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Lateduster

An all-star collective from the Minneapolis underground, featuring the chaps who record individually as/with Fog, Dosh, Hymie’s Basement, and Neotropic. Post-rock instrumentals with an improvisational jazz flair. These are early recordings, birthed before the debuts of Fog and Dosh. Merck’s re-releasing Easy Pieces this month, with new recordings and a tour to follow next year. This generation is lucky to have more “easy-listening” options than Windham Hill.

* For residents of the OC: join me Tuesday at the Apple store for a little presentation. Would love to meet any local 3hivers.

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Signer

Like a fuzzy popsicle on a hot August day at 7:13 pm; it’s hot out, but the popsicle is so cold it’s fuzzy. You might be seven or eight years old. Then you squish the popsicle against the roof of your mouth after you’ve sucked out the juice.

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Cat Five

Another shot from the suggestion box… Cat Five’s madcap samplerama Kataphonics finally has a sibling, a new 12-inch called “On the Rise.” This may seem like a thin body of work for a five-year-old group. That is, until you discover the hours of original or heavily refurbished live tracks available on their site and realize what a fool you were for ever doubting them. These MP3s in particular were recorded directly from the mixing board and could easily pass for studio material. Cat Five are Avalanches on a budget; Negativland with a beat; whatever comparison you use when you find yourself nodding and smirking at the same time.

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Donna Summer

It’s fitting that Aquarius Records, the same store that introduced me to the mash-up some ten years ago (before they were called mash-ups) with Evolution Control Committee’s brilliant pairing of Public Enemy and Herb Alpert, would effectively wean me off that guilty pleasure with the next level noise of this here lad. Neither mash-up nor IDM, neither kitschy nor political, Donna Summer (a.k.a. Jason Forrest) throws juxtaposed refrains and riffs from popular music into a high-speed blender with no lid. Somehow the result, while initially as soothing as highway rumble strips, begins to make sense and even sounds catchy after a few listens…and a 12-pack of Mountain Dew. WARNING: Not recommended for those with epilepsy. (Seriously.)

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evening

Perhaps the fact that evening have been making music together since the mid-’90s is what makes their full-length debut sound so accomplished. Whatever it is, the massive, spiraling guitars and otherwise hook-laden discontent magically conjure that Radiohead-esque penchant for accessible experimentality without aping the Oxford lads.

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Secret Mommy

Andy Dixon, a Vancouver-based web designer/audio saboteur, plays Olympic-paced ping pong (or is it table tennis?) with odd samples and found sounds until they become a blur of sound and rhythm. The results range from buoyant (“An Apple a Day…”) to jarring (“Save As”) to satirical (“Bottom 40,” wherein Britney Spears is revealed as the cat in heat that she is).

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The Dismemberment Plan

After ten years of recording their own spastic, elastic brand of pop, The Dismemberment Plan “open sourced” 11 of their songs and let the public have at them in a sort of remix-off. Some notable — and wildly eclectic — results were released on last fall’s swan song, A People’s History of The Dismemberment Plan. Me? I can’t decide between the breakneck bricolage of “Pay for the Piano” (featuring cameos by Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up”) or the strolling mash-up of “Superpowers” (built on the guitar line from the Faces’ “Ooh La La”).

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Daedelus

Cacophonic intro track to Daedelus’ hip-hop record, Rethinking the Weather, layers a psychotic amount of voices over noodles of acoustic guitar, clattered beats, and flute loops. It’s but a small, imperfect glimpse into Daedelus’ expanding, eclectic universe.

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Headset

Allen Avanessian (Plug Research) and Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel, Postal Service, Figurine) hit the lab with a hard drive full of devolved beats and glitch-and-paste collages, then invite a who’s who of electronic and hip-hop innovators to muse over the sparse foundation. The result ranges from head-nodding to chin-stroking; this track, featuring verbal gymnast Subtitle flowing over what sounds like a dying music box, exemplifies the latter.

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Fridge

UK post-rock trio, not unlike Tortoise, prone to toy with electronic and sometimes jazzy improvisations. Although Fridge can sometimes resort to experimentation for experimentation’s sake, these tracks are a fine sampling of their more accessible work. FYI: Fridge has spawned two solo projects, Four Tet (Kieran Hebden) and Adem (Adem Ilhan).

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