Haven't heard "Straight to the Bank" for a while, have you? The first single from 50 Cent's forthcoming Curtis didn't have much beyond a sitar and "Inspector Gadget" mention to recommend it (didn't forget about Dre). The rapper known to fancier publications as Mr. Cent turned to the right people for latest cut "Ayo Technology", with Justin Timberlake's cyber-Prince falsetto plus Timbaland's mouth-percussion and rippling synyth arpeggios. If Timberlake gets the duff lines ("you're so new age"; "I'm tired of using technology"), Fiddy's "your hips, your thighs" feels like a male-centered reprise of Khia's more explicit 2002 hit, "My Neck, My Back (Lick It)".

The Joseph Kahn-directed video (probably NSFW) exploits all the usual rap-video clichés involving money and women, but it makes them a bit creepier considering the song is sort of about, um, masturbation. 50 Cent and Timberlake telekinetically manipulate all kinds of scantily clad women, forcing one into a chair and dressing up others in masks once used to turn on Bryan Adams. Only 50 Cent could take something as nice as a good wank and turn it into a way of assuming power over women. Besides, Madonna did bondage better.

M.I.A.'s pan-global hip-hop would be eclectic by the standards of "Morning By Eclectic" or almost anyone. Performing for the famed Santa Monica, Calif., public radio station KCRW from Los Angeles studio the Village, M.I.A. opens her set with a quote from the Modern Lovers' classic "Roadrunner" in her own "Bamboo Banger", off forthcoming sophomore album Kala (she discusses the record and airs a few beefs in a recent Pitchfork interview). Another new song, "20 Dollar", opens with a crunk-tinged riff on the "Blue Monday" melody, before the London-born, Sri Lankan-raised rapper starts dropping the title of the Pixies' "Where Is My Mind?". Fellow Kala cut "Hustle" has a guest verse from Afrikan Boy, though it's hard to believe M.I.A. missed the chance to check "Hustlin' Hustler".

Hollertronix half Low Budget and longtime sidekick Cherry guest, and in an interview M.I.A. recounts her recent troubles with our friendly immigration authorities. In a second set, M.I.A. plays Kala's "Bird Flu" and latest single "Boyz". She goes back to one "from the old school", with the song that launched a thousand blogs: "Galang", from excellent 2005 debut Arular. Her finale, Kala's "Jimmy", very nearly quotes Wreckx-N-Effect.

Stream:> M.I.A.: "Bamboo Banger" / "20 Dollar" / "Hustle" / "Bird Flu" / "Galang" / "Jimmy"

[original tracks from Kala; due due 8/21/07 on XL/Interscope]

On 2006's Brian Deck-produced The Animal Years, Idaho native Josh Ritter sounded ambitious, building studio texture and worldly disillusionment into his forceful, folk-weaned songcraft. But Ritter's then-label, V2 America, folded the same night he played one of the best of those songs, "Girl in the War", on "Late Show With David Letterman". Despite enthusiastic support from Stephen King and a proud few Pitchfork staffers, Ritter has apparently had enough of sounding ambitious.

"Rumors", from Ritter's forthcoming The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, relies on the reckless pulse of a Steinway upright piano-- an instrument Ritter doesn't really know how to play, but used to write much of the new album. First, though, come stabs of ornery guitar recalling Pulp's "Common People". An organ whirls into the bone-simple, oh-oh-oh chorus, but incomprehensible noises soon weave their drunken way between madcap horns and haunting orchestration. Or as Ritter puts it, double-tracked, in his American tall-tale vernacular: "The string section's screaming like horses in a barn burning up."

[from The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter; due 08/21/07 on Sony/BMG]

The advance mp3 from Super Furry Animals' eighth studio album, the forthcoming Hey Venus!, picks up where frontman Gruff Rhys left off at the end of solo confection Candylion: with Welsh-accented narration. "This song is based on a true story, which would be fine if it wasn't autobiographical," Rhys declares. At face value, the song's "Be My Baby" sweep and ostensible real-life origins should render "Run-Away" one of the most heart-on-sleeve entries in a catalogue better known for leftfield classics like "Ice Hockey Hair" and "The Man Don't Give a Fuck".

While Rhys's love may be real, listen to the gorgeously overwrought lead guitar-- or the quip about "your bank details"-- and you can hear these merry Welsh pranksters laughing right through their heartache. "Run-Away" is Spector as psych-pop, and it finds an innocent acidhead's delight in even the sad tale of a dude so scared to tell the truth, and so scared to lie (Waits sez same diff), that he flees (trips?) instead. "Those who cry and run away live to cry another day," Rhys explains. When you're a guy who grins broadly enough for a crocodile, what does that say about your tears?

