Go to caps-locking L.A. band HEALTH's webpage and you will find links to two MySpace pages. The first, labeled "NOISE", goes to their main site; "DISCO" leads to their clearinghouse for remixes. In the latter, they recently posted a good reworking of "Lost Time", the spare drums'n'chant track that closes out their self-titled debut. The "Pictureplane Remix" ups the tempo, folds in loads of tribal percussion, and adds some squelching synth riffs. Ah, yes: this is why we come to DISCO. (via Gorilla vs. Bear)

Stream:> HEALTH: "Lost Time (Pictureplane Remix)"
[original track from HEALTH; out now on Lovepump United]

The second single from Underworld's 2007 return Oblivion With Bells, "Beautiful Burnout", finds the one-time techno heroes in better form than preceding track "Crocodile". Both are built around repetitive bass lines and trancey synths, but there's a weary sadness to the melodies here that's appealing, and the song's multiple sections-- one without beats, another with just beats-- lend some dynamic variety. As usual, singer Karl Hyde's voice is couched in some digital effects. The video is a mostly abstract piece that might work better on a big screen TV with a couple of painkillers. Remember The Blair Witch Project's notorious nostril-view shot? This clip shows someone's fingers against a black background, with flashing lights instead of a flashlight.

Video:> Underworld: "Beautiful Burnout" (Quicktime) (Windows Media) (Real)
[from Oblivion With Bells; out now on ATO]

We heard the first single from Estelle's forthcoming album Shine back in November and also saw a video. The album was supposed to be a February release, but now it has apparently been pushed back to May. In the meantime, here is the next single, featuring some guest verses from Kanye. There's an appealing breeziness to both the production and Estelle's vocals, though the latter are marred by some clunky lines ("Take me Broadway/ Let's go shopping, maybe then we'll go to a cafe" sounds oddly awkward).

Stream:> Estelle [ft. Kanye West]: "American Boy" (Real) (Windows)
[from Shine; due May 2008 on Atlantic/Homeschool]

Photo by Matthew Isaac

There's something to be said for big, memorable rock anthems. Especially when, like Evangelicals' "Skeleton Man", they rely on more than U2 fakebooks and a shit ton of reverb to make them that way. From the Oklahoma rockers' upcoming sophomore LP, The Evening Descends, "Skeleton Man" does have megachurch reverb aplenty, but its resounding melody, haunted lyrics, and constant assortment of well-placed details-- here a cymbal crash, there a video-game synth bleep or a patter of hand percussion, everywhere vibrato-rich guitar fills-- put meat on its stadium-ready bones. Even as lockstep guitars, bass, and four-on-the-floor drumming steady us enough to pull out our lighters, a gust of Halloween-like howls (or are those voices only laughing?) keeps the flames out, the room dark, and the mood uneasy.

"Skeleton Man" has been the title of at least two books and one awful-sounding 2004 movie. The books seem to cite a Native American legend, but it's unclear whether there's any connection. If the lyrics here are somewhat cryptic, though, the emotion behind them is easy to understand. Occasionally joined by female backing vocals, singer and guitarist Josh Jones' lofty voice has a Robert Smith tremulousness to it-- see Black Kids or Shout Out Louds-- and is just as likely to get drenched in distortion as lifted to a falsetto. "Someone loves you very much," Jones shouts at the song's climax. The words are fuzzed out almost beyond comprehension, but the idea-- and the execution-- helps make for a big, memorable, and slightly strange rock anthem just the same.

Last week we posted the first single from Goldfrapp's soon-to-be-released Seventh Tree, "A & E", a shift toward mellow acoustic strums from the UK electronic group. Dougal Wilson, the director behind Bat for Lashes' wonderfully creepy "What's a Girl to Do" video (one of Pitchfork's Top 50 Music Videos of 2007), goes back into the woods with Alison Goldfrapp in his clip for the song. Resplendent in a flowing white dress, Goldfrapp sings from a bed of leaves, while a troupe of leaf-men dance around-- hey, trees are people, too-- and bow down to her as some kind of sylvan goddess. When the song reaches its sighing bridge, the wind blows, the day turns to night, and a couple of woodland critters arrive to check out the action. The video is a good fit for Goldfrapp's bright, folksy turn here, and it comes with a twist ending that warms this caffeine junkie's heart. (via Blender)

