It's probably kinda cheating when your mash-up puts together three songs that basically don't have tunes (or, in the case of Avril Lavigne's new "Girlfriend", merely an incidental one pastiched from Now That's What I Call Late-90s Pop-Punk). No pitch-matching required, right? Still, there's a reason the cheerleader-chant genre won't just get the hey-hey F-U-C-K out of our lives. And there's something bracing about the easy beats from Atlanta rapper Unk's "Walk it Out" meeting Avril's expensively chintzy guitar chords.

While Lavigne, at 22, is probably a little old to be playing a teenager in this tragic post-"The O.C." (post-"90210") world, Unk actually made a name for himself playing pep rallies and proms back in Georgia. When Toni Basil's 1982 hit "Mickey" meets the other two songs at the bridge, either everything makes sense, or we've watched Wayne's World way too many times. (P.S. Check out A-Trak's "Walk It Out" remix.)

Stream: > DJ Lobsterdust: Walkin' Out Yo Girlfriend [Unk vs. Avril Lavigne ft. Toni Basil]

Fifteen years after making their U.S. network TV debut-- performing "Far Gone and Out" on "Late Night With David Letterman", and being referred to as an "English band" (see below; p.s. a CD longbox!)-- the Reid Brothers returned to a Letterman set. With William decked out in a "Scotland" shirt, the Jesus and Mary Chain entertained the "Late Show" audience with new song "All Things Must Pass", which is...actually not so bad.

The Jesus and Mary Chain: "All Things Must Pass" (live on "Late Show With David Letterman")

The Jesus and Mary Chain: "Far Gone and Out" (live on "Late Night With David Letterman")

Patrick Wolf apparently became obsessed with ABC's The Lexicon of Love right around the same time I did, which made The Magic Position a more agreeable listen than anticipated. B-side "The Marriage" has a similar affinity for ambitious arrangement and luxurious vocalizing, but doesn't pilfer the Trevor Horn orchestrics, instead constructing its crescendo out of accordion, keyboard malfunctions, and chaotic beats. Yet all the garage-sale instrumentation can't undercut Patrick Wolf's love for the thee-ah-terr, which agreeably makes the song more showtune than Xiu Xiu.

So we're hearing this Paul McCartney fellow will change your life. You guessed it: Natalie Portman guests in this Michel Gondry-directed video for "Dance Tonight", a light, folk-tinged ditty from Sir Paul's new Memory Almost Full, coming to the states June 5 via Starbucks' Hear Music. "That's not a banjo, it's a mandolin," a bemused Macca tells an officious deliveryman (played by "The Office"'s Mackenzie Crook) before beginning a song that sounds, if not nostalgic, then certainly almost memory-full (check out Pitchfork's Chris Dahlen's interview with McCartney here). With an effect similar to the ghostly projections in Gondry's video for the White Stripes' "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground", Portman and other phantoms cavort in spectral form, as McCartney blithely takes his new non-banjo for a test drive. Apparently these days it's "Live and let dead people dance."

[from Memory Almost Full; due 07/05/07 on Hear Music]

Longtime New York multi-instrumentalist David Garland has a voice for radio. Probably a good thing, given that in addition to being a pleasantly conversational-sounding singer-songwriter, Garland is radio host of WNYC's "Spinning on Air" and "Evening Music". As Pitchfork's Matthew Solarski reports, this widely respected downtown dude gets a little help from some friends on his eighth album Noise in You, out July 24 on Family Vineyard. The ambling chamber-pop of "Every Bird" enlists the vocals of one Sufjan Stevens (who also appears on the National's impressive new Boxer), plus Mi and L'au's Mira Romantschuk and Missouri-born singer-songwriter Viking Moses. Held together by Garland's 12-string guitar, the song evokes the lush arrangements of Stevens or Andrew Bird-- there's oboe, people!-- for a charming contemplation of avian mysteries. "Waiting in the wings of every bird are memories that fill the hollow bone," the erudite Garland begins. If birds fly over the rainbow, then why can't radio waves?

photo by Anne Garland

An ode to a cheesy crinitory confection (As Seen on TV!)-- not to mention one of the worst portmanteaus ever to see print-- the Brunettes' "Her Hairagami Set" is a somewhat auspicious Sub Pop start for the Auckland outfit, who've already rallied a small cult following Stateside on the strength of a tour with the Shins and a handful of import-only indie pop LPs and EPs heavy on both jangle and sass.

Somewhat, because whether you dig this or not will probably hinge on whether you can handle the highly-affected bramble of guitarist Jonathan Bree, who plays the Phaedra role in this "Some Velvet Morning"-esque sonic setup. Rather than strum along like "Velvet", however, this one builds and swells from a simple piano line to a lush vine-network of instrumentation, with Heather Mansfield's charmingly cooed litany of hairdos more than making up for any absence of jangle.