MP3:> Super Furry Animals: "Run-Away"
[from Hey Venus!; due 08/28/07 on vinyl and digital and 01/22/08 on CD from Rough Trade]

How badly did you want this, the lead track from Black Dice's forthcoming album Load Blown, to be an electro-pigfuck mangling of the Beach Boys' last #1 hit? Alas, we're not that lucky. Instead, we get another cluster of organic and decidedly odd gurgles from the Brooklyn noiseniks. Disembodied voices are rattling around inside the din here somewhere, but they don't seem like they're in any pain; "Kokomo" even sounds inviting in its own way, not a tropical paradise, sure, but playful and infused with a certain light. It seems like a fleshier continuation of ideas introduced on the "Roll Up" 12", perhaps closer in spirit to upcoming solo material by BD member Eric Copeland. If Black Dice have gotten too abstract for you, imagine Mike Love being crushed underneath the weight of the bassline.

MP3:> Black Dice: "Kokomo"
[From Load Blown; due 10/23/07 on Paw Tracks]

London's Tate Modern museum has a series called "Tate Tracks," in which musicians compose a new piece in response to an artwork currently on exhibit. The track is then available to listen to on headphones in the vicinity of the piece that inspired it. Past pairings include the Long Blondes/Jannis Kounellis and Klaxons/Donald Judd. Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe of Basement Jaxx were invited to contribute, and they chose the painting "Hip Hip Horrah!" by Dutch artist Karel Appel. No, they didn't do a Naughty by Nature cover, don't get your hopes up. In fact, the Jaxx seem quite respectful of the high art setting for the music, with an offering that's far more soundscape than pop tune. Some sitar and oud plucks lead to glitch-laden drones beset with Star Wars lasers and then, eventually, stark piano backed by digital noise which sounds like it comes from the recent Fennesz/Sakamoto collaboration. You can look at the painting while you listen, even zooming in for detail. No jockeying for position with the other museumgoers, either.

Stream:> Basement Jaxx: "Basement Jaxx vs. Karel Appel"

Over the past couple of years, Danny! has dropped his third album (2006's Charm, a rap opera inspired by the Miracles' 1975 LP City of Angels), been signed to Definitive Jux as part of a talent-search contest, and spent his time in the corner of the public eye, occasionally releasing intriguing scraps of music here and there-- like the self-released Danny Is Dead EP, from which this song originates. You might know the beat already, albeit in a more intact form; this is a Benihana job of Tribe's '98 classic "Find a Way" that preserves the hook and much of the original Ummah production's still-futuristic-sounding soul jazz vibe. Danny! doesn't have a voice as iconic as Tip's, but the fact that he's got a total everyman delivery makes this frustrated love song likeably low-key, and he's as reverential ("Now let's pause for the cause/ One love, my man Dilla...") as he is referential ("Teasin' me just like Janet did Q-Tip/ What the fuck, what is you stupid?").

Brooklyn experimentalists Telepathe pronounce their name "telepathy," which you'd already know if you were a mind reader (or went to their MySpace). Telepathe's contribution to Rare Book Room Records' forthcoming RBR 001 compilation is a patient, accomplished track, awash in the swirling dissonance of previously posted entries by Deerhunter and the Animal Collective's Avey Tare. For all the shoegaze-informed noise, though, "I Can't Stand It" really centers around on the wispy vocal interplay of Telepathe's core duo, Busy Gangnes and First Nation's Melissa Livaudais. "You know it could be so much better, too," they sing, as the solar system seems to implode around them-- like a "Maps" where they might not "love you like I love you," but love has ceased to be enough. Telepathe's discography is limited so far-- a four-song debut Farewell Forest and a 12" are out on the Social Registry-- so let's hope this song promises more to come.

Stream:> Telepathe: "I Can't Stand It"
[from RBR 001; due soon from Rare Book Room]

A little over a month ago, Sonic Youth's Lee Renaldo talked about working with the Magik Markers on their new album BOSS, explaining how the abrasive noise band had surprised him with a batch of actual songs, complete with melodies and chord changes. And now, in this video for BOSS' "Taste" by Heidi Diehl of Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice, we get an idea of what he was talking about. The visuals are hard to parse and have the feel of found Super 8 footage or Gummo outtakes, as mundane shots of anonymous people milling about alternate with confusing scenes of violence. Occasional performance footage reminds us that, yes, we're watching a music video. And then the music embodies a brooding, dark psychedelia not a million miles from the Black Angels, as Elisa Ambrogio's commanding voice, kissed by just the right amount of gothic reverb, sounds like she's ready to follow a youthful Grace Slick down the rabbit hole. Yes, Lee was right, it's a song all the way, and a good one.