[from Seventh Tree; due 02/25/08 on Mute]

Like Creed used to do, Brooklyn boy-girl duo High Places can take you higher (that name's gotta be a pun, right?). This remix of High Places' "Golden" by Brenmar, aka These Are Powers drummer and electronics dude Bill Salas, might take you even higher-er-- why, higher than that twiddly guitar part in the middle of the chorus that is the sole redeeming attribute of Creed's "Higher". The version of "Golden" available on High Places' MySpace begins on an ambient note, swathed in more Panda Bear-like psychedelic atmospherics than most of the material on the group's 2007 self-titled EP, but a loopy tropical rhythm and Mary Pearson's girlish, twee-kid vocal eventually emerge from the mists of amorphous drones, electronic chirps, and pizzicato string plucks. Benmar's remix also starts with a low, blurry hum, but then for a time seems most interested in the bits of melody that were more submerged on the original. That pop move is just a pump fake, though, because soon enough Salas is chopping up Pearson's vocals and emphasizing the jumpy beats until they become something abstract, as well. Um, and just for the record, none of it sounds the slightest bit like Creed.

Stream:> High Places: "Golden (Brenmar Remix)"
[the High Places EP is out now (and sold out) on Ancient Almanac]

The tracklist says Aesop Rock's None Shall Pass ends with the spooked-out "Coffee", featuring the Mountain Goats' John Darnielle, but if you've actually heard the now-San Francisco-based rapper's 2007 album (or checked out Jason Crock's Pitchfork review), you know better. Hidden track "Pigs" is, in Crock's words, "another seeming live track of gutbucket slide-guitar funk, once again darting sideways in the face of expectation." It's also a blunted, free-flowing verbal assault on all things porcine. The video, directed by Dan Wolfe, is a display of visual artistry in keeping with the album's vividly illustrated cover art.

That should come as no surprise, because the clip stars Jeremy Fish, the San Francisco illustrator who designed said cover art and worked on Rock's pig-headed "None Shall Pass" video. Fish and his helper, Rick, are shown at high-speed, clambering up ladders as they draw what appears to be (judging by the Statue of Liberty) a mural-sized Gotham. Meanwhile, Aesop Rock is unstinting in his densely packed pork riffs: "Final words for the finer birds taking notes/ I dig a chick in pigtails, 'That's all folks!'"

[from None Shall Pass; out now on Def Jux]

Ssion (pronounced "shun") have been getting hailed as next big things for years, but with new album Fool's Gold on the way next month, their chance to prove themselves should come soon enough. The Kansas City collective's frontman, Cody Critcheloe, designed the artwork for Yeah Yeah Yeahs debut Fever to Tell and directed the video for Liars' "There's Always Room on the Broom", so it probably won't be just publicists getting Ssion's name out. Like Glass Candy, who've remixed finger-snapping disco track "Clown" for a 12" on something called Sleazetone Records, Ssion have taken some time to find their sound. In fact, as recently as 2005's "World's Worth" 7", Ssion's music had more in common with the sleazy proto-punk of the Stooges than with anything electronic.

Glass Candy's "Clown" remix completes Ssion's transformation to sleek dancefloor fillers from the campy concept-rockers of 2003's Opportunity Bless My Soul-- "Flipper feedback, Ricky Wilson rhythm guitar, roller-rinky-dink organ, Strokes and Pavement and Pussy-Pussy-Pussy Galore shoutouts, and allusions to 'I Love L.A.', 'Like a Virgin,' the Minutemen, Ugly Kid Joe, Frank-N-Furter, and '60s barrio-rock are all sideshows," the Village Voice's Chuck Eddy wrote at the time. Where the original "Clown" is full of sproingy disco guitars and divebombing video game synths, this version is as stark and noirish as anything on Pitchfork's #26 album of 2007, the After Dark compilation. With two minutes to go, Critcheloe confides: "From across the room, I can't see if you're laughing, or crying, but I know one thing: You look reeeeaaal funny." Don't cry, Smokey Robinson-- "I'm funny, too," Critcheloe adds. Luckily, yucks are secondary to moody atmosphere on this one. (Note: the band's MySpace page says that they are on Geffen, but that's apparently just a joke related to Critcheloe's Courtney Love obsession. More yucks!)

