the same line up as the Abattoir Blues/
The Lyre of Orpheus double album.

Orchestra Of Bubbles

Bottom/ Apparat is a German electronic musician (Sascha Ring) living in Berlin and one of the owners of Shitkatapult Records. Starting out with dance floor-oriented techno, he later started to create ambient music. Recent music is closer to glitch or IDM, accompanied with classical string instruments and other sounds. He collaborated with experimental techno artist Ellen Allien in 2003 on the album Berlinette, and again in 2006 on the album Orchestra of Bubbles. 2007 saw the release of his own Walls (Shitkatapult). Middle/ An unfinished version of the album Orchestra Of Bubbles (BPitch, 2006) by Ellen Allien and Apparat, was leaked on the net months prior its release. Ellen Allien, born Ellen Fraatz, is a German electronic musician, music producer and founder of BPitch Control music label. She lives in Berlin, Germany. She sings in both German and English. She has said that one of the main inspirations for her music is the culture of reunified Berlin; her album Stadtkind was dedicated to the city. Allien's music tends to be difficult to classify stylistically and is best described as a distinctive blend of techno and electro music, which is dance-floor oriented, yet at the same time has noticeable experimental elements. Top/ Chromophobia (Kompakt, 2007) by Brazilian DJ and electronic music producer Gui Boratto (born 1974 in São Paulo) was awarded the title of Mixmag Album of the Month.

Detour Thru Your Mind

Bottom/ 10 000 Hz Legend (Astralwerks, 2001) by French electro band AIR is the follow-up to their debut LP, Moon Safari, once called a "pop masterpiece". On this album, more electronic-oriented experimentations find the duo expanding their capacities and working with other artists including American musician, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Beck and Japanese rock band Buffalo Daughter. Top/ Tuning in with Clearlight Symphony (Virgin Records, 1975) by French progressive rock band Clearlight, led by keyboardist Cyrille Verdeaux. Featured on Clearlight Symphony are friends from the Gong family, among them saxophonist and flutist Didier Malherbe, f.k.a Bloomdido Glad de Brass, one of the founders of the Canterbury sound band Gong. Malherbe is currently performing his own brand of wind-led, acoustic ethnic-jazz under the name Hadouk Trio with multi-instrumentalist Loy Ehrlich, and percussionist Steve Shehan. Clearlight's music has been called symphonic, sometimes psychedelic. Artwork by Jean Claude Michel.

That Great Love Sound

Bottom/ Chemical Chords (Duophonic/4AD, 2008) by Stereolab includes the tracks "One Finger Symphony", "The Ecstatic Static", "Fractal Dream of a Thing" and "Vortical Phonotheque". Called "one of the most fiercely independent and original groups of the Nineties", Stereolab were one of the first bands to be termed "post-rock". Their primary musical influence is 1970s krautrock, which they combine with lounge, 1960s pop, and experimental music. They are noted for their heavy use of vintage electronic keyboards, and their sound often overlays a repetitive "motorik" beat with female vocals sung in English or French. Stereolab often incorporate socio-political themes into their lyrics. Some critics say the group's lyrics carry a strong Marxist message, and Gane and Sadier admit to being influenced by the Surrealist and Situationist cultural and political movements.
Top/ On Pretty In Black (Columbia, 2005), Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo from Danish pop duo The Raveonettes lay down hard-edged electric guitar songs overlaid with liberal doses of noise. Characterized by close two-part vocal harmonies inspired by The Everly Brothers, their songs juxtapose the structural and chordal simplicity of 50s and 60s rock with intense electric instrumentation, driving beats and often dark lyrical content, similar to another of
the band's influences, The Velvet Underground.

Too Cool To Conga!

Bottom/ Kid Creole and the Coconuts are an American musical group created and led by August Darnell. Their music incorporates styles like big band jazz, disco, and in particular Caribbean/Latin American salsa. Their breakthrough came with 1982's Tropical Gangsters, which spun off three Top 10 hits with "Stool Pigeon", "Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy" and "I'm a Wonderful Thing, Baby", written by musical director Peter Schott. Doppelganger (Sire) is their fourth album and was released in 1983. Darnell adopted the name Kid Creole (adapted from the Elvis Presley film King Creole) in 1980. The persona of Kid Creole is described as: "Inspired by Cab Calloway and the Hollywood films of the 30s and 40s, the Kid fills out his colorful zoot suits with style and grace, dancing onstage with his inimitable, relentless and self-proclaimed cool." Middle/ Come Dance With Me! (Capitol) is an album by American singer Frank Sinatra, released in 1959. It was the most successful album of Frank Sinatra's career, spending two and a half years on the Billboard charts. Billy May won the Grammy Award for Best Arrangement. Top/ Recorded in Los Angeles in 1958, Latin Fever by American percussionist Jack Costanzo was re-released on Capitol in 2003. Costanzo is best known as a bongo player, and was nicknamed "Mr. Bongo". He visited Havana in the 1940s and learned to play Afro-Cuban rhythms on the bongos and congas. He toured with Stan Kenton from 1947-48 and occasionally in the 1950s, and played with Nat King Cole from 1949 to 1953. He also played with Peggy Lee, Judy Garland, Dinah Shore, Xavier Cugat, and Frank Sinatra

Pocket Symphony

Bottom/ Broken Boy Soldiers (Third Man/V2, 2006) is The Raconteurs' first full-length and contains the lead single "Steady, As She Goes". The Raconteurs (also known as The Saboteurs in Australia), are a rock group, featuring four members previously known for other musical projects, including Jack White (of The White Stripes). The band is based in Nashville, Tennessee. Top/ Joanna Newsom is a harpist, pianist, harpsichordist, singer and songwriter from Nevada City, California. A follow-up to the The Milk-Eyed Mender (2004), her second album Ys (Drag City, 2006) was named for a mythical city in Brittany, and features full orchestra arrangements by Van Dyke Parks. While the media have labeled her as one of the most prominent members of the modern psych folk movement, Newsom's songwriting incorporates elements of Appalachian music, avant-garde modernism, and African kora rhythms.

A Kiss In The Dreamhouse

Bottom/ Floored: Something Wrong (Recall, 2003) is the second album by electropop darlings Bang Gang from Iceland, starring songwriter/producer Barði Jóhannsson who formed the band and lives in Reykjavík. Middle/ Mixing influences from trip hop, rock, rhythm and blues and pop, Dive Deep (Echo, 2008) is the sixth studio album by English group Morcheeba. It is also the second studio album recorded without former lead singer Skye Edwards. Dive Deep features many guest vocals, such as acclaimed singer-songwriter Judie Tzuke (on the first single "Enjoy the Ride"), to relative newcomers Thomas Dybdahl from Norway, rapper Cool Calm Pete, and French singer Manda. Morcheeba are dedicated to the prevention of the destruction of the Marine environment, and are using the release of Dive Deep as the perfect opportunity to raise awareness. Their most popular albums include debut Who Can You Trust? and Big Calm. They achieved huge international pop crossover success with the single "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day" in 2000. Top/ Always in style: high priestess of punk Siouxsie explores a variety of musical styles, including pop, glam, industrial and electronic in her first solo album MantaRay (Universal, 2007), preceded by the "Into a Swan" single. Siouxsie Sioux is the lead singer of Siouxsie & the Banshees, formed at the advent of the British punk scene, and that soon became one of the major bands in the post-punk erea. The Banshees' music influenced a wide range of very diverse bands over the years, amongst them The Cure, Massive Attack, Garbage and more recently LCD Soundsystem. Key albums by Siouxsie and the Banshees include Kaleidoscope (1980), Juju (1981) and A Kiss in the Dreamhouse.

Telepathic Surgery

Top/ Sacrilege (Spoon Records, 1997) is a double remix album by German electronic pioneers Can. Can was a musical group formed in West Germany in 1968. One of the most important "krautrock" groups, Can had a style grounded in the art rock of bands such as The Velvet Underground, with strong experimental and world music influences. Described by keyboard player Irmin Schmidt as an "anarchist community" and by guitarist Michael Karoli as "a geometry of people", Can constructed their music largely through free improvisation and editing, which bassist Holger Czukay has referred to as "instant compositions". Through albums such as Tago Mago (1971) and Ege Bamyasi (1972), Can exerted a considerable influence on avant-garde, experimental, underground, ambient, New Wave and electronic music. Bottom/ Cunning Stunts (1975) by Caravan blends psychedelic rock and jazz. Caravan rose to success from 1968 onwards into the 1970s as part of the Canterbury scene, like their contemporaries Soft Machine.

Boom, Like That

Dead Man (Vapor, 1996) is the soundtrack to the 1995 Jim Jarmusch western-themed film of the same name starring Johnny Depp as William Blake and Gary Farmer as Nobody, a strong and opinionated Native American who was forcibly raised by whites and later given the mocking name "He Who Talks Loud, Saying Nothing" or Xebeche by fellow natives. Neil Young recorded the soundtrack by improvising (mostly on his electric guitar, with some acoustic guitar, piano and organ) as he watched the newly edited film alone in a recording studio. The soundtrack album consists of seven instrumental tracks by Young, with dialog excerpts from the film and Johnny Depp reading the poetry of William Blake interspersed between the music. "Why Does Thou Hide Thyself, Clouds..." contains a version of a part of William Blake's poem "To Nobodaddy", while "Do You Know How to Use This Weapon?" contains a reading of part of "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell". Set in the American West and shot entirely in black-and-white, the film has been hailed as one of the few films made by a Caucasian that presents an authentic Native American culture and character. Although the film is set in the 19th century, Jarmusch included a number of references to 20th century American culture. Iggy Pop is featured in the cast as Salvatore "Sally" Jenko, a cross-dressing, Bible-reading fur trader at a campsite. Benmont Tench, the man at the campsite played by Jared Harris, is named after Benmont Tench, keyboardist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The marshals chasing Blake are named Lee Hazlewood and Marvin Throne-berry, after Lee Hazlewood and Marv Throneberry. Nobody's name ("He Who Talks Loud, Saying Nothing") is a reference to the James Brown song "Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Nothing".

Ticker-Tape Of The Unconscious

Bottom/ The cover of Strange Cargo Hinterland (N-Gram Records, 1995) by English electronic artist William Orbit shows the Enneagram of Personality figure emerging from the waters. Best known for his work on Madonna's album Ray of Light, Orbit also produced a version of Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" featured on his album Pieces in a Modern Style which was a compilation of classical re-workings. Middle/Risotto (Astralwerks) is the sixth album by British electronica group Fluke, first released in September 1997. Many of the tracks that brought Fluke to a larger audience feature on this album, including Atom Bomb, used on the Wipeout 2097 soundtrack, and Absurd, used in many films/trailers, including Sin City in 2005. The band's conception was influenced by the members interest in the burgeoning acid house music scene and particularly the work of Cabaret Voltaire and Giorgio Moroder. Top/ "The Bell" is a single by musician Mike Oldfield. It features a restructured, shorter version of the finale of section one of Oldfield's Tubular Bells II (Warner Bros., 1992), and features a Master of Ceremonies, who introduces the instruments. The instruments introduced, in order are; grand piano, pipe organ, glockenspiel, bass guitar, vocal chords, "two slightly sampled electric guitars", "the Venetian effect", "digital sound processing" and tubular bells.