Stream: > The Brunettes: "Her Hairagami Set"
[from the forthcoming Structure and Cosmetics LP; out summer 2007 on Sub Pop]

Photo by Milana Radojcic

It's likely that Portland's Au took their name from the chemical symbol for gold, and their sound is appropriately shiny-- "Sum" maintains a rich, sparkling resonance for its duration, like a piano with its sustain pedal nailed to the floor. Or maybe it's an abbreviation for "astronomical unit," an approximate distance between the earth and the sun, which is a span that Au traverses in this song. Rumbling percussion and pealing bells count down to liftoff, a bright ukulele jangle and Zoë Wright's cooing vocals send it on its interstellar way, and as it breaches the upper atmosphere, it explodes into a fountain of solar sparks. Au + "Sum" = "awesome," even though its saturated shimmer borders on Animal Collective-lite.

[from Au; due 06/26/07 on Oedipus / Aagoo]

If this curious cover from recent Saddle Creek acquisition Art in Manila-- led by Azure Ray's Orenda Fink and ex-Anniversary keyboardist Adrianne Verhoeven, with help from some other Omaha regulars-- does one thing, it highlights Tim Harrington's prowess as a lyricist. You might not quite catch Tim using words like "palimpsest" and inviting us to "fuck [his] tongue" in the explosive original, but Fink's version lays the compositional elements bare, demonstrating just how rock solid they are even when not shouted by a hulking fireball of a man lurching around on stage and pouring beer into his briefs.

Wisely, Art in Manila don't attempt to trump Harrington and company at their own lawless game, instead relying on a simpler combination of acoustic guitar, tambourine, and some spectral vocal loops. Fink keeps a straight face throughout, making a compelling case for this song's place around a campfire. You might still yearn for the cathartic outbursts of the original, but, I mean, you try covering a Les Savy Fav song.



[MySpace] | [from Set the Woods on Fire; due 08/07/07 on Saddle Creek]

Welcome to "Timb City." The latest video from megaproducer Timbaland's disappointing solo-with-guests outing Shock Value is directed by Justin Francis, who adopts the comic-book conceits and black, white, and red noir starkness of the 2005 film Sin City. Oh yeah, and it debuted the other night on "WWE Raw". Yup, the clip is destined to get some play in MTV's few remaining hours of videos, if only because it's almost as shameless as that Fratellis video. Here, "Throw It on Me" features some superfluous curves and in-the-ring catfights courtesy of pro-wrestling divas Ashley, Maryse, Torrie Wilson, Kelly Kelly, Layla, and Brooke. "From the look of that ass, you're probably a gold digger/ But I ain't Kanye," Tim raps, still the song's only remarkable line. Somewhere in this mess-- atop the skyscraper wrestling ring, say, or wandering the Gothic city sidewalks-- are Swedish rockers the Hives, still holding up the "rock" end of Timbaland's misguided electro-rock-rap hybrid.

[originally from Shock Value; on Blackground/Interscope]

Operator, get me the President of the World! This is an emergency: Armies of beloved Saturday-morning-cartoon marketing icons are training to mount a bloody and unending war against mankind. It's all right here in the stop-animated video for Uncut's "Darkhorse", from sophomore album Modern Currencies (headed for U.S. stores July 17 on Paper Bag after a release last year in the band's native Canada). "Let's just kill all the living," guitarist Ian Worang shouts in the song, a high-energy rocker in the vein of fellow Toronto band Tokyo Police Club, whom Uncut drummer Jon Drew has produced. On the Kris Lefcoe-directed clip, the barely concealed likes of Ronald McDonald, Tony the Tiger, and the Care Bears appear to have taken Worang's advice. Some cute anarchists try to party in a forest that's about to become an Enormart, but meanwhile your corporate-sponsored childhood memories are taking firing practice, running obstacle courses, and of course hacking up the damn hippies with chainsaws. 'Cause you fucking know, Ronald don't play that.

[from Modern Currencies; out 07/17/07 in the U.S. on Paper Bag]

This is what we were promised: Björk, squeaking like it was 1994 all over again, putting in one more for the aging club kids who so desperately want to believe there's more to life than throat-singing duets and ponderous Matt Barnacle globules of sound. Working in tandem with Ms. B for all of one day, Timbaland couldn't make his presence felt on Volta-- he couldn't find the time to break her away from the branch-shaking globo-march to nowhere. So be it, we don't need him. We've got (sigh) Spank Rock's Armani XXXchange, who takes his a cappella and flies. He got paid, but he earned it. Fuzz bass, five-alarm squiggles, drums that are allowed to trip-up the lockstep-- talk about your Chemical Brothers nu-rave big-beat renaissance a-go-go. That is, these intruders are way more charming with glowsticks. Before, the "turmoil" and "carnage" sounded like a stark reminder. A scolding, even. Now, such warnings evaporate as soon as they're spoken, exorcised by some "necessary voodoo." And, hold on...the giggle bit at the end...is she having a laugh?! Shit yeah, she is. It's about time.

Call it global village music: on "La Chambre", Belgian boy/girl duo Soy un Caballo (Spanish translation: "I'm a horse") and Louisville's Will Oldham sing entirely in French over what is essentially indie-fied bossa nova. Backed by nothing but an acoustic guitar, a Rhodes piano and a brokedown rhythm preset, Oldham and Aurélie Muller sound weightless and content, their half-sighed verses resolving into sweet choral refrains. Of course, the language doesn't hurt either; it's downright charming to hear Oldham's woodsy Kentuckian palette wrap itself around a French lyric.

[from Les Heures de Raison; out now on Matamore]