MP3:> Ssion: "Clowns (Glass Candy Remix)"
[original track from Fool's Gold; due 02/12/08 on Sleazetone]

A couple of months ago, I was trading e-mails with Steve Taylor of London's Hand on the Plow label, complaining about the relative difficulty of turning out minimally-inclined club bangers. "We try and do it all the time," groused Taylor, "and then we end up with those busy clatterfests that we always end up with."

In the end, that's probably for the best, because Beckett and Taylor's clatterfests are way more engaging-- not to mention way more fun-- than the majority of minimal. (And anyway, their sense of restraint has a lot more to do with minimal techno's Chicago house roots than most of the cluttered plug-in pile-ups on the market today.) To call "World of Me," the title track off the duo's new four-track EP, a "clatterfest" is actually highly misleading. Despite the intermittent zooming of hand-braked vinyl, the track is the most focused thing they've done yet: a low-slung funk groove punctuated by fidgety guitar riffs backs multi-tracked vocals reminiscent of Jamie Lidell's scorched soul delivery. "Nothing needs to rhyme with me," the singer growls, and indeed, it's hard to see what could. The song's in its own league.

It's been a while since we've heard from Moby, the bald vegan who in the 1990s became an icon-- and handy Eminem punchline-- for what was then generically referred to as techno, or, even more vaguely, "electronica". Today some people complain that Radiohead's In Rainbows business model gets talked about more often than the music, as if an innovative (sorry, Machina II fans) distribution method and a great album are mutually exclusive. While the music on Moby's 1999 commercial breakthrough, Play, hasn't aged so well, the business story--lots of licensing deals!-- presaged an era when indie-rockers like Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes could credibly say, "The idea that anyone who attempts to do anything commercial is a sellout is completely out of touch with reality." (Still, it's a good bet Moby never licensed anything to Outback Steakhouse.)

The left-wing Christian born Richard Hall returns this March with Last Night, his first album of new material since 2005's Hotel. Moby has gradually taken on a more prominent role in his own material, with radio hits like Play's "South Side" and 18's "We Are All Made of Stars" eventually giving way to Hotel's sample-free approach, but first Last Night single "Alice" returns him to the semi-anonymity of a 1990s electronica star. Guest rappers Aynzil and the 419 Crew hog the spotlight while synthesized strings, reversed drum sounds, electric guitar, and the kind of propulsive bassline that gave Play's "Bodyrock" its title make it clear this is still Moby-- sounds like his voice on the distorted chorus, too. He's certainly nowhere to be seen in the track's video, directed by Andreas Nilsson (the Knife, José González). Images of explosions, a bikini-clad woman on the beach, and the MCs themselves flash past instead, for an effect something like late-night channel surfing. One of the many ways you used to be able to find yourself hearing a Moby song.

[from Last Night; due 03/10/08 on Mute]

Son Lux is classically trained composer Ryan Lott, the Anticon label's latest step away from hip-hop as it is traditionally understood and toward greater abstraction. "Break", the opening track from forthcoming Son Lux debut album At War With Walls and Mazes, applies underground hip-hop's collage aesthetic using borrowed beats, backwards instrumental squiggles, and snippets of crowd noise, but mostly it's a quavering piano ballad, with the somber complexity of latter-day Radiohead. In that sense, the track could fit alongside the more subdued moments on labelmate Why?'s recent The Hollows EP, specifically Nick Thorburn of Islands' contribution, "Broken Crow". "Is there no one left to break you down?" Lott sings in a hoarse, fragile whisper. Son Lux might not break it down Cool Kids style, exactly-- Lott's first show in this guise was a college festival slot opening for Sufjan Stevens-- but he's put together something dark and intriguing here.

MP3:> Son Lux: "Break"
[from At War With Walls and Mazes; due 02/19/08 on Anticon]

New York record store Other Music has been documenting their in-store performances. We checked out a set from No Age earlier, and here's a video from Tinariwen, whose album Aman Iman: Water Is Life made our Top 50 last year.

[Aman Iman: Water Is Life is out now on World Village]