Beautiful Chaos

Bottom/ The Return of the New York Dolls: Live from Royal Festival Hall 2004 (Attack) captures the reunion of the U.S. proto-punk/glam rock group at the 2004 Meltdown Festival in London, curated by Morrissey. Formed in New York City in 1971, the New York Dolls prefigured much of what was to come in the punk rock era and even later; the Dolls' visual style influenced the look of many new wave and glam metal groups, and their playing style set the tone for many later rock and roll bands such as Kiss, Hanoi Rocks, Blondie, The Clash, Ramones, Guns N' Roses, The Damned, Japan and The Smiths. They were also a large influence on the Sex Pistols. Top/ Self-titled debut album Psychedelic Furs (Columbia, 1980) by English post punk band The Psychedelic Furs includes "India" and "Sister Europe". The band charted with later tracks such as "Pretty In Pink" and "Heaven".

The In Sound From Way Out!

Bottom/ Fourth album Come With Us (Astralwerks, 2002) by the UK-based Grammy Award winning electronic music duo The Chemical Brothers includes "It Began In Afrika". Along with The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim and The Crystal Method, as well as other lesser-known acts, they were pioneers of the big beat electronic dance genre, and are known for high-quality live sets. The album features Richard Ashcroft and Beth Orton as guest vocalists. Top/ We Are The Night (Freestyle Dust, 2007) is the sixth studio album by The Chemical Brothers, and includes "The Pills Won't Help You Now". Used throughout the album is the nostalgic technique of sampling old sounds The Chemical Brothers used on other albums. For example the song "We Are the Night" uses a direct sample from "The Sunshine Underground" from Surrender.

Evil Hearted You

Bottom/ "Planet Of Sound" (4AD, 1991) is a song by the American alternative rock band Pixies, from their album Trompe le Monde. The song describes an Extra Terrestrial's search for the origin of Rock music he has received. In every planet he goes to, he is told that "This ain't the planet of sound". The Pixies' music was heavily influenced by punk and surf rock, and while highly melodic, was capable of being tremendously abrasive at the same time. Black Francis was the band's primary songwriter and singer and had a distinctly desperate, yowling delivery. He typically wrote cryptic songs about offbeat subjects, such as UFOs and surrealism. References to mental instability, violent Biblical imagery, physical injury, and incest feature in many of the band's songs. Top/ "Start Me Up" (Rolling Stones/Virgin, 1981) is a classic hit single by the Rolling Stones featured on the album Tattoo You. The song opens with what has since become a trademark riff for Keith Richards.

Excursions Into "Oh, A-Oh"

Bottom/ "Utopia (Genetically Enriched)" is an electronic song performed by British group Goldfrapp. Released as the album's fourth single in June 2001, "Utopia (Genetically Enriched)" became Goldfrapp's first song to chart in their native England. The song was written and produced by Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory for the duo's debut album Felt Mountain (Mute, 2000). The album featured Alison Goldfrapp's synthesized vocals over cinematic soundscapes and is influenced by a variety of music styles including cabaret, folk, and electronic music. Goldfrapp is a British electronic music group known for their visual theatrics and contribution to the popularization of electronic dance music. Middle/ "Christine" is a song recorded by English rock band Siouxsie & the Banshees and it was released as the second single from the band's third album Kaleidoscope (Polydor, 1980). "Christine" and the Kaleidoscope album marked a change in musical direction for Siouxsie & the Banshees, with the arrival of the guitarist John McGeoch from Magazine and the brand new drummer and composer Budgie from The Slits. Veering from a punkish, more guitar-oriented sound, the Banshees (reduced to a trio) began their experimentation with electronic soundscapes and Middle Eastern exotica. Lyrically the song continued the band's exploration with mental illness (as they did on previous single "Happy House"), as it describes Christine, a woman with "22 faces". Two of Christine's identities, the Strawberry Girl and the Banana Split Lady, are mentioned in the lyrics of the song. Top/ Goldfrapp's "Lovely Head" was released as Felt Mountain's first single in May 2000 on Mute.

Blood Makes Noise

Elektra/Atlantic Records released a True Blood soundtrack on May 19, 2009. True Blood is an American television drama series created and produced by Alan Ball. It is based on the Sookie Stackhouse book series (known as The Southern Vampire Mysteries) by Charlaine Harris. The show is broadcast on the premium cable network HBO in the United States. True Blood details the co-existence of vampires and humans in Bon Temps, a fictional small northern Louisiana town. The series centers on Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), a telepathic waitress at a bar, who falls in love with vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer). Gary Calamar, the music supervisor for the series, said his goal for the soundtrack to the show that is to create something "swampy, bluesy and spooky" and to feature local Louisiana musicians. The main theme song is "Bad Things" by country music artist Jace Everett, from his 2005 self-titled debut. True Blood has reportedly become HBO's most popular series since The Sopranos and Sex and the City. A minute-long promotional video advertising season two, which featured Bob Dylan's "Beyond Here Lies Nothin'," was released via Entertainment Tonight in early May 2009. American writer, director, actor and producer Alan E. Ball is noted for writing American Beauty, and creating and producing the HBO television show Six Feet Under.

Chant Of The Paladin

Top/ The album cover for Aion (4AD, 1990) by Dead Can Dance shows a detail from the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch's triptych, The Garden of Earthly Delights. Assigning a musical genre to Dead Can Dance is difficult, as its style is particularly eclectic. However, its early work could be considered darkwave. In their later work, including and subsequent to the release titled The Serpent's Egg, Dead Can Dance would take ancient or various musics from around the world as primary sources, with contralto Lisa Gerrard singing glossolalia (commonly called "speaking in tongues"), giving it a very distinctive style. As a result, their later albums such as Into the Labyrinth (1993), Toward the Within (1994) and Spiritchaser (1996) sound quite different from the first three. Various sources have labeled those latter releases as neo-classical, or ethereal.
Bottom/ "More Than This" is a single from Roxy Music's eighth studio album Avalon (Virgin, 1982), generally regarded as the culmination of the smoother, more adult-oriented sound of the English art rock group's later work. Cover painting ‘Veronica Veronese’ by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1872. Bill Murray performs More Than This in a memorable karaoke scene in the 2003 movie Lost in Translation, directed by Sofia Coppola.

Juxtapozed With U

Wings of Desire is a 1987 film by the German director Wim Wenders. Its original German title is Der Himmel über Berlin, which can be translated as The Heaven (or Sky) over Berlin. Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry partially inspired the movie; Wenders claimed angels seemed to dwell in Rilke's poetry. The director also employed Peter Handke, who wrote much of the dialogue, the poetic narrations, and the film's recurring poem "Song of Childhood."...When the child was a child, it didn’t know that it was a child, everything was soulful, and all souls were one. Although Damiel and Cassiel are pure observers, invisible to all but children, and incapable of any physical interaction with our world, one of the angels, Damiel (Bruno Ganz), begins to fall in love with a circus trapeze artist named Marion (Solveig Dommartin), who is talented, lovely, but profoundly lonely. Marion lives alone in a trailer, dances alone to the music of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and drifts through the city. Also featured on the soundtrack along with original music by Jürgen Knieper (Nonesuch, 1990) are Crime & the City Solution, Laurie Anderson, Tuxedomoon, Sprung aus der Wolken and Minimal Compact.

Transmissions From The Satellite Heart

Bottom/ Hoy-Hoy! (Warner Brothers, 1981) is a collection of live recordings by American band Little Feat, released two years after the band's break-up following the death of founder Lowell George. Cover illustration by Neon Parks. Middle/ Pink Moon (Island, 1972) is Nick Drake's third and last album, following Five Leaves Left (1969) and Bryter Layter (1970). An "enigma wrapped inside a mystery", Nick Drake (1948 – 1974) was an English singer-songwriter and musician best known for his acoustic, autumnal songs, experimenting with open tuning and finger-picking guitar techniques. In recent years, several musicians, including Lucinda Williams, Badly Drawn Boy, and Lou Barlow have cited Drake as an influence. Although he failed to find a wide audience during his lifetime, Drake's work has grown steadily in stature, to the extent that he now ranks among the most influential English singer-songwriters of the last 50 years. Top/ Shleep (Thirsty Ear, 1997) is the eighth album released by English musician Robert Wyatt, former member of the influential Canterbury scene band Soft Machine. In 2008, the Domino Records label, a large independent label housing such big indie stars as Arctic Monkeys, Pavement, Neutral Milk Hotel and Elliott Smith, re-released Wyatt's Drury Lane, Rock Bottom, Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard, Nothing Can Stop Us, Old Rottenhat, Dondestan, Shleep, EPs and Cuckooland on CD and vinyl. Recently the verb "Wyatting", named obviously after Robert Wyatt, appeared in some blogs and music magazines to describe the practice of playing weird tracks on a pub jukebox to annoy the other pub goers. Wyatt was quoted in The Guardian as saying: "I think it's really funny," and "I'm very honoured at the idea of becoming a verb." However, when asked if he would ever try it himself, he said "Oh no. I don't really like disconcerting people. Although often when I try to be normal I disconcert anyway."

Lazer Guided Melodies

Bottom/ Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (Todomundo, 2008) is the first collaboration between David Byrne and Brian Eno since 1981's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and Eno's work producing and co-writing with Talking Heads. Byrne and Eno worked on creating the album—a mix of electronic and Gospel music—throughout 2007 and early 2008 over e-mail and have used word-of-mouth and Internet sales to market the music. Both have described it as "electronic Gospel", in particular the track "Life Is Long." In addition to subtle Biblical themes in the lyrics, Eno was inspired by Gospel music, which he initially discovered through Talking Heads while working on More Songs About Buildings and Food. Byrne has speculated that the hopeful lyrics might be an antidote to being "completely pessimistic and cynical about politics and the state of the world." Eno has also said the album is about "paint[ing] a picture of the human trying to survive in an increasingly digital world." Themes of humanity struggling with technology are apparent on several tracks. Top/ Jollification (Epic) was the Lightning Seeds' 1994 album and contains the UK hit singles "Lucky You", "Marvellous", "Change" and "Perfect". Its cover, designed by Mark Farrow, featured the then innovative use of computer graphics to create an enormous strawberry with people's faces as its seeds. The Lightning Seeds are an alternative pop/rock band, largely the brainchild of writer, singer and guitarist Ian Broudie. The group has its origins in the English city of Liverpool, breaking through with the shimmery, psychedelic synth pop hit, "Pure", from the album Cloudcuckooland. More UK Top 20 hits by The Lightning Seeds include a cover version of The Turtles' breathy-trippy 1969 hit "You Showed Me" (written by Byrds members Gene Clark and Roger McGuinn), which was featured in the Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery soundtrack.

