Has it really been more than a year since Junior Boys released Best New Music entry So This Is Goodbye? The several months that have passed since the electro-pop outfit's excellent if self-consciously titled Dead Horse EP would suggest, um, yeah. So it's a good time to reflect that Jeremy Greenspan wasn't the electro-pop project's only original member. Co-founder Johnny Dark left Junior Boys before they became blog-renowned, eventually going on to release the solo Can't Wait EP last year via KIN (the label we also have to thank for his former group's Best New Music'd Last Exit).

Dark returns now with vocalist San Serac as Stereo Image, who somewhat like Junior Boys combine stylized elegance with the shuffling electronic beats of 2-step garage. On "Red Lights", distorted snares and cymbals jostle over a placid bass groove, occasionally interrupted by a vocoder repeating the song's title. Serac croons dramatically about a night out: "No sad-sack DJ's ever gonna bring us down," he promises. Elsewhere, he observes, "We've got options." So, thankfully, do impatient Junior Boys fans, and an engaging one at that.

[from the "Red Nights"/"Dark Chapter" download single; out now on KIN via Bleep]

We don't generally post advertisements for products here on Forkcast, but for this spot we'll make an exception. I'm definitely not going to give anything away, except to say that it renders visually something you've always known about this song: that Phil Collins can freakin' throw. Thanks to reader Jesse Hoy for the tip.

Video:> Phil Collins: "In the Air Tonight"

Jens Lekman tends to sample what he loves, and he often loves what we love, so it's a good bet keeping up on the Swedish pop maestro's "recently played" list. In an informative interview over at the Line of Best Fit, Lekman says his favorite CD at the moment is a homemade release by Turkish duo Kim Ki O. This dude was rocking the Tough Alliance's "Silly Crimes" on mp3 mixes several months before it started really chewing up bandwidth over here in the U.S., so we took careful note.

"Gezegenin Adi Dunya", a track currently available on MySpace from Kim Ki O's self-released En Az Iki, En Fazla Sekiz, is a good introduction to the group's hazy, analog-based synth-pop. The song manages to put the unrelenting beats and buzzy electronics of post-punk acts like the Normal into an altogether dreamier space, with distorted bass supporting wispy, girlish vocal harmonies. Our Turkish is even worse than our Swedish, but you can listen to other songs-- including the lush, English-language "I Don't Relate"-- elsewhere on Kim Ki O's MySpace page.

Download/Stream:> Kim Ki O: "Gezegenin Adi Dunya"
[from En Az Iki, En Fazla Sekiz; self-released]

It might be hard to imagine Mandy Moore and Deerhoof in the same sentence, much less onscreen together. The avant-pop band contributed music to the soundtrack of Dedication, the first time in the director's chair for actor Justin Theroux ("Six Feet Under", The Ten, Broken English). On September 11, Kill Rock Stars is releasing a picture disc 7" entitled "Matchbox Seeks Maniac", featuring a track from Friend Opportunity that was remixed and then banished to Dedication's closing credits. The flipside, "Makko Shobu", according to Kill Rock Stars, is about sperm whales in love. Deerhoof is the only band that could make you care about the love lives of sperm whales. Previously available as a Friend Opportunity bonus track via iTunes, "Makko Shobu" is a dreamy, keyboard-drenched ballad that sounds like it came out of a 1970s Saturday morning cartoon. And speaking of iTunes, it segues nicely with Donna Summer's "I Feel Love". At least on my mix it does.

The low-budget video for "To Fix the Gash in Your Head", a song we had on repeat here about a week ago, from an album that earned a Best New Music rating, is a slice-of-the-touring-life montage. It shows the Brooklyn band putting on what looks to be a strobe-heavy live show geared toward sensory overload, the correct visual analogue to the music's pop-noise density. It also shows some of the more mundane aspects of playing clubs-- loading in gear, flipping off nosy camera-toting roadies, and veging out in front of the laptop, perhaps checking to see if the latest A Place to Bury Strangers video has been covered yet on Forkcast.

You might be aware that Amy Winehouse, the 23-year-old UK singer behind catchy retro-soul singles like "Rehab", recently went to rehab herself following reports of, get this, drug use. After canceling a string of shows, Winehouse made her first post-rehab appearance at last night's Mercury Music Awards. Winehouse lost the top prize to Klaxons, but she won a standing ovation from the crowd for her performance of "Love Is a Losing Game", from her album Back to Black. It's an anticlimactic rendition of a relatively forgettable acoustic-guitar ballad, notable mostly for Winehouse's throaty vibrato and her sultry looks at the camera as it makes creepy elevator eyes at that pastel-colored dress. BBC TV show host Jools Holland, for one, certainly seems impressed-- he gushes more than once over Winehouse's "amazing" voice.

[original track from Back to Black; out now on Universal]

Led by Romain Turzi, this Parisian psych band recorded its 2005 EP Made Under Authority in its leader's kitchen, but from the sound of A, their full-length debut on Kemado, somewhere near the medicine cabinet is probably their preferred location. Unlike the freewheeling psychedelia of current mind-alterers like Acid Mothers Temple or Dungen, for Turzi less is more, as they rely on tightly wound rhythms and hypnotic drones like Spaceman 3 or the tidy minimalism of Krautrock forefathers Can and Neu! "Afghanistan", one of the few tracks with vocals on this mostly instrumental album, has a cinematic feel that draws you in with its otherworldly electronics, guitar haze, and pulsating drums. It could be a soundtrack to a journey in Blade Runner or a party scene in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and it fades out at the end just like a strange dream. This is definitely taking drugs to make music to take drugs to.