When Tim Perry rounds up friends to jam in his basement, it's not exactly a group of neighborhood slackers and burnouts. No, the collection of Portland locals filling out his songs includes members of the Joggers, the Standard, and the Grails. Perry's songs are so rich in carefully orchestrated harmonies and guitar chime, he's certainly earned such pedigreed collaborators.

"Apathy and Excess", for example, plays out like a depressive's version of "Michelle", Rubber Soul on a tranquilizer-and-Paxil cocktail. There's a sweetly sad dissonance in the lush vocals and the winding guitars that accompany them. And do you detect the hint of minor-key menace underneath it all? The sound of Perry's bruised, disaffected voice-- note how every verse line ends in an "s" so that he appears to be hissing-- and the backhanded compliment of a chorus ("There's nothing in this world worthy of your murderous smile") is scruffily modern against the charming vintage of the music. The song's intimate bridge pulls listeners into its intriguing world of marching-band snares, quiet bass vamping, and drunk-barbershop-quartet harmonies and then immediately spits them out with an ending that abruptly cuts to silence. But that's the thing about experienced musicians: they know it's best to leave the audience wanting more.

New York's Vampire Weekend come from a minimal guitar pop tradition that stretches from Young Marble Giants to the Whitest Boy Alive, but their approach is more matter-of-fact and less self-consciously arty while taking on new wave from a different angle. "This feels so unnatural, Peter Gabriel, too," sings Ezra Koenig on "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa", the first track from their self-titled EP. Hard to say what he's talking about with the lyric, but the track's instrumentation and bubbly beat evoke another baby boomer songwriter who spent the 80s exploring what was just starting to be called "world music." Paul Simon's Graceland (and the African pop that inspired it) is perhaps an odd touchstone for a small indie rock band releasing music on their own label, but "Cape Cod" transforms the buoyant spirit of "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" to a cheaply (but cleanly) recorded, stripped-down, no-fuss context. Musicians of Simon's generation call recordings this simple "demos," and they have a point; but something about the unassuming nature of the production works in Vampire Weekend's favor, allowing subtle pleasures like that sunny falsetto vocalese at the end and the purity of the guitar tone to shine through.

July, she did fly, but not without producing a number of excellent new tracks. At the end of each month, we carefully resequence the previous month's finest and add a select few others to make it all work as one gigantic, neverending mixtape. The newest selections follow.

But first, speaking of mixtapes, Twitch (aka Keith McIvor) from Optimo put together an exclusive mix for us (and you). PFS 001 is a gleeful mix of Scottish undergound tunes, psych-rock anthems, UK pop-toppers, prog-rock epics, and Sonic Youth. To download a 100 mb zip file of this 73-minute mix, click here.

Now, on to the best of July:

>> Sunset Rubdown: "Up On Your Leopard, Upon the End of Your Feral Days" [original post]
"An explosive, downright spazzy hook in the early going that seems channeled from some old maritime ballad, perhaps something heard on the coast of Nova Scotia, 1,000-some-odd km east of the band's Montreal home, then leads to going through a series of breakdowns, where the circus instruments drops away, Krug crackles his way through a bridge, and the song reassembles itself to work through one last variation at the end."

>> Justice: "D.A.N.C.E. (Alan Braxe remix) [original post]
"Five billion remixes later, and someone got it exactly right. God save Alan Braxe."

>> Les Savy Fav: "What Would Wolves Do" [original post]
"Let's Stay Friends as a whole is quite varied, but "What Would Wolves Do" nicely anchors the melodic end of the spectrum. The song opens with Harrington in a reflective mood, viewing the past through the lens of myth ("We huffed the sky into our mouths/ We saw the ocean and we drank it down") over jangly guitars and a mix of programmed and live drums, finally calling out to the pack with a gentle canine "ahh-ooo" howl. And then it erupts in defiance on the chorus, Harrington shouting down the cruel world and vowing that the band-- and, by proxy, their fans-- will show them, in time."