Truth Doesn't Make A Noise

Top/ Meg White and Jack White of punk blues duo The White Stripes delve into truth as number one theme throughout the album Get Behind Me Satan (V2 Records, 2005). In 2006, it was included in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, edited by Robert Dimery. Middle/ Rather Ripped (DGC, 2006) by American alternative rock band Sonic Youth is the last album the band had to release to fulfill their contractual obligation to Geffen Records. Formed in New York City in 1981, Sonic Youth are inspired by the guitar symphonies of Glenn Branca (with whom most of the band have performed), the heavy protopunk of The Stooges, the punk poetry of Patti Smith, the Krautrock of Can, the psychedelic garage rock of The 13th Floor Elevators, as well as avant-garde composers like John Cage. The band were often praised for "redefin[ing] what rock guitar could do" using a wide variety of unorthodox guitar tunings, and preparing guitars with objects like drumsticks and screwdrivers to alter the instruments' timbre. Bottom/ Single "You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told)" from The White Stripes' Icky Thump album (XL Recordings, 2007), recorded at Nashville's Blackbird Studio. Jack White said that the album would appeal to fans of the band's self-titled debut, suggesting a stripped-down hard rock sound.

Get The Balance Right

Bottom/ "Rock The Casbah" is a single from the album Combat Rock (Epic, 1982) by The Clash. One theory is that the song was inspired by the banning of rock music in Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini. The song gives a fabulist account of the ban being defied by the population, who proceed to "rock the casbah". The King orders jet fighters to bomb any people in violation of the ban. The pilots ignore the orders, and instead play rock music on their cockpit radios. Top/ Once described as "the sound of the earth vomiting", English post-punk band Killing Joke's music influenced many later bands, such as Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Metallica and Korn. Ominous single "War Dance" was released on Malicious Damage in 1980. Jaz Coleman's vocals are sometimes a malevolent-sounding growl and sometimes emotional and melodic. Killing Joke's music typically consists of metallic guitars and heavy, tribal, and danceable rhythms.

Forever Blowing Bubbles

Bottom/ For her sixth full-length studio album Volta (One Little Indian, 2007), Icelandic singer Björk put together her own fourteen- piece brass section of female Icelandic musicians who play on three tracks on the album. Antony Hegarty, frontman and lead singer of the band Antony and the Johnsons, appears on the album for two duets. Middle/ Fireball is a hard rock album by Deep Purple, released in 1971 on Harvest. It was their fifth studio album, and the second with the classic Mk II lineup featuring Ian Gillan (vocals) and Ritchie Blackmore (guitar). Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in Hertfordshire in 1968. Along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, they are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal and modern hard rock although some band members have tried not to label themselves any one genre. The band has also incorporated pop and progressive rock elements. Within weeks of Fireball's release, the band was already performing songs planned for the next album. Machine Head has since become one of the band's most famous albums, including tracks that became live classics such as "Highway Star," "Space Truckin'," "Lazy," and "Smoke on the Water." Ritchie Blackmore ranked 55 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time in 2003. Deep Purple was once listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's loudest band, and it has sold over 100 million albums worldwide. Top/ Neo-Krautrock Pennsylvania based band Black Moth Super Rainbow from Pittsburgh lay down yummy synth bubbles and Vocoder hums on their third album Dandelion Gum (Graveface, 2007). Their music contains elements of psychedelia, folk, electronica, and pop. Track listing includes "Neon Syrup for the Cemetery Sisters", "Sun Lips", "Jump into My Mouth and Breathe
the Stardust" and "Lollipopsichord".

Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out

Bottom/ Fingerlickin' good artwork for Let It Bleed (Decca/ABKCO, 1969) by the Rolling Stones displays a surreal sculpture designed by Robert Brownjohn. Middle/ In 1983 British impresario Malcolm McLaren released Duck Rock (Charisma Records), an album which mixed up influences from Africa, Central and South America and the USA, including hip-hop. The album proved to be highly influential in bringing hip-hop to a wider audience in the UK. Two of the singles from the album ("Buffalo Gals" and "Double Dutch") became major chart hits on both sides of the Atlantic. Guest musicians featured on this album include Trevor Horn, Anne Dudley and J.J. Jeczalik, three artists who would eventually become the Art of Noise. Clips of the World's Famous Supreme Team radio show appear between songs. Cover artwork includes art by Pop/graffiti artist Keith Haring.
Top/ Berlin-based electropop duo Stereo Total get down with "Discotheque" (Disko B, 2006). Their music can be described as a humorous mix of synth-pop, New Wave, electronica, punk rock, and pop music. They also tend to embody a retro-hip European 1960s mod style, and references to that period can be found in their music. Some songs strongly evoke a mod/psych/garage-rock vibe, both in production aesthetic and lyrical content. Sixties French pop in the vein of Francoise Hardy can be heard in the mix also. Some of their tracks are playful, low-fi versions of pop/rock/soul songs that employ the use of analog recording equipment and reverberation.

Boing Boom Tschak

Top to bottom/ "We had a vision: to make electronic folk music. To become the Volkswagen of pop music; accessible to a big audience, but still innovating." Kraftwerk (German for power station) is a Grammy award nominated, electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. Kraftwerk’s releases in the 1970s and early 1980s, most significantly a quartet of albums that would exert a huge influence on popular music—Radio-Activity (1975),Trans-Europe Express (1977), The Man-Machine (1978) and Computer World (1981)— continue to inspire many popular artists from many diverse genres of music and artists, from David Bowie to New Wave, to Chicago House Music, to hip-hop, to current electronic acts, among them LCD Soundsystem and the Chemical Brothers. The band is notoriously reclusive, as they reject to accept mail and allow no visitors at the Kling Klang Studio. It is rumored that their label partner, EMI, does not even have the members’ phone numbers.

On The Wires Of Our Nerves

Bottom/Avant Hard (Mute, 1999) is the third album by Add N To (X). Add N to (X) were a three-piece British band specializing in electronic music performed on analogue synthesizers, formed in London in 1994. After several releases on small labels, they turned down offers from major labels and signed to large independent label Mute Records in 1998, and achieved a modest commercial success before splitting in 2003. Other albums by the band include On the Wires of Our Nerves, Add Insult to Injury, and Loud Like Nature. Top/ Cover pic for "Plug Me In" (Mute, 2000) was borrowed from Curious Magazine circa 1972. Add N to (X) often utilized distinctive artwork for the videos and record sleeves, a fetishistic collage of sexual imagery with analogue electronic equipment, based in part on the movie and book Demon Seed. Most of the group's songs and video clips have been adult/sex-related; the video for "Metal Fingers in My Body" is an animated short where a female is having sex with a robot, and their video for "Plug Me In" is famous for featuring porn actresses playing with sex toys.

Pop Will Eat Itself

Nixon (Merge) is a 2000 album by Lambchop. The album was a critical and commercial breakthrough for the band, especially in the United Kingdom. The song Up with People was subsequently remixed by Zero 7. The sleeve is a painting by Wayne White, a childhood friend of Kurt Wagner who also provided cover art for Thriller, Aw Cmon and No You Cmon by the band. Lambchop, originally Posterchild, is a band from Nashville, Tennessee. Lambchop is loosely associated with the alternative country genre, though its music resists easy classification. The music website Allmusic refers to them as "arguably the most consistently brilliant and unique American group to emerge during the 1990s". Never a band with a "core" lineup, Lambchop through the years has consisted of a large and fluid collective of musicians focused around its creative centre, frontman Kurt Wagner. Initially indebted to traditional country, the music has subsequently moved through a range of influences including post-rock, soul and lounge music.Whatever the style, the characteristic mood of Lambchop's music is evoked by Wagner's distinctive songwriting - lyrically subtle and ambiguous, the vocals melodic but understated. Setting this apart from other minimalist songwriters is the large group of backing musicians, with the range of instruments and styles that it brings. Wagner's songwriting bears similarities with soul musicians such as Barry White, Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye as much as with country and folk music, and can be seen to embody Kris Kristofferson’s dictum that “country music is the white man’s soul”.

You Never Blow Yr Trip Forever

Bottom/ Album title The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators (International Artists, 1966) by The 13th Floor Elevators is purported to be the first use of the word "psychedelic" in reference to music within. The 13th Floor Elevators was an American acid rock band originally from Austin, Texas, from late 1965 until 1969. The band found only limited commercial success before dissolving amid legal troubles and drug use. However, as one of the first psychedelic bands, they have been cited as an influential proto-punk group. Their biggest hit "You're Gonna Miss Me", a Billboard #55 hit in 1966, was later to be considered a landmark in the history of garage rock and the development of punk rock. The band's classic line-up featured singer/guitarist Roky Erickson and electric jug player Tommy Hall. The "electric jug" sound would become the band's signature and trademark. Middle/ Space Cowboy Jason "Jay" Kay of Jamiroquai lays down a deep, electronica-drenched disco/funk vibe in A Funk Odyssey (Epic, 2001). Previous sonic journeys include Emergency on Planet Earth and Travelling Without Moving. Top/ Starring Jeff Bridges as "The Dude", The Big Lebowski has a soundtrack (Mercury, 1998) that was composed by Carter Burwell, a veteran of all the Coen Brothers' films. T-Bone Burnett, who also worked with the Coens on O Brother, Where Art Thou?, is credited as music bibliographer.

Orbiting Your Living Room

Bottom/ Soon Over Babaluma (Mute) is a 1974 album by Can. It is their last album that was created using a two-track recorder. Critics generally agree that this is the band's last great album. It takes the ambient style of Future Days and pushes it even further at times, as on "Quantum Physics". The album also has its fair share of upbeat tracks, such as "Chain Reaction" and "Dizzy Dizzy". One of the most important krautrock groups, Can had a style grounded in the experimental rock of bands such as The Velvet Underground, with strong minimalist and world music influences. Through albums such as Tago Mago (1971) and Ege Bamyasi (1972), Can exerted a considerable influence on avant-garde, experimental, underground, ambient, New Wave and electronic music. Middle/ The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams (Universal, 2007) is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter, rapper, bassist and multi-instrumentalist Meshell Ndegeocello. The music press has hailed her as a redeemer of soul music. Her music incorporates funk, soul, hip hop, reggae, R&B, rock, and jazz. Ndegeocello means "free like a bird". Top/ Music of the Spheres (Universal, 2008) is the first classical album by English musician Mike Oldfield. New Zealand soprano Hayley Westenra is featured vocalist on "On My Heart" and the album also features Chinese pianist Lang Lang on piano. The album is based on the celestial concept, Musica universalis (Music of the Spheres). Initially the album was written with electronic elements, but as the album developed it became an orchestral piece. Oldfield wrote much of the music in the music notation software Sibelius on Apple Macintoshes. He stated that he would be recording the album with Karl Jenkins (of Adiemus) and a full orchestra at Abbey Road Studios. One of the album's tracks is entitled "Musica Universalis", which when translated into English is music of the spheres, an ancient philosophical concept that regards proportions in the movements of celestial bodies as a form of music.

Up To Her Old Tricks Again

Kim Lenz has established herself as a modern rockabilly songstress with a pair of albums for Hightone Records, The One and Only (1999) and Up to My Old Tricks Again (2005). She embodies everything that is thrilling, provocative, and rebellious about rock’s origins. Now the Los Angeles based singer-songwriter-guitarist has started her own label to release her third album It’s All True! (Riley Records, 2009), which she also produced. The album is a flaming slab of fuel-injected contemporary rockabilly that shows off Kim’s romp-stomping vocal chops. “Touch Me” starts things off with an instantly memorable hook that sounds as dangerous as it is sexy. “Zombie For Your Love” innovatively marries a hillbilly vocal melody to B-movie imagery. The honeyed and melancholic “I Break A Heart Every Night” slows things down before “Shined Up and Ready to Shout” ends the album with a rumble. The album has the spirit of the great female rockabilly pioneers like Wanda Jackson and the late Janis Martin.

