Hootenanny!

During the past six months I’ve been sent a whole dangdoodle of CDs. While a goodly percentage of them were crap, there were a few smashing titles: Cosmo Vitelli’s loopy, Eno-esque Clean; Busdriver, Radioinactive, and Daedelus’s whimsical The Weather; Beans’s post-Anti-Pop Tomorrow Right Now; and Prefuse 73’s One Word Extinguisher, which officially takes the title from a faltering Sea and Cake for best music to make out to. Then there were these:

Jay-Jay Johanson

Antenna (E-Magine)

I love electro — whether that means Drexciya, Dynamix II, or Adult. — but I don’t like electroclash unless it means Ladytron or Jay-Jay Johanson. True, Antenna is jarringly effete in spite of the quirky glitch beats supplied by Funkstörung. But unlike Mount Sims, whose only cultural resonance is the appallingly gentrified Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn, Antenna is reflective of the gay discos in downtown Manhattan that produced electroclash in the first place. It has a sly, fey sensibility reminiscent of the New Romantics.

Cyne

Collection (1999-2003) (Botanica del Jibaro)

Cyne is dope. Nearly every song on this album, a compilation of previously released singles, is a banger. But, to be truthful, Cyne makes me feel sort of insecure. It makes me wish I were a politically conscious college student rapping in an internationally known hip-hop group and pulling mad girls instead of a broke-ass college dropout who stares at a computer screen all day for money and snacks on Pasta Roni for dinner.

Codec and Flexor

Tubed (Emperor Norton)

Last March during the Winter Music Conference, I heard Richie Hawtin play this killer track that was all staccato guitar, propulsive drum machines, and laconic vocals that threatened, “Tonight’s the final overcome.” At first I thought it was Nitzer Ebb, which is weird because I don’t like Nitzer Ebb, but I really liked this song. Several days later, when I was cleaning out my promo pile, I played this CD and it had the song on it. Cool, dude!

Starlight Mints

Built For Squares (PIAS America)

Starlight Mints features a lead singer (Allan Vest) with the quivering vocal à la Stephen Malkmus, producing an annoyingly quirky racket more pretentious than They Might Be Giants for all the twee little boys and girls. Remember those lame Mentos commercials that used to air in the mid-Nineties? They looked like Built For Squares sounds: cutesy and self-satisfied.

Various Artists

Idol Tryouts: Ghostly International Vol.1 (Ghostly International)

This is a great compilation with key tracks from Dabrye, Matthew Dear, and Prefuse 73. Still I’m wary about embracing it wholeheartedly. I feel like Ghostly International’s roster is probably filled with hipper-than-you kids who are always talking about how shit was better “back in the day” and all the cool underground Detroit techno parties they get to go to. And it’s like, “What the hell are you talking about, back in the day? You’re only 22.”

Jazzanova

Remixed (Compost)

Two CDs, 23 remixes of tracks from the somnolent In Between. For sure, there are some good tracks on here, particularly an ace Beanfield remix of the already lush and beautiful “No Use.” But dang, two hours of middling downtempo and broken beat tracks? They should have printed a label on the CD that warns, “Skip function may be required.”

David Banner

Mississippi: The Album (SRC/Universal)

Robert Bly would feel right at home on Mississippi: The Album. There’s an over-the-top masculine energy surging through it. “Fuck ’em niggas!” screams Banner on “Fuck ‘Em.” “What it do, motherfucker!” he shouts on “What It Do.” No wonder that the best song, “Like A Pimp,” comes as a relief. In comparison, it’s only a mild-mannered exhortation for women to indulge in their nymphomaniac fantasies.

Numbers

Death (Tigerbeat6)

I remember when the Tigerbeat6 crew used to dis the fuck out of house music and call it predictable; now they’re making dance remixes of a cooler-than-thou post-punk trio’s debut album, Life. It’s cool. Part of me wants to say, “Right on, you finally came around,” but the other half wants to say “Fuck you,” if only because what they’re doing is supposedly called “mutant disco” or whatever dumbass term pretentious electronic music critics are using nowadays.

Funkl Porcini

Fast Asleep (Ninja Tune)

I wanted to like this album. I really did. The cover art, a photograph of a lissome young woman surrounded by banks of studio equipment shaped into the group’s name, is amazing. It floats through airy ambient flights of fancy like “The Big Sea.” But every time I tried to play this CD I had to turn it off because I would get drowsy and almost cause a car accident.

4 Strings

Believe (Ultra)

When I listen to Vanessa van Hemert’s soaring voice and Carlo Resoort’s epic, lush production, I feel like a naked princess riding bareback on a white horse, the wind blowing against my long blond tresses, hurtling through a forest toward a castle where my knight in shining armor will take me in his arms and proclaim that I am the only one he loves.

Cave In

Antenna (RCA)

Cave In is one of a wave of bands (Queens of the Stone Age, Hives, International Noise Conspiracy) reclaiming hard rock from the nookie-eating nü-metal idiots; self-pitying, acoustic guitar-strumming crybabies; and pasty-faced, wannabe David Bowie cornballs. If that doesn’t convince you to buy this CD, I don’t know what will.