Like you knew that he would, Jamie Lidell feels a little a bit of good. And the IDMer gone funky soul boy is breaking out the scented oils and hand cymbals in an attempt to woo the unicorn woman of his dreams in the video for "A Little Bit of Feel Good", the single from his forthcoming Jim. We originally posted a version of this song from Lidell's new album before we knew the title, and back then it sounded more like "loose, vamping funk," as Mark Richardson put it. Now, just like Archie Bell & the Drells, Lidell's tightened things up a bit on the horn-fronted album version, although the funky guitar groove remains. The song sounds like a feel-good update of the tracks I loved from 2005's Multiply, and makes me wonder why those Gnarls Barkley guys didn't come up with something like this for their latest go round. The video, directed by Crackerfarm and Lidell, takes a deliciously dark turn. Unicorns are extinct, remember? That is, unless your hometown is in Wales.

[from Jim; due 04/28/08 in the UK and 04/29/09 in the U.S. on Warp] 

Writing about this song a short while back, Marc Hogan noted that it's "a drug song, and even for a moment a booze song, only it's about, like, details and emotions and stuff, not hyper-intertextual allusion-weaving or raspy humor. (Those two things are awesome, I know.) Backed by a boom-bap beat and laser-guided synth bass, plus some solitary keyboard plinks, Atmosphere's storytelling moves nicely from the bath water dripping 'like a painkiller to the 'goth nail polish' to the pupils like marbles hide behind eyelids.'" Director Zia Sunseri brings the song's story to life in the video by focusing on a hipster lesbian couple who appear to be in serious trouble. (via Subterranean)

[from When Life Gives You Lemons, Paint That Shit Gold; due 04/22/08 on Rhymesayers Entertainment]

In theory, there's nothing wrong with playing the influence game, except that it seems to lend itself to short-sightedness. Is the Strugglers' Randy Bickford really a big Will Oldham fan? Well, maybe, but it's just as likely that they're both Southern folkies with heads full of Skip James, as the venerable bluesman's hovering, cracked voice seems a starting point for both musicians. "The Latest Rights", the title track from the Strugglers forthcoming new LP, is a languid folk-rock tune with the sort of weary, slightly dragging rhythm Levon Helm taps out, lapsing and surging, flickering with piano. Its meanderings are paralleled in the lyrics, where Bickford interprets time as a winding trail where past and future vanish around bends. He has a soft touch with mysterious lyrics, and when he makes "the first long, straight way," and discovers that all he can see is "what [his] latest rights would be," there's plenty of room for interpretative play. The "problem" is stated more clearly earlier on: "I could never get back," goes the refrain, as Bickford treads the trail that only goes one way.

MP3:> The Strugglers: "Latest Rights"
[from Latest Rights; available now as a free download]
 

Ssion's cult of Ffun (as Andy Beta pointed out five years ago, it rhymes) needs converts. In this case, per the YouTube blurb, Cody Critcheloe's mom has got it goin' on. The Ssion frontman has a background in visual art as well as in music, and he brings both sets of skills to bear in the clip for Fool's Gold's "Ah Ma", which he wrote and directed. Critcheloe appears in the trashy, decadent, and mustachioed guise you might recognize from the Fool's Gold album cover, terrifying an androgynous "Ma" figure with a bleach-and-booze makeover. Then it's time for a cigarette and a skronky guitar solo over the rickety, reggae-flavored backing. "Now, I'm a mama's boy, but I still wanna cuss and fight," Critcheloe sneers as the video goes from black-and-white to somewhere over the rainbow. So there's nothing left to do but enjoy an Oedipal slow dance with mannish Mumsy. "That's what I do," the guy who brought you "Street Jizz" concludes. "That's who I am." I'm just a little disappointed he didn't name this "The Mother Load".

[from Fool's Gold; out now on Sleazetone]

Aw, sayonara, Robyn. Best known for collaborating with the Swedish pop pixie on her recent UK #1 (and Pitchfork's #57 single of 2006) "With Every Heartbeat", producer Andreas Kleerup has made like Bonnie "Prince" and found a new partner for his latest single. Replacing Robyn's lilting vocals, though not her blend of pathos and spunk, is fellow Swedish singer Titiyo, who happens to be the younger sister of trip-hop leading lady Neneh Cherry. Musically, Kleerup's "Longing for Lullabies" is more in keeping with "With Every Heartbeat" than his Shout Out Louds remix, though the verses add what sound like gentle acoustic-guitar strums to the pounding house beats and luxurious synth washes. As sequels go, it's no Empire Strikes Back, but Titiyo's unobtrusive presence is still way better than Hayden Christensen in pretty much everything except Shattered Glass.