Vortical Phonoteque

Bottom/ Do It! (Domino Records) is the fifth album by the band Clinic, released on 7 April 2008. Clinic are a Liverpool based indie rock band noted for their often fast-paced, eclectic sound. Ade Blackburn's distinctive acidic vocals are a trademark of the band, and they are also known for wearing surgical masks and costumes while performing and in promotional photos. Middle/ Rinôçérôse is a French band founded by Jean-Philippe Freu and Patrice Carrié that mixes rock music and electronic dance music. The duo of musicians also work as psychologists, calling themselves, "Psychologists by day, musicians by night". "Schizophonia" (V2, 2005) marks a new turning point in the band's music, with a more mainstream rock groove rather than a more ambient electronic sound. Included is the single "Bitch".

Hit To Death In The Future Head

Top/ Fordlândia (4AD, 2008) is an album by Icelandic-born musician, composer and producer Jóhann Jóhannsson. Jóhannsson is a co-founder of Kitchen Motors in Reykjavík, the art organization/think tank/record label which specializes in instigating collaborations, promoting concerts and exhibitions, performances, chamber operas, producing films, books and radio shows based on the ideals of experimentation, collaboration and the search for new art forms. Jóhannsson (born 1969) founded the Apparat Organ Quartet in 1999, who have played various European festivals to great acclaim. He has also produced and written music with artists as diverse as Marc Almond, Barry Adamson & Pan Sonic, the Hafler Trio and Magga Stina, among others. He has written music for theatre, documentaries and soundtrack music for several feature films. Jóhannsson is a member of the Icelandic electronica supergroup Evil Madness. Jóhannsson's album Englabörn was re-issued on 4AD in 2007. Bottom/ Let Love In is the 8th studio album by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, released in 1994 on Mute. The song "Loverman" was covered by Metallica on Garage Inc. and Depeche Mode's Martin Gore on Counterfeit. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are an Australian rock band with multinational personnel, fronted by Nick Cave. In March 2008 the Bad Seeds released their 14th studio album, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, inspired by the Biblical story of the resurrection of Lazarus of Bethany by Jesus Christ. The album received excellent reviews.

Dance This Mess Around

Bottom/ Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (Warner Bros, 1978) is the first album by New Wave musicians Devo from Akron, Ohio. The album was produced by Brian Eno, and featured a radical cover of the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and the controversially titled "Mongoloid". The name "Devo"(pronounced DEE-vo or dee-VO) comes "from their concept of 'de-evolution' - the idea that instead of evolving, mankind has actually regressed, as evidenced by the dysfunction and herd mentality of American society." Their style has been variously classified as punk, art rock and post-punk. Devo's music and stage show mingle kitsch science fiction themes, deadpan surrealist humor, and mordantly satirical social commentary via sometimes-discordant pop songs. They are best known for their 1980 hit "Whip It", and their work has proved hugely influential on subsequent popular music, particularly New Wave and alternative rock artists. Middle/ Sacrebleu (Yellow Productions, 1996) is the debut album from French producer and DJ Dimitri From Paris. His musical influences are rooted in 1970s funk and disco sounds that spawned contemporary house music, as well as original soundtracks from 50s and 60s cult movies such as Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Party. Dimitri fused these sounds with electro and block party hip hop he discovered in the 80s. And voilà! Top/ Kitschy lyrics and mood, and hook-laden harmonies, abound in The B-52's (Warner, 1979) eponymous New Wave debut album by Athens, Georgia-based rock band The B-52's. Because the words "Play Loud" appear on the original LP, this album is sometimes erroneously referred to as Play Loud. Shortly before his death, John Lennon considered the album to be his all-time favorite. Standouts include "Planet Claire", "Rock Lobster" and "Dance This Mess Around".

The Garden Of Mirrors

Bottom/ Rasa is a musical collaboration between German cellist and multi-instrumentalist Hans Christian, and American singer Kim Waters. The duo draws heavily on Indian devotional music such as Bhajan and Western classical music. They have released five full-length albums focusing on various themes in classical Hindu religion and mythology, including Devotion (Hearts of Space, 2000), Union (2001), Shelter (2003) and Saffron Blue (2007).
Top/ A Midwinter Night's Dream (Quinland Road, 2008) is an album of the Canadian singer, songwriter, accordionist, harpist, and pianist, Loreena McKennitt. The album, recorded at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios, is an extended version of A Winter Garden: Five Songs for the Season (1995). Loreena McKennitt is most famous for writing, recording and performing world music with Celtic music and Middle Eastern themes. Her first album, Elemental, was released in 1985 and attracted global attention with subsequent releases of self-produced work, including To Drive the Cold Winter Away (1987), Parallel Dreams (1989), The Visit (1991), The Mask and Mirror (1994) and The Book of Secrets (1997). McKennitt is often compared to Enya, but McKennitt's music is more grounded in traditional and classical invocations. An Ancient Muse, her first full-length studio album in nine years, was released in 2006.

Oscillons From The Anti-Sun

Top/ Experimental electronic duo The Future Sound of London released Lifeforms (Astralwerks) to critical acclaim in 1994. Although often labelled as ambient, Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans usually resist being pigeon-holed into any one particular genre. Their work covers most areas of electronic music, such as ambient techno, drum and bass, trip-hop, ambient dub, pure ambient, and often involves extreme experimentation. Lifeforms featured unconventional use of percussion interspersed with truly ambient segments. Middle to bottom/ FSOL's single "My Kingdom" arises from the depths of Dead Cities (Astralwerks, 1996), also home of "We Have Explosive". The new material was a curious mix of ambient textures and hard, gritty dance music. The album's songs combined synthetic sounds with samples, including from the Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
and Blade Runner (1982) soundtracks, to create the atmosphere
of a post-apocalyptic urban area.

Ballroom Blitz

Bottom/ Sawdust (Island, 2007) is a compilation of re-recorded B-sides, rarities, covers and remixes by the Las Vegas rock band The Killers. The Killers were inspired by B-sides collections such as Oasis' The Masterplan, The Smiths' Hatful of Hollow, Smashing Pumpkins' Pisces Iscariot and Nirvana's Incesticide. Part of the post-punk revival movement, The Killers draw influence from music styles of the 1980s and 1990s. The band's first two albums, Hot Fuss (2004) and Sam's Town (2006), have sold in excess of 12 million copies worldwide combined. Middle/ Destroy Rock & Roll is the first album by Scottish electronic musician Mylo, released in 2004 on the Breastfed Recordings label, which he co-owns. Destroy Rock & Roll was created on a second hand iMac, with "a few software thingys" in Mylo's own bedroom. Mylo has provided remixes for the likes of Scissor Sisters, Amy Winehouse, The Knife, and The Killers. The video that went with the single "Muscle Car" courted controversy as it featured American president George W. Bush shown involved in a drug-and-alcohol-fueled threesome with two prostitutes. Top/ I Created Disco (Sony Columbia, 2007) is the debut album from Scottish-born electronica musician Calvin Harris. The album contained uptempo electroclash songs that were influenced by music from the 1980s, including the singles "Acceptable in the 80s", a tribute to the style and culture of the decade, "Merrymaking at My Place" and "The Girls".

Solid State Survivor

Bottom/ Give 'Em Enough Rope (CBS, 1978) was The Clash's second album. Standouts include "Safe European Home", "English Civil War" and "Tommy Gun". The cover was designed by Gene Greif, using a postcard, "End of the Trail", photographed by Adrian Atwater, featuring Wallace Irving Robertson. Top/ Yellow Magic Orchestra USA (Horizon/A&M Records, 1979) was the American release of the first album by Japanese electropop band Yellow Magic Orchestra, also known as YMO. Featuring Ryuichi Sakamoto, the band is renowned as having pioneered the Synthpop and Electropop music genres, along with Germany's Kraftwerk. In August 2007, the band once again reformed, taking the name HASYMO, combining the names of
Human Audio Sponge and Yellow Magic Orchestra.

Refractions In The Plastic Pulse

Bottom/ Mirrored (Warp Records, 2007) is the critically acclaimed debut full-length album by American experimental rock band Battles. This is the first time the band has incorporated vocals into their songs, as the previous EPs were completely instrumental (aside from beatboxing on the tracks "Dance" and "Fantasy"). The first single from the album, "Atlas", has been used in the Playstation 3 game LittleBigPlanet, in the level 'The Construction Site'. The band's line-up includes ex-Helmet drummer John Stanier, and Tyondai Braxton (son of avant-garde jazz musician Anthony Braxton), who also plays guitar and keyboard and creates live voice samples. Middle/ Music Has the Right to Children (Warp Records, 1998) is the studio debut album of the Scottish electronic music duo Boards of Canada, consisting of brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin Sandison. The album was recorded at the Hexagon Sun studio, an atelier maintained by the duo, in Pentland Hills, Scotland. The songs utilize a number of field recordings and intense sound manipulation. Boards of Canada's music is reminiscent of the warm, scratchy, artificial sounds of 1970s media and contains themes of childhood, nostalgia and the natural world. The album received universal acclaimation upon release. Top/ Dazzle Ships is the fourth album by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, released in 1983 on Virgin Records. The title and cover art (designed by Peter Saville) alluded to a painting by vorticist artist Edward Wadsworth based on dazzle camouflage. The album was the follow-up release to the band's hugely successful Architecture and Morality. In contrast with its celebrated predecessor, Dazzle Ships met with a degree of critical and commercial hostility, due to the inaccessible nature of half of the material it contained, particularly musique concrete sound collages, utilising shortwave radio recordings to explore cold war and eastern bloc themes.

Into Wonderland

Bottom/ The Songs Of Distant Earth (Warner Bros, 1994) by English multi-instrumentalist musician and composer Mike Oldfield has ethnic world chants and Native American influences, evoking earlier works such as Ommadawn and Incantations that featured extensive use of chanting and drumming. Oldfield works a style that blends prog-rock, folk, ethnic or world music, classical music, electronic music, New Age and more recently dance. His music is often elaborate and complex in nature. He is best known for his 1973 magnum opus Tubular Bells Top/ Oldfield's single "Let There Be Light" from The Songs Of Distant Earth shines down on an album inspired by the
late Arthur C. Clarke book of the same name.

You Can Be Special, Too

Bottom/ Canadian singer, composer, harpist and pianist Loreena McKennitt is often compared to Enya, but McKennitt's music is more grounded in traditional and classical invocations, using literary works as sources of lyrics such as "The Lady of Shalott" by Lord Tennyson, Yeats' "The Stolen Child" and William Blake's "Lullaby". To Drive the Cold Winter Away (Quinlan Road, 1987) is McKennitt's second album. All the songs were recorded in churches, many in Glenstal Abbey, Ireland. Middle/ Foxtrot (Charisma, 1972) is the fourth studio album by British progressive rock band Genesis and the second from the "classic" lineup of Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins, and Steve Hackett. Featured in the album artwork is the "fox on the rocks". The figure in a red dress with a fox's head was one of Gabriel's earliest stage costumes. Both "Watcher of the Skies", which is based on Arthur C. Clarke's novel Childhood's End, and the 23-minute "Supper's Ready" rank among some of the band's most beloved works. Also included is "Horizons", which starts with the central idea of Bach's Prelude of the first Cello Suite and then develops its own piece, baroque style. Top/ Birthed in Las Vegas by baroque pop band Panic at the Disco, second album Pretty. Odd. (Decaydance, 2008) includes "I Have Friends in Holy Spaces" and "Mad as Rabbits". It is possible that the song's title is a reference to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, alluding to The Mad Hatter and the March Hare or the White Rabbit.

Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp

La Cantina (Narada, 2006) is an album by Lila Downs. Lila Downs (born 1968 in Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca) is a Mexican-American singer. She performs her own compositions as well as tapping into native Mesoamerican music of the Mixtec, Zapotec, Maya and Nahuatl cultures. She was also heard in the soundtrack to the Julie Taymor movie Frida in a song, Burn it Blue, that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song. Other songs that she performed on the soundtrack are "Benediction And Dream," "Estrella Oscura," and "La Llorona." Other movies with a Lila Downs song are Tortilla Soup, Real Women Have Curves and Fados by Carlos Saura. Downs is currently based in Coyoacán, a borough of Mexico City. On September 2, 2008, Lila Downs released Shake Away (Manhattan Records), an album of new material as well as a few cover songs, including "I Envy The Wind" by Lucinda Williams and " I Would Never" by the Blue Nile. Downs also collaborates with artists like La Mari from the band Chambao and Enrique Bunbury from Héroes del Silencio.

Lullabies To Paralyze

Top/ Fever Ray (Rabid Records, 2009) is the debut solo album from Fever Ray, an alias of Karin Dreijer Andersson of the electronic duo The Knife, formed in Sweden with her brother Olof Dreijer and currently on hiatus. Andersson was previously the vocalist and guitarist of the alternative rock band Honey Is Cool. Her vocal style is notable for both shrill and deep, distorted tones combined with her distinctive accent and the use of pitch-shifting, while her image as a performer tends to include the wearing of masks and other theatrical elements. Bottom/ Deep Cuts is the second full-length album from Swedish synthpop duo The Knife. It was released on Rabid Records, in Sweden in 2003 and in the UK in 2004. Middle/ In 2006, singer-songwriter, rapper, occasional DJ and broadcaster Neneh Cherry announced the formation of a new alternative electronic rock band, cirKus. In addition to Cherry, cirKus members are Neneh's husband's Burt Ford (a.k.a. Booga Bear a.k.a Cameron McVey), Lolita Moon (Neneh and Cameron's daughter Tyson, also Karmil's girlfriend), and Karmil a.k.a. Matt Kent. They are currently based between Stockholm and London. Cameron McVey is a British music producer, best known for his work with Neneh Cherry, Massive Attack, Portishead, All Saints, and Sugababes. McVey co-wrote most of Cherry's debut album Raw Like Sushi. CirKus's first album, Laylow, was released in France in 2006. A remixed/recorded version of the album, Laylower, was released in 2007. A second CirKus album, Medicine, was released in France in March 2009 on Wagram.

Ethereal Reverberations

Top/ Lovetune For Vacuum (Pias, 2009) is Soap & Skin 's debut album. Boomkat's album review reads: "Eighteen-year old Austrian chanteuse Anja Plaschg makes a startling debut with this set of complex, often very maudlin goth-folk experiments. As you can see from her cover photo, Plaschg has a bit of a Tess Of The D'Urbervilles vibe to her, and based on this image and the presence of ghostly ballads like 'Extinguish Me' and 'Sleep' it would be all too easy to start suggesting she's a European equivalent of Marissa Nadler, but far from it, tracks like 'Turbine Womb' and the wonderful 'Marche Funebre' are far more experimental, bringing to mind a cross-pollination of Antony & The Johnsons' most sonically ambitious material and the electronic carve-ups of AGF. 'Cry Wolf' supplies another clearcut highlight, casting abstract, clockwork percussion alongside piano and woodwind, while the vocals howl in a fashion that's every bit as lupine as the title would suggest. Highly recommended."
Bottom/ Resist (Moksha Recordings) is the 2001 debut album from Kosheen, a British trip hop, drum and bass and rock group based in Bristol, England. The name of the band is a combination of the Japanese words for "old" (古, romanized transliteration ko) and "new" (新, shin). Resist was heavily promoted in the 2002 edition of the Nokia Game. A short loop of "Harder" could be heard from all parts of the game's virtual world. Their third album, Damage, featuring the single "Overkill", was released in 2007.

Direct To Mental

Just a Souvenir is an album by Squarepusher, which was released to the general listening public on October 27, 2008 on Warp Records. The album's genesis came from a daydream, in which Tom Jenkinson envisioned a rock band performing a concert against the backdrop of a large, glowing coathanger. The performance quickly became surreal: among other things, a river forces the band to kayak whilst performing; the guitarist is able to accelerate or decelerate time at will; and every drum in the drummer's kit begins to switch places with one another. As such, the majority of the album consists of Jenkinson's own version of jazz fusion, threaded through with classical guitar, math rock and funk recordings. Squarepusher is the performing pseudonym of Tom Jenkinson, an English electronic music artist signed to Warp Records. He specialises in the electronic music genres of drum and bass, musique concrète, and acid, with a significant jazz influence. Jenkinson performs live, playing with a fretless or fretted bass guitar, a laptop, and other hardware. He appeared twice on BBC Radio 1's The Breezeblock show.

French Kissin' in the USA

Top/ Sonic Clinique is a series of exclusive DJ-sets unleashed last summer in New York by Music Curator Max Chavanne of Sonic Nurse. Fat mixes woven throughout the Nurse's August 2008 residency at midtown Manhattan's Cafe 50 West blended genres in a typical Sonic Nurse fashion, ranging from "A Spoonful of Sugar" from Mary Poppins to XL Recordings' Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned by electronic act The Prodigy (middle). Highlights included TV on the Radio, the White Stripes, LCD Soundsystem, Santogold, Interpol and Stereolab, among others. On August 14, along with Coltrane-meets-Radiohead saxophonist Martin "MKellz" Kelley trio performing live, Sonic Clinique #3, dubbed "Purple Hayes," paid tribute to the late, great Isaac "Shaft" Hayes (1942 — 2008). Max Chavanne has described the Sonic Clinique sets as a "sensual counterpoint to the glitterball glamour of The City". While Cafe 50 West is located right in the heart of the Flatiron district between 5th and 6th Avenues, he claimed that the inspiration for the soundscapes came from "mostly hanging out in the Lower East Side, Brooklyn and Coney Island," mixed with "picking up what The City is laying down," including "visions of the infamous King Khan and the Shrines [note: a Berlin-based garage rock and psychedelic soul band] throwing bananas at the audience at the McCarren Park Pool Parties in Williamsburg" and "endless strolls along the Hudson Riverwalk with Golden Doodle puppy Deuce", with "healthy doses of glitch and IDM thrown in the mix". One insider at the National Underground called the Sonic Clinique series of events "always right-on, often beautiful, sometimes haunting and occasionally kick-ass". More Sonic Clinique events are rumoured for 2009 in NYC, although no dates are confirmed yet. Bottom/ Back of Sonic Clinique flyer reads: "The In Sound From Way Out! Sonic-Nurse brings his clinic to Cafe 50 West. Come get a shot of his Audio Adrenaline and expose yourself to his healing sounds!" Limited edition B&W flyer courtesy onclicknyc. Design by Laura Weber, Berlin.
Cafe 50 West, 50 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10010

Ooh La La

Bottom/ Supernature (Mute, 2005) is the third album by British electronic duo Goldfrapp. The album represented a change in Goldfrapp's musical style, and featured pop and electronic-dance music; inspirations were disco music artist Donna Summer and New Wave band New Order. Goldfrapp is a British electronic music group known for their visual theatrics and contribution to the popularization of electronic dance music. The band's sound has progressed from an ambient sound in Felt Mountain (2000), through electronic music in Black Cherry to a more glam rock sound in Supernature, and most recently to a blend of ambient, folk, and electronic in Seventh Tree (2008). Will Gregory's musical background was classical music and has cited Ennio Morricone as his main influence. In 2003, Alison Goldfrapp modified her image, from a sophisticated Marlene Dietrich inspired look to that of a New Wave diva. The reinvented image included false eyelashes, customized T-shirts, military uniforms and fishnet stockings. Sections of the 2004 Wonderful Electric Tour stage show featured Goldfrapp in a white dress wearing a horse tail and dancers with deer heads, and were inspired by Goldfrapp's interest in animals and mythology.
Top/ "Strict Machine" is an electronic dance song written by Goldfrapp and Nick Batt for their second studio album Black Cherry (Mute, 2003). The single describes laboratory rats in neuroscience experiments. Alison Goldfrapp read in a newspaper about experiments in which scientists stimulated rats' brains so that the rats would feel joy when following commands. She was inspired to write "Strict Machine" based on images of the experiment and "more
human aspects of machines and sex and control."

Accept No Substitutes

Savage Eye (Swan Song, 1975) is the eighth studio album by The Pretty Things, a rock and roll band from London that caused a sensation in England. They pioneered a raw approach to rhythm and blues that influenced a number of key bands of the 1960s British invasion, particularly The Rolling Stones, and David Bowie, whose first hero was Phil May. Their early material consisted of hard-edged blues-rock influenced by Bo Diddley (they took their name from Diddley's 1955 song "Pretty Thing") and Jimmy Reed. They were known for wild stage behaviour and edgy lyrical content. In the U.S. they, along with The Yardbirds and Van Morrison's Them, were a huge influence on hundreds of garage bands, including the MC5 and The Seeds. After a flirtation with mainstream pop, they embraced psychedelia, producing the concept album S.F. Sorrow during 1967-68. This album, released in late 1968, is arguably one of the first rock operas, preceding the release of The Who's Tommy
in April 1969 by a few months.

Pumping On Your Stereo

Bottom/ "Diamond Hoo Ha Man" is the first single from English rock band Supergrass' sixth album, Diamond Hoo Ha (Parlophone, 2008). Middle/ Including "Pumping on Your Stereo", Supergrass' eponymous third LP Supergrass (Parlophone, 1999) was nicknamed the "X-Ray album" because of its cover which featured layered X-ray images of the band members' heads. The band's main musical influences are Buzzcocks, T.Rex, the Jam and The Kinks. Characterized by fast, three-chord, guitar-based, catchy tunes, Supergrass's jubilance and musicality have influenced many new artists such as Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs and The Vines. Top/ "Hush Boy" (XL Recordings, 2006)
is the first single from Crazy Itch Radio by critically acclaimed UK electronic dance music duo Basement Jaxx.

Guided By Voices

Medúlla, meaning "bone marrow" in Latin, is an album by Icelandic singer/songwriter/musician Björk (One Little Indian, 2004). It is almost entirely a cappella and constructed with human vocals. However, the vocals are sometimes processed or sampled. Medúlla features beatboxing, choral arrangements and throat singing, and appears in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Crisis? What Crisis?