>> Studio: "Life's a Beach! (Prins Thomas Remix)" | [original post]
"The soul of Studio's album West Coast is the nearly 13-minute standout "Life's a Beach!"; Norwegian spaceman Prins Thomas-- like Studio an admirer of Manuel Göttsching-- doesn't so much reinvent "Life's a Beach!" as adjust its focus. With an emphasis on glistening synths over guitar riffs, Thomas' remix could soundtrack a hammock-bound afternoon in some remote tropical locale."

>> Of Montreal: "Tropical Iceland" (Fiery Furnaces cover; live at KCRW) [original post]
"On this B-side from Of Montreal's limited Suffer for Fashion single, Kevin Barnes and company tackle what is arguably Fiery Furnaces' most immediately engaging number. It's one quirky and occasionally brilliant indie band meeting another, and yeah, it pretty much rules. But there's another surprise in store: during the middle eight Barnes throws in a bit from Big Audio Dynamite II's "Rush"-- the original, appropriately enough, also jumped joyously from one sample to the next-- and all of a sudden he's halfway to a three-way."

>> Simian Mobile Disco: "3 Pin Din" [original post]
"What separates Simian Mobile Disco from other knob-twiddling dilettantes is the duo's acute pop savvy. On debut album Attack Decay Sustain Release, James Ford and James Shaw seldom forget that memorable hooks are more important than highfalutin concepts, packing each track with sugary analogue beats and never letting them outstay their welcome. "3 Pin Din", from their new self-titled EP, retains SMD's spirit of play but not the same sense of focus. Like "Tits & Acid", also featured on the EP, "3 Pin Din" tosses out acid squelches the way an NBA inside man throws elbows."

>> White Williams: "New Violence" [original post]
"Itinerant 23-year-old laptop recording artist Joe Williams, aka White Williams, plays pop music with a technological fascination that betrays his roots in the noise scene...this song from his forthcoming debut album Smoke falls somewhere between Dan Deacon spazz and the digital pop-rock of a computer-fixated group Williams probably wouldn't namedrop, Grandaddy. Take those chugging guitar chords, which Williams runs through all manner of filters and effects."

>> Louis Philippe: "The Hill and the Valley" [original post]
"You're likely to recognize the name Louis Philippe from his work with the Clientele. He's also got a new record of his own, An Unknown Spring-- a sumptuously orchestrated addition to an indie-pop career that dates back to the mid-80s. "The Hill and the Valley" could be the LP's "Here, There and Everywhere": a sophisticated paean to idealized romance. Softly oohed harmonies evoke the Beach Boys the way more recent lovebirds the Postmarks have also done, as Auclair elegantly compares his beloved to the dichotomies of his title. A lush percussion section bolsters wavy guitars and sparkling keyboards."

>> Professor Murder: "Dutch Hex" [original post]
"Forthcoming single "Dutch Hex" sounds like the Murder who "came to party" on "Champion": anxious bass groove, en-Raptured guitar stabs, and oozing synths. Sure, singer Michael Bell-Smith acknowledges "drama going down tonight", even "problems"-- but before he blows the whistle (gym-teacher's special) on that shit, there's this little matter of the beat."

>> Kardinal Offishall: "Graveyard Shift" [ft. Akon] [original post]
"Hip-hop isn't dead, Toronto rapper Kardinal Offishall proclaims at the start of his new mixtape with Curtis Sparks, Do the Right Thing. So why is the mixtape 90s-themed? Probably just for fun, because Offishall's "Graveyard Shift" kills the dead-or-not debate even deader, with the grim, vaguely unreal atmosphere of those hours when late nights becomes early morning."

>> Weedeater: "God Luck and Good Speed" [original post]
"If Dave 'Dixie' Collins was singing about petunias and bunny rabbits, he'd still scare the cool out of you. The frontman of Wilmington, N.C.'s Weedeater, Dixie (as he's credited in liner notes) sounds like he spent his adolescence living off bowl rips, Maker's pulls, and shot-gunned chasers."

>> Pelle Carlberg: "Clever Girls Like Clever Boys More Than Clever Boys Like Clever Girls" [original post]
"As the former frontman for Sweden's Edson and as a solo artist, Pelle Carlberg crafts vintage pop songs as vehicles for his velvety vocals, wry wit, and sophisticated cynicism, as if his shrink's office were on the top floor of the Brill Building. With a title that one-ups mid-90s Blur, "Clever Boys Like Clever Girls More than Clever Girls Like Clever Boys" is a how-do-you-do from his new album, In a Nutshell, that tackles gender politics among the hipster intelligentsia, scoffing at the ulterior motives and unvoiced desires of clever boys and clever girls."