As with the original "With Every Heartbeat" video, however, the visuals don't add much to the song. A shadow-shrouded Titiyo sings in a dark, club-like space as multi-colored lights pulsate and flash behind her. Then she emerges from the darkness and sings to us close-up. Images become blurrier as the video goes along, perhaps imitating the effects of a wild night out. At times there appear to be two silhouettes, one of which might belong to Kleerup. Fredrik Skogkvist and Marcus Engstrand direct.

[from the "Longing for Lullabies" single; due from on EMI]

Brazil gave us bossa nova, Tropicália, and baile funk, and there's a lot more where those came from-- as compilation after compilation after compilation continues to show. São Paulo's Télépathique have already toured in Europe, and now the duo are poised to bring their groove-based blend of electro-pop, rock, house, and baile funk to the U.S. with their new Love & Lust EP, on the way via Control Group. The best place to start isn't the English-language title track, though, but rather "Eu Gosto", which a cursory Internet search would suggest means "I like it." If not for the fact it's in Portuguese, a language I definitely don't speak, it'd be difficult to determine the origins of this solid uptempo dance-pop track. Opening with a robotic kick drum, a winding synth sound, and haunted-house creaks, the song soon adds post-punk guitar stabs and the matter-of-fact vocals of Mylene, who along with drummer, turntablist, and programmer Erico Theobaldo makes up Télépathique. Her words echo on both sides as live and electronic drums rise in intensity. The beats drop out during a clanging, alarm-like bridge. When Mylene's vocals return, they're even harder to understand.

MP3:> Télépathique: "Eu Gosto"

[from the Love & Lust EP; due on Control Group]

Hmm, I would've gone the John Hughes route. Or at least stuck to Black Kids' mis-under-estimable charms and done something lo-fi that people would forward to their friends. In any event, the indie-poppers from Jacksonville, Fla., now have a video for the new single version of "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You", which originally appeared on last year's Best New Music-stamped Wizard of Ahhhs EP. A fanciful streak runs through Black Kids' songs, from their playful self-regard to the way they toy with sexuality (among siblings, no less!), and that's what this clip lavishly indulges, throwing together Enlightenment-era wigs, laser fights against a colorfully animated backdrop, and, um, actual cheerleaders doing the song's cheer-like shouts. The song itself, at least, remains pretty un-fuck-with-able.

[from the "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You" single; due 04/07/08 on Almost Gold]

Grizzled alt-rock veterans Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan, aka the Gutter Twins, appeared on Letterman last night to sing Saturnalia's lead track "Idle Hands". They're right up Dave's alley, from the sound of it. 

[Saturnalia is out now on Sub Pop]

It's not supposed to be this simple. Is it? So far Jeremy Jay, the Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter signed to K Records, has covered a lot of ground without revealing much specific about himself, his influences, or where he might ultimately be planning to take us. On the title track from his 2008 Airwalker EP, he sings about, um, walking on air-- with the echoey, vaguely ominous lockstep of an early Factory 7". On "Beautiful Rebel", the first single from full-length debut A Place Where We Can Go, he sings about a beautiful rebel-- with garage rock's scuzz and Jonathan Richman's wide-eyed 1950s romance. And on latest non-album single "Alpha Rhythm", Jay just wants you to "dance, dance, dance."

Now, Jay might not be the type to overshare, but his limited output so far rarely fails to tap into some of pop's fundamental ideals, funneling them through a distinct, noirish aesthetic. "Alpha Rhythm" takes its title from the regular oscillations of human brain waves, and metronomic drums that wouldn't have been out of place on the last Shocking Pinks album set the pace, beneath "Airwalker"-like clockwork guitars, some haphazard lead-guitar fills, fingers snapping, and Jay's brief, mostly wordless vocals. If it's about dancing, it's also about being about dancing-- or else it's about not having to be "about" anything at all. Jay's terseness, like the lonely spaces of his austere production, reveals as much as it withholds, trusting the singer's secrets to pop archetypes and our own wandering imaginations. That's where I'm a Viking.

Hard to believe it's been thirteen years since "Drop" closed out Red House Painters' Ocean Beach. Obviously, things have changed dramatically since then, Mark Kozelek's voice perhaps most of all. He sang the originally with a wounded forcefulness that drew the song out to nearly ten minutes. On this live version, recorded recently at Union Chapel in London-- which appears on the rarities CD that accompanies the book Nights of Passed Over, a collection of song lyrics and setlists from throughout Kozelek's career-- his voice has grown deeper, more resigned and introverted. He's no longer casting recriminations on "Drop", but mulling over a predicament, his words reverberating throughout the venue as if sung by the voices in his head. The matter-of-factness with which he delivers the central lines is absolutely chilling: "All the love in an instant makes my life stop / But then my hate for you makes my feelings altogether drop."

Stream:> Mark Kozelek: "Drop" (Live at Union Chapel)
[from Nights of Passed Over; due 04/01/08 from Caldo Verde]