Top/ With its timeless cover artwork and title, Crisis? What Crisis? (A&M, 1975) was British progressive rock band Supertramp's first LP to be recorded in America. The band had a series of top-selling albums in the 1970s and early 1980s. Their early music included ambitious concept albums, but they are best known for their later hits including "Dreamer", "Goodbye Stranger", "Give a Little Bit" and "The Logical Song". Supertramp attained superstardom in the United States, Canada, and most of Europe. Middle A/ Bandwagonesque is the third album by Scottish alternative rock band Teenage Fanclub, released in 1991 on Creation Records. Bandwagonesque achieved notoriety by beating Nirvana's landmark album Nevermind to be voted 'album of the year' for 1991 by US rock magazine Spin, also beating Creation stablemates My Bloody Valentine's album Loveless, and R.E.M.'s hugely successful Out of Time. Originally a noisy and chaotic band, Teenage Fanclub emerged from the Glasgow C86 scene. Their sound relies heavily on chiming, Byrds-esque guitars and harmony vocals reminiscent of West Coast bands. Middle B/ Surrender (Astralwerks, 1999) is the third album from The Chemical Brothers. It features Noel Gallagher (Oasis), Hope Sandoval (ex Mazzy Star), Bernard Sumner (New Order) and Jonathan Donahue (The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev) as guest vocalists. The Chemical Brothers are the United Kingdom -based Grammy Award winning electronic music duo of Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons (occasionally referred to as Chemical Tom and Chemical Ed). Along with The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim and The Crystal Method, as well as other acts they were pioneers of the big beat electronic dance genre which achieved mainstream popularity in the 1990s, and are known for high-quality live sets. Bottom/ After attracting mixed reviews for much of his 1980s output, American singer Iggy Pop hired longtime Stooges fan Don Was as producer and opted for a hard-rock sound. Many songs on Brick by Brick (Virgin, 1990) incorporate a lyrical theme of the United States facing
dangers of cultural decay and implosion.

"Like Some Enormous Music"

Minimalist composer Philip Glass reaches new heights with the soundtrack to the Paul Schrader film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (Elektra/Nonesuch, 1985), following his score for the 1982 cult film Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance, directed by Godfrey Reggio. In the Hopi language, the word Koyaanisqatsi means 'crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living', and the film implies that modern humanity is living in such a way.

Ballads Of Living And Dying

Songs III: Bird on the Water is Marissa Nadler's third full-length album, released in March 2007 on Peacefrog Records. Marissa Nadler (born April 5, 1981) is an American dream-folk artist based in Boston. She is known for her dreamy, atmospheric music, that although rooted in folk traditions, is more ethereal than earthy. Her music was recently described as "ethereal reverberations" in the New York Times. Some describe Nadler's songs as having American Gothic leanings; her stories often take place in an imagined, idealistic time with a cast of characters of her own creation. Her links to American Gothic are reinforced by "Annabelle Lee," the last song on her debut album, Ballads of Living and Dying (Eclipse Records, 2004), which puts the poem of the same title by Edgar Allan Poe to a musical backing. Singing in a haunting mezzo-soprano, the foundation of her songs are her delicate acoustic guitar, often accompanied by a variety of instruments, ranging from organ to theremin to electric guitar. Marissa Nadler's fourth full-length record, Little Hells, was
released March 3, 2009.

Within You Without You

Bottom/ Santi White (born 1976) is an American songwriter, producer, and singer. She is best known by her stage name, Santogold. Her eponymous debut album, Santogold (Downtown Records) was released in 2008. Santogold's goal of the album was to "help break down boundaries and genre classifications" who wasn't "a black woman singing R&B or hip hop." White's style has been compared often to that of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and M.I.A.. Some of Santogold's material has been compared to that of the Pixies, whom Santogold herself has cited as an influence. White also stated her liking for New Wave and critics named Siouxsie to describe "My Superman". The singer also cites Blondie, Grace Jones, Devo, Fela Kuti, James Brown, Aretha Franklin and reggae music as influences. Top/ New York punk rock icon Debbie Harry was dreamed by Swiss artist H.R. Giger for the front cover of her debut solo album KooKoo (Chrysalis, 1981). The album was released while Harry was still a member of the group Blondie. Hans Ruedi Giger is an Academy Award-winning Swiss painter, sculptor, and set designer. Giger's painting Necronom IV, along with its similar companion piece Necronom V, are widely recognized as the direct inspiration for the Alien creature which Giger developed for Ridley Scott's seminal 1979 sci-fi horror film Alien. The impact of the Koo Koo visuals was so strong that it threatened to overshadow the actual musical progression of the project, especially that of Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers of Chic and their early fusion of funk, soul and rock.

Music Selector In The Soul Reflector

Bottom/ In Rainbows (XL, 2007) is the seventh album by the English alternative rock band Radiohead. Radiohead incorporated a wide variety of musical styles and instruments on the album, using not only electronic music and string arrangements, but also pianos, celestes, and the ondes Martenot. Days after announcing the album's completion, Radiohead released In Rainbows as a digital download that customers could order for whatever price they saw fit.
Middle/ Featuring the tracks "Born of Frustation" and "Ring the Bells", Seven was the fifth album from James, released February 1992 on Fontana. Half of the album was produced by Youth. James are an English rock band from Manchester. They formed in 1981 and were active throughout the 80s, but most successful during the 90s. Their hit singles include "Sit Down" and "Laid". Top/ Insert from Björk's sixth full-length studio album, Volta (One Little Indian, 2007). It was primarily written and produced by Björk herself and features 10 new tracks, containing electronic, kora, pipa, and brass compositions. The disc features input from acclaimed producer Timbaland, Antony Hegarty and Sjón, among other artists.

Dreams That Breathe Your Name

Channeling meaning and emotion through sound: picks by Music Curator Max Chavanne, founder and driving force at Sonic-Nurse.com, transcend music genres, breaking down musical boundaries.
Top/ Cover of Queen Of The Meadow (2000) by New York enigmatic art rock band Elysian Fields depicts Ophelia, a character from Shakespeare's play Hamlet, singing before she drowns. Their music
is lush and melancholy, with poetic and surreal lyrics. Bottom/ In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (Merge, 1998) is the second studio album by American indie rock band Neutral Milk Hotel. Initial reviews of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea were mixed. Pitchfork Media's M. Christian McDermott gave the album an 8.7 out of 10, referring to Neutral Milk Hotel as "one psych-rock band making music that's just as catchy as it is frightening" and said that the album "does a credible job of blending Sgt. Pepper with early 90's lo-fi." Jason Ankeny of Allmusic wrote, "lo-fi yet lush, impenetrable yet wholly accessible, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is either the work of a genius or an utter crackpot, with the truth probably falling somewhere in between." PopMatters named a reissue of the album one of the best of 2005. Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler named Aeroplane as a chief
reason that his band signed to Merge.

Juju Space Jazz

Bottom/ Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics (EG/Polydor) is an album by Brian Eno and Jon Hassell, released in 1980. "Fourth World" is a term used by trumpeter Jon Hassell to describe a style of music employing modern technological treatments and influenced by various cultures and eras. He wanted the music in this album to be "future primitive", or "a coffee-coloured classical music". Hassell had studied Indian classical music with singer Pandit Pran Nath, and later applied the vocal techniques to his trumpet playing. Together with Eno, he melded the sounds from his instrument with digital delay, echo, and electronic effects to produce a unique blend of ambient and world music. The "Fourth World" is the current world according to the Hopi belief system and Maya mythology; the coming age is the Fifth World. Eno took what he learned from making this album and put it to use in his collaboration with David Byrne, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Top/ Recorded over the course of three days, immediately after the end of the Woodstock Festival, Bitches Brew (Columbia Records, 1970) was a turning point in modern jazz. American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis had already spearheaded two major jazz movements – cool and modal jazz – and was about to initiate another major change. Some critics at the time characterized this music as simply obscure and "outside", which recalls Duke Ellington's description of Davis as "the Picasso of jazz." Original gatefold cover art by Mati Klarwein.

Foretold in the Language of Dreams

Louis Thomas Hardin (May 26, 1916–September 8, 1999) better known as Moondog was a revered pioneer on the Avant-Garde/Minimalist scene. His revolutionary attitude towards composition and melody was lauded by such eminent notables as Philip Glass and Steve Reich, while his style and attitude drew comparisons to Harry Partch. His influence can be seen in the music of Stereolab and Moonshake among others. A blind American composer, musician, cosmologist and poet, Moondog also invented several musical instruments, including a small triangular-shaped harp known as the "Oo", another which he named the "Ooo-ya-tsu", and (perhaps his most well-known) the "Trimba", a triangular percussion instrument that the composer invented in the late 40s. Although these achievements would have been considered extraordinary for any blind person, Moondog further removed himself from society through his decision to make his home on the streets of New York for approximately twenty of the thirty years he spent in the city. Indeed, he was known for much of his life as 'The Viking of 6th Avenue'. Moondog had a particular interest in Native American music. He partially supported himself by selling copies of his poetry and his musical philosophy. Because of his street post's proximity to the famed 52nd Street nightclub strip, he was well-known to many jazz musicians and fans. Moondog's music took its inspiration from street sounds, such as the subway or a foghorn. He released a number of 78s, 45s and EPs of his music in the 1950s, as well as several LPs on a number of notable jazz labels, including an unusual record of stories for children with actress Julie Andrews in 1957. For ten years no new recordings were heard from Moondog until producer James William Guercio took him into the studio to record an album for Columbia Records in 1969. The track "Stamping Ground", with its odd preamble of Moondog saying one of his epigrams, was featured on the sampler double album Fill Your Head with Rock (CBS, 1970). The melody from the track "Bird's Lament (In memory of Charlie Parker)" was later sampled by Mr. Scruff as the basis for his song "Get A Move On", which was then used in commercials for the Lincoln Navigator SUV.

We Want The Airwaves

Top/ Rocket to Russia (Sire) is the third album by the Ramones. Released on November 4, 1977, the album incorporates surf rock and other influences. It includes some of the Ramones' best-known songs, including "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker", "Teenage Lobotomy" and "Rockaway Beach". Formed in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, the Ramones were an American rock band often regarded as the first punk rock group. In the early 1970s, a new music scene emerged in New York when many bands started to play in clubs on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, such as Max's Kansas City and most famously CBGB's. The songs the Ramones played were very fast and very short; most clocked in at under two minutes. The Ramones' minimalist, loud, fast musical style was influenced by pop music that the band members grew up listening to in the 1950s and 1960s, such as The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Kinks, The Ronettes, the Rolling Stones as well as what are now known as proto-punk bands like The Stooges and the New York Dolls. Touring virtually non-stop for 22 years, the band's three founding members —Joey Ramone, Johnny Ramone and Dee Dee Ramone— died within eight years of the break-up in 1996. Bottom/ Recorded in 1993, towards the end of the Ramones' career, the album Acid Eaters (Radioactive) is often set apart from other Ramones releases in that it is entirely composed of covers. Unlike other punk bands of their time, such as the equally popular Sex Pistols or Blondie, the Ramones embraced some of the music from their childhood and welcomed it into their own unique sound. Acid Eaters forms a musical tribute to the Ramones' 60s favourites.