MP3:> Turzi: "Afghanistan"
[from A; out now on Kemado]

There are at least a couple of disjunctures at play in Skeletons & the Kings of All Cities' video for "Sickness". The gurgling organ and Matt Mehlan's eunuch-croon emerge as punctuation for a randomly violent and pretty scary act, leading to the video proper. The clip jerks back and forth between harmlessly montaged out-the-car-window road trip footage and far-off sequences of, um silhouetted body disposal, as if the car's road trip coincided with the path of a serial killer. Maybe by choice, it's hard to tell; it's not like the surrounding countryside offers many other paths from here to there. I just assumed that Lucas focused more on the sort of sickness that alienated one from society, though; the kind that causes the mind to go into overdrive, spinning out elaborate fantasies and then...oh.

First of all, it's nice to see the E Street Band in this video for "Radio Nowhere", which is available exclusively on Amazon for the time being. As we discussed here before, Brendan O'Brien's production on the track pushes the band to the sidelines, but this clip not only confirms their presence on the album, it also highlights their contributions, specifically Steve Van Zandt's backing vocals and Nils Lofgren's crisp guitar work.

Second, is there a rock star who has aged as well as Bruce Springsteen? Every wrinkle and line on his face adds to his center-stage authority, and the looseness of his limbs and his unruly hair-- just slightly receding, but still full-- suggests a scruffy wildness that we don't expect (or usually get) from anyone besides Dylan. Visually, this demeanor helps sell the song, presenting Springsteen as someone truly desperate to hear some rhythm.

Video:> Bruce Springsteen: "Radio Nowhere"
[from Magic; due 10/02/07 from Columbia]

Ellipsis-liking indie-rockers Enon have a lot to fill us in on with "Mirror on You", our first glimpse of the much-loved band's forthcoming Grass Geysers...Carbon Clouds. Four years since Hocus Pocus and two since B-sides/rarities comp Lost Marbles and Exploded Evidence, the latest track leans more toward the spazzy elasticity of ex-Brainiac guitarist John Schmersal's previous group (Brainiac!) than the sweet synth-pop of bassist/vocalist Toko Yasuda, who served a brief stint in Blonde Redhead. "Mirror on You" doesn't explain Enon's long absence so much as silence questions, blistering by in less than two minutes on funky, fuzzed-out bass and garage-rock guitar gusto. Yasuda's voice bounces back and forth as she sings the word "mirror", getting more warped with each repetition-- Enon's house, like the Stooges', is a very fun house. No cats in the yard, though, just Schmersal's goofy falsetto, repping Medusa and pledging (sarcastic) allegiance to phonies. The fairest one of all might be drummer Matt Schulz, whose steady, handclap-assisted rhythm keeps the whole thing from cracking, sparing us seven years' bad luck. It's been long enough without new Enon already.

MP3:> Enon: "Mirror on You"
[from Grass Geysers...Carbon Clouds; due 10/09/07 on Touch and Go]

Mike Simonetti definitely has our attention these days. The Troubleman Unlimited founder has been releasing gorgeously dark disco by bands like Glass Candy and the Chromatics on his new Italians Do It Better label; the imprint's After Dark compilation snuck up on us to grab Best New Music honors this year despite an extremely limited initial pressing. Simonetti has just turned in a 53-minute "Balearic Sabbath Mix" for UK blog Allez-Allez, and it doesn't exactly define "Balearic" the way seasoned techno listeners might expect. The chilled-out vibe here comes mostly from organic-sounding 1970s pop, soul, and funk.

The mix opens with the crackles of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks' "Frozen Love", from their pre-Fleetwood Mac 1973 LP Buckingham Nicks-- insanely, still unavailable on CD except as a bootleg. Next up is "Right on for the Darkness", a bitter yet funky polemic released that same year by Curtis Mayfield. A similar mix of strings, horns, and beats could show up on an Italians Do It Better track, though not with Mayfield's distinctive falsetto. Paul McCartney's goofy, piano-driven 1976 Wings single "Let 'Em In", Stevie Wonder's hardtime 1973 Innervisions classic "Living for the City", and Sylvester's 1979 disco come-on "I Need Somebody to Love Tonight" are among the other inclusions. If this mix signals a new direction for Simonetti's imprints, it'll be interesting to watch. And yes, Mike confirms that the last track on the mix is Black Sabbath.

MP3:> Mike Simonetti: "Balearic Sabbath Mix"

The Brunettes' "Her Hairagami Set", a "Some Velvet Morning"-esque boy/girl back and forth about a hair-styling contraption you can buy on TV, is one of the year's more charming indie-pop songs. The video for the song, taken from the New Zealand band's Sub Pop debut Structure and Cosmetics, has stuck with us past Labor Day as one of the summer's more charming clips. It also helps explain "hairagami" for people who neither read Pitchfork reviews nor watch QVC.

Created by Trophy Wife Productions, the video brings the song's storyline to life in comic-book format. So you can read all the word bubbles for context as you watch the track's plain-Jane heroine turn herself into a "beautiful brunette" for the low, low price of just $12.95. To find the dorky boy of her dreams, she first must endure a scary nightmare full of taunts from a dude who looks like Gorillaz' Murdoc-- and whose head turns into a dessert item. Moral of the story: "Love finds losers too." That's why there's an Internet.

[from Structure and Cosmetics LP; out now on Sub Pop]