Bending New Corners

"This is a quiet, minimalist kind of groove with a shimmering luminescence. It's an acoustic, European variation on funk..." (JazzTimes). Influenced by Japanese ritual music, Bartók, and Stravinsky, Nik Bärtsch (born 1971) is a Swiss pianist, composer and producer from Zurich. He lives in Zurich and Berlin. He began studying piano and percussion at the age of 8. In 1997 he graduated from the Musikhochschule Zürich. Between the years of 1989 and 2001 he studied philosophy, linguistics and musicology at the University of Zurich. He was an Instructor for ‘Practical Aesthetics’ at the 'Musikhochschule Zürich/Winterthur' (2000-2003). In 2003/2004 he lived in Japan for half a year. Nik Bärtsch currently works in three parallel musical settings: as a solo artist, with the acoustic group Mobile and with the 'zen-funk' group Ronin. As a solo artist he performs his own compositions on prepared piano with percussion. Mobile plays purely acoustic music, performed in rituals of up to 36 hours, which include lighting- and room design. Ronin, by contrast, is more flexible and plays rhythmically complex compositions that contain elements of jazz, funk and acoustic rock. Bärtsch's earlier projects were released on Ronin Rhythm Records. In 2006 Bärtsch
was signed to ECM and has released two albums.

Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn

Bottom/ Album Tattoo You (Rolling Stones/Virgin, 1981) by the Rolling Stones features "Start Me Up", widely considered one of their most infectious songs. Top/ Soundtrack to the 1975 award-winning period film Barry Lyndon by director Stanley Kubrick. The film's period setting allowed Kubrick to indulge his penchant for classical music, and the film score uses pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, Giovanni Paisiello, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and
Franz Schubert. The score also includes Irish folk music performed by The Chieftains. The piece most associated with the film is the main title music, George Frideric Handel's stately Sarabande from the
Suite in D minor HWV 437, originally for solo harpsichord.

Reset The Preset

Bottom/ The Devil, You + Me (City Slang/Alien Transistor, 2008) is the sixth studio album by German indietronica band The Notwist. The album Neon Golden (released in 2002) put them on the map for American listeners, with its heartfelt sentiment and catchy tunes. While singer Markus Acher, in addition to his work with The Notwist and 13 & God, also works with indietronica band Lali Puna, lead programmer Martin Gretschmann also leads side project Console. Relying heavily on elements of electronic music, Console is reminiscent of some electro bands, such as Ladytron and Miss Kittin. Cover design by Yokoland. Middle/ Midnight Juggernauts are a Melbourne based band, described by Rolling Stone US as "David Bowie if his Berlin Trilogy was a collaboration with Kraftwerk and Faust." Their debut album, Dystopia (Siberia/Inertia, 2007), is sometimes reminiscent of Scissor Sisters. Top/ In 1982 British alternative rock band The Cure released Pornography (Fiction Records), the third and final album of an "oppressively dispirited" trio that cemented the Cure's stature as purveyors of the emerging gothic rock genre. Recorded with the group on the brink of collapse, it represents the conclusion of the musical journey started with Seventeen Seconds and Faith. Often cited as the most disturbing product of The Cure, the album's opening lyrical line is "It doesn't matter if we all die". Now considered one of the key gothic rock albums of all time, Pornography has gained much respect over the years.

Psychic Karaoke

Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips are best known for being one-half of Luna, one of the most critically acclaimed rock bands of the past two decades. Wareham is also known for fronting the seminal indie band Galaxie 500. As Dean & Britta, they have scored for films (the Academy Award-nominated The Squid and the Whale among them) and worked with producer Tony Visconti (David Bowie, T. Rex) on their lauded debut album, L'Avventura. Back Numbers (Zoe Records, 2007), also produced by Visconti, picks up where L'Avventura left off, with the spotlight on Dean & Britta's laconic, dreamy vocal interplay on originals like "Words You Used to Say" and "Wait for Me," along with covers of '60s gems such as The Troggs' "Our Love Will Still Be There" and Lee Hazlewood's "You Turned My Head Around."

Come To Where I'm From

Bottom/ Knives out: renowned Czech artist Jan Saudek shot the photograph featured on the cover of For The Beauty Of Wynona (Warner Bros., 1993), the second album by Canadian songwriter and record producer Daniel Lanois. Middle/ Described by Dr. Dre as "the perfect epitome of anger expressed in music", "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" by The Smashing Pumpkins originally appeared on their album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (Virgin Records, 1995), from which it was the lead single. Top/ Misery Is A Butterfly (4AD, 2004) is the sixth studio album by New York indie/shoegaze trio Blonde Redhead. Comprised of Kazu Makino and twin brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace, the band performs in multiple languages including English, Japanese, Italian, and French. Makino is noted for her high, eerie voice, which hovers over melodic guitar riffs and clockwork drum beats. The large span of time between Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons and Misery Is a Butterfly is attributed to Makino's recovery time after being trampled by a horse. Much of the visual and lyrical imagery of Misery Is a Butterfly is reflective of the accident.

Accept The Signal

Bottom/ Verve Remixed is a series of albums released by Verve Records centered on the concept of classic Verve tracks, remixed by contemporary electronic music producers and DJs. The series has proven to be very popular, both with fans of the original recordings and with younger generations of music listeners, many of whom are exposed to the classic jazz and blues artists for the first time. Middle/ Below the Waste (China Records, 1989) is Art of Noise's fourth full-length original album, and their last album for China Records before Anne Dudley reformed with ZTT's Trevor Horn and Paul Morley for The Seduction of Claude Debussy (1999). The album saw them experimenting with world music, collaborating with Zulu group Mahlathini & the Mahotella Queens. The African singers provide a heavy layer of mostly non-English vocals. The "Emphasis Speakers" on the album cover were designed by Morton V. Warren for B&W Speakers. Top/ Treats from The So Called Seder: A Hip Hop Haggadah (JDub, 2005), by genre-bending Canadian rapper and producer Josh Dolgin, aka Socalled, include "Passout for Passover". Known for his eclectic mix of hip hop, klezmer and other styles, Socalled has worked with a variety of acts, ranging from clarinetist David Krakauer's Klezmer Madness!, to Feist collaborator Chilly Gonzales and funk trombonist Fred Wesley. Dolgin's Socalled collective and guests recently celebrated the Jewish Festival of Lights with the seasonal concert "Hip Hop Hanukkah".

Where The Wild Roses Grow

Bottom/ Amélie (Virgin, 2001) is the soundtrack to the French Academy Award- and Golden Globe-nominated motion picture Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amélie). Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet chanced upon the largely accordion and piano driven music of Yann Tiersen while driving with his production assistant who put on a CD he hadn't heard before. Greatly impressed, he immediately bought Tiersen's entire catalogue and eventually commissioned him to compose pieces for the film. The soundtrack features both compositions from Tiersen's first three albums, but also new items, variants of which can be found on his fourth album, L'Absente, which he was writing at the same time. Beside the accordion and piano the music features parts played with harpsichord, banjo, bass guitar, vibraphone and even a bicycle wheel at the end of "La Dispute" (which plays over the opening titles in the motion picture). Prior to discovering Tiersen, Jeunet was primarily considering composer Michael Nyman to score the film. "Les Jours tristes" was co-written with Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy. The English language version also appeared on Tiersen's L'Absente. "Comptine d'un autre été: L'après-midi" is a piano piece composed by Yann Tiersen, best known from Amélie but also used in the German movie Good Bye Lenin!, for which Yann Tiersen also composed the soundtrack. Top/ Featuring Einstürzende Neubauten member Blixa Bargeld on guitar, Henry's Dream (Mute Records, 1992) is the seventh album released by Australian post-punk dandys Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

That Voodoo That You Do

Bottom/ Eagles of Death Metal's third album, Heart On (Downtown Recordings), was released on October 28, 2008, following Peace, Love, Death Metal (2004) and Death by Sexy (2006). Eagles of Death Metal (EoDM) is an American garage rock revival band from Palm Desert, California, formed by Jesse Hughes and Josh Homme. Despite the name, Eagles of Death Metal is not a death metal band, but music that Josh Homme thought would be The Eagles crossed with death metal. In a 2003 interview Homme described the sound of the band as a combination of "bluegrass slide guitar mixed with stripper drum beats and Canned Heat vocals." Jesse Hughes is known and somewhat loved by fans for his over-enthusiastic and charismatic interaction with audiences at live performances. Top/ Material is a musical group formed in 1979 and led by bass guitarist Bill Laswell. Early Material was primarily instrumental. The music was often funky — a few singles, such as "Ciquri", were popular in New York City dance clubs — but decidedly experimental. 1982's One Down marked a change towards relatively more accessible mainstream "funk and disco tunes delivered with a minimum of weirdness." "Memories" was one of Whitney Houston's first recordings as a featured vocalist. Herbie Hancock hired Laswell and many of his Material collaborators for his 1983 album Future Shock, including the important single "Rockit". Laswell has since used the Material name for a variety of projects featuring his usual revolving-door cast of talented musicians. Notable was 1989's Seven Souls, featuring William S. Burroughs reading portions of his novel The Western Lands; that song was also predominantly featured in The Sopranos' season six opener, Members Only. 1993's well-named Hallucination Engine was released on Axiom and features a vast array of guest musicians including Trilok Gurtu, Jonas Hellborg, Zakir Hussain, Bootsy Collins and William Burroughs again, this time on the hilarious track "Words Of Advice".

C'mon Feel The Noize

Bottom/ Kimono My House (Island, 1974) was Sparks' third album, scoring a number 2 hit with the glam single "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us". In contrast to the esteem in which they are held by such peers as Depeche Mode, New Order and the Pet Shop Boys, who all cite the L.A duo of Ron and Russell Mael as a major influence, Sparks' almost constantly changing styles —including glam pop, power pop and electronic dance music— and unique visual presentations have sometimes seen them dismissed as a novelty act. The album title is generally assumed to be a pun on the Rosemary Clooney hit "Come on-a My House". Middle/ LP It's Only A Movie (Raft Records, 1973) is the last original studio album by English rock band Family before they disbanded that year. Top/ Single "Afrodiziak" from debut album Glee (Audiogram, 1997) by Bran Van 3000, an electronica collective from Montreal, Canada founded by
the DJ James Di Salvio.

It's Oh! So Quiet

Bottom/ An unexpected smash, selling over 4 million copies, debut album Garbage (Mushroom, 1995) by Scottish-American post-grunge rock group Garbage includes the singles "Stupid Girl", "Queer" and "Milk". Garbage was considered innovative for its fusion of pop melodies with alternative rock, trip-hop and electronica genres and its use of loops and sampling including, amongst other things, The Clash's "Train in Vain", the sound of torn sheets of metal, an air conditioning unit and a broken tape deck. Middle/ Platinum (Virgin, 1979) by Mike Oldfield features an excerpt from the Philip Glass work "North Star". Top/ Single "Cocoon" from Vespertine (One Little Indian, 2001) by Björk. Following the video for the album's previous single "Pagan Poetry", which brought Björk to a high level of controversy with MTV, the video for "Cocoon" also featured a seemingly naked Björk, this time with her nipples secreting a red thread that eventually enveloped the singer in a cocoon. The video was directed by Japanese artist Eiko Ishioka, and was not aired by MTV.

Patterns Of Fairytales

Fleet Foxes (Sub Pop, 2008) is the debut album of the Seattle-based band Fleet Foxes. The album has been one of the most highly acclaimed records of 2008 and reviewers often noted their use of refined lyrics and vocal harmonies. Fleet Foxes received four stars from Rolling Stone, who compared it to the likes of the Beach Boys, Animal Collective, and Crosby, Stills & Nash. The Guardian was particularly complementary, awarding the album five stars and declaring it "a landmark in American music, an instant classic." Fleet Foxes is a five-piece Seattle based band signed to the labels Sub Pop and Bella Union. Principal songwriter Robin Pecknold decided upon the name "Fleet Foxes", suggesting that it was "evocative of some weird English activity like fox hunting". The cover art for Fleet Foxes is the 1559 painting Netherlandish Proverbs (also called The Blue Cloak or The Topsy Turvy World) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The quintet describe their music as "baroque harmonic pop jams".

Filigree & Shadow

This Mortal Coil was a musical dream pop project of Ivo Watts-Russell, founder of the British 4AD Records label. The project brought together key 4AD artists, as well as others not signed to the label, under an umbrella name. Among others, This Mortal Coil featured contributions from Howard Devoto, Colourbox, Dead Can Dance and, pivotally, Cocteau Twins. The gothic dream pop collective This Mortal Coil was one of the most representative bands on the 4AD label. Whether they played covers (of Watts-Russell's favorite artists) or originals, their material epitomized the haunting, ethereal sound that came to be associated with the label. Lush, swirling arrangements drenched in echo, reverb, and other effects were the project's stock-in-trade, often approaching ambient music. Whoever was performing, the music was united by its gentle surges of melancholy and by Watts-Russell's highly influential aesthetic. Between 1983 and 1991 This Mortal Coil released three albums—It'll End in Tears, Filigree & Shadow, and Blood—each of which consists largely of atmospheric interpretations of songs by 1970s artists such as Alex Chilton, Chris Bell, Roy Harper, Gene Clark, and Tim Buckley. The name "This Mortal Coil" is drawn from William Shakespeare's Hamlet and is a poetic expression referring to the earthly condition.

If We Don't Make It We'll Fake It

Bottom/ Scissor Sisters did it again with the gay/hedonist anthem "Filthy/Gorgeous" (Polydor, 2005), the seventh track on their self-titled debut album. Scissor Sisters is an American band named after a sex position between two women. Their style draws from disco, glam rock, pop and the club scene of New York City. Their first hit was in 2004 with the release of a disco cover of the Pink Floyd classic "Comfortably Numb". Several media outlets have noted that Scissor Sisters 'stick out like a sore thumb' on the list of artists who have sold over 2 million copies of an album in the UK in the 21st century — the others being James Blunt, Robbie Williams, Keane, Dido, Coldplay, and Norah Jones — all artists considered 'mainstream' or 'middle of the road', as opposed to the Scissor Sisters' brash and controversial image. Middle/After a seven year wait, The Prodigy's fourth studio album Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned (XL Recordings) was released in Summer 2004. It is the first studio album by the electronica act after 1997's The Fat of the Land and its highly controversial single "Smack My Bitch Up". The Prodigy are an electronic music group formed by Liam Howlett in 1990, in Braintree, Essex, England. Along with The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, The Crystal Method, and a few other lesser-known acts, they were pioneers of the Big Beat genre. The Prodigy are a difficult band to classify, because they have developed significantly with time and continue to innovate. Their music consists of various styles ranging from rave, hardcore, industrial and drum & bass in the early 1990s, to alternative rock and big beat with punk vocal elements in later times. They have sold over 16 million records worldwide which is unequaled in electronic music history. Top/ Canadian dance punk duo Death From Above 1979 played loud synth-infused drum and bass combination. Romance Bloody Romance: Remixes & B-Sides (Last Gang Records, 2005) is a collection of remixes of songs featured
on the album You're a Woman, I'm a Machine.

Tickets To What You Need

Following the success of his early EPs, Damon Gough (stage name Badly Drawn Boy)'s debut album, The Hour of Bewilderbeast, was released in June 2000, accompanied by four singles. In 2002, Gough returned to score the film adaptation of Nick Hornby's novel About a Boy. His third album, Have You Fed the Fish?, introduced more guitars and an increasingly mainstream pop sound which was not welcomed by all critics. The album is a play on Gough's minor celebrity status and namechecks fellow musicians such as Madonna and John Lennon. Another three singles, including "Born Again" and "All Possibilities" (Twisted Nerve, 2003) accompanied the album. Badly Drawn Boy is a Mercury Prize-winning rock singer/songwriter. He was born on October 2, 1969, in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, England. A supporter of Manchester City Football Club, Gough is a Bruce Springsteen, Jeff Buckley and Pixies fan. He is parodied in the adult comic Viz as "Badly Overdrawn Boy", a pop singer who fails to sell
any records and resorts to busking outside his local bank.

Solid Ether

Bottom/ EP "Lifeforms" by The Future Sound Of London (Astralwerks, 1994) features the ethereal voice of Cocteau Twins singer Elisabeth Fraser. Cocteau Twins were a Scottish alternative rock band active from 1979 to 1997. The band's influences at the time included Joy Division, The Birthday Party, Sex Pistols and Siouxsie & The Banshees. Although the entire band was praised for their performances, Fraser received the most attention. At times barely decipherable, Fraser seemed to veer into glossolalia and mouth music. Middle/ Founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese, electronic band Tangerine Dream released the album Stratosfear in 1976 on Virgin, following 1975's Rubycon and Ricochet. Drummer and composer Klaus Schulze was a member of an early lineup. Tangerine Dream's early "Pink Years" albums had a pivotal role in the development of Krautrock. However, the release of Tangerine Dream's Phaedra in 1974 marked a divergence of that group from Krautrock to a more melodic sequencer-driven sound that was later termed Berlin School. In that same year Klaus Schulze delivered one more LP of pure Krautrock, Blackdance, and began to release more hypnotic versions of what TD was doing. Their "Virgin Years" and later albums became a defining influence in New Age music, although the band themselves dislike the term. Top/ Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts is the second album by the French electronica group M83. The album was released in 2003 on Gooom to positive reviews. The cover art is by Justine Kurland, and called Snow Angels. M83 is an electronic music group consisting of Anthony Gonzalez (and formerly Nicolas Fromageau), and was formed in Antibes, France in 2001. The name M83 is picked from the galaxy of the same name. The musical style owes something to the shoegazing genre in its extensive use of reverb effects and lyrics spoken softly over loud instrumentals, though M83's songs employ considerably less guitar than most shoegazing bands such as My Bloody Valentine. For the third album released by M83, Before the Dawn Heals Us, Gonzalez decided to part from Fromageau and record mainly on his own. Saturdays = Youth, M83's fifth studio album was released on April 15, 2008 on Mute Records. It was recorded with Ken Thomas (known for his work with Sigur Rós, The Sugarcubes, Boys in a Band, Cocteau Twins and Suede), and Ewan Pearson (who has also produced for Tracey Thorn, The Rapture and Ladytron).

Come Find Yourself

Bottom/ Livin' in the City (Sanctuary) is an album by the Fun Lovin' Criminals, released in 2005. This was very much a love letter to New York with many songs, just like in their debut album, extolling the virtues of the Big Apple. The title track itself has the repeated lyric "I love livin' in the city, give it up for New York City!". The Fun Lovin' Criminals are an American alternative rap / alternative rock group from New York City. Their musical style is eclectic, covering such styles as hip hop, rock, blues and jazz. Their songs are often gritty or existentialist in nature but are just as often humorous or satirical. Come Find Yourself, the band's first album, was released in 1995 by Capitol Records and included Scooby Snacks, the band's biggest hit single to date. It features samples from films by Quentin Tarantino, interspersed with rap verses and a sung, anthemic, chorus. The album is very New York-centric, including tracks about the L-train (Bombin' The L), Coney Island (Coney Island Girl) and Mafia crimelord John Gotti (King Of New York), with many smaller references in other songs. Top/ On her third album Impeach My Bush (Beggars XL, 2006), Peaches invites Joan Jett and one-time roommate Leslie Feist. Merrill Beth Nisker (born 1966 in Toronto, Ontario), better known as Peaches, is an electronica musician whose songs are concerned mainly with sex. Her songs have been featured in movies such as Mean Girls, Waiting..., Jackass Number Two, and Lost in Translation. Her music has also been featured on television shows such as Showtime's The L Word and Ugly Betty, and has been used for the promotion of Dirt. Peaches performed guest vocals on Pink's album Try This, and on the Chicks on Speed album 99 Cents, on the song
"We Don't Play Guitars".

Tape Hiss Orchid

Bottom/ Sound Affects (Polydor) is a 1980 album by British group The Jam. This release, their fifth album, is frequently considered the closing point of The Jam's artistic peak begun on their third LP, All Mod Cons and carried through on its follow-up, Setting Sons. The most salient influence on this album is '60s British psychedelic pop, such as The Beatles' Revolver, The Who's The Who Sell Out, and The Kinks' The Village Green Preservation Society. The psychedelic overtones run throughout the album. Other obvious influences are post-punk groups such as Wire, Gang Of Four, and Joy Division and, particularly evident in Rick Buckler's drumming, Michael Jackson's Off the Wall album. Indeed, singer/guitarist/songwriter Paul Weller said at the time that he considered the album a cross between Off the Wall and Revolver. The group would later explore the "Britfunk" sound in earnest on their next and final album, The Gift. Middle/ Nouvelle Vague is a French musical collective led by musicians Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux. Their name is a play on words referring simultaneously to their "Frenchness" and "artiness" (the '60s new wave of cult French cinema), the source of their songs (all covers of punk rock, post-punk, and New Wave songs), and their use of '60s Bossa nova-style arrangements. On their first album, Nouvelle Vague, the group resurrected classics from the New Wave music era, and reinterpreted them in a bossa nova style. The songs were stripped back to acoustic arrangements with lithe shaker rhythms achieved by gathering a parade of chanteuses from all over the world to cover bands including XTC, Modern English, The Clash, Joy Division and The Undertones. Their second album, Bande à Part (Peacefrog, 2006), includes versions of tracks by Buzzcocks, New Order, Echo and the Bunnymen and Blondie. Top/ Deerhunter is a five-piece self-described "ambient punk" band from Atlanta, Georgia, consisting of lead singer Bradford Cox, Moses Archuleta, Josh Fauver, Whitney Petty, and Lockett Pundt. Cryptograms is the second album from Deerhunter, released through Kranky on January 29, 2007. The album received critical praise and was followed by an EP titled Fluorescent Grey. Cryptograms is a more "subdued and introverted" record than its predecessor. The album contains themes of death and isolation,
and has five instrumentals, all of which are ambient in sound.

Over The Hills And Far Away

Bottom/ The cover of Siren (Virgin Records, 1975), fifth album by British art rock group Roxy Music, featured Bryan Ferry's girlfriend at the time, model Jerry Hall. Top/ The cover art for Houses of the Holy (Atlantic, 1973), the fifth album by English rock band Led Zeppelin, was inspired by the ending of Arthur C. Clarke's novel Childhood's End. It is a collage of several photographs taken at the Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland, by Aubrey Powell of Hipgnosis

Wonders Never Cease

Bottom/ "Aftermath" taken from The Orb's Bicycles & Tricycles (Cooking Vinyl, 2004) Middle/ Brooklyn goth cellists Rasputina