ISOBEL CAMPBELL & MARK LANEGAN - Sunday At Devil Dirt

Released as a UK import on V2 back in May, it's perfect timing that Isobel Campbell gets to now share a domestic release date with her old Belle and Sebastian bandmates. For this second collaboration by the pair, the Devil's even more in the details, like "The Raven"'s Lanegan-led "Rubber Room" slapback, "Come On Over (Turn Me On)"'s "Glory Box"/Isaac Hayes-evoking string-draped descending four-note figure, and, maybe most impressively, "Back Burner", an eerie update of Dr. John's classic Gris-Gris voodoo blues.

CARL CRAIG & MORITZ VON OSWALD - Recomposed: Music By Maurice Ravel & Modest Mussorgsky

Patient, precise, full-frequency-conscious and detail-oriented like the respective production work of both men (Craig and von Oswald, that is!), the "Intro" to these reworkings of von Karajan-conducted multitracks is an ambient, New Age-y treatment of/substitute for an orchestra tune-up, followed by a marching snare sample and staccato horns sending the listener from "Movement I" to "Movement II"'s tension-building quickening and modulations of the pulse. The first generic inklings of tech-house then leak in (filter sweeps, double-time hi-hat), easing us into that inevitable 4/4 kick. Softening focus for the last half-hour, fans of recent longform electronic excursions from Villalobos to 45:33 can bask in these rarefied concert-hall cut-ups.

BOBBY CHARLES - S/T

Sounding here like a Cajun, countrified Randy Newman or an older bon-vivant equal to The Band's Rick Danko and Richard Manuel, Bobby Charles' career was (attempted to be) revived with this 1972 set, co-produced by Danko and including contributions from Manuel, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, John Simon and Dr. John. With Vetiver having covered "I Must Be In A Good Place Now" and local rock'n'soul revue Steamboat featuring Charles/Danko co-write "Small Town Talk" in their repertoire, these songs have been kept alive by a current generation of musicians, and are now back in print (while the limited pressing lasts) via Rhino UK's arm of the Encore series.  

ARTHUR RUSSELL - Love Is Overtaking Me

The furthest-spanning collection thus far from Russell's archives, Love Is Overtaking Me is a loosely chronological (1974-1990) look at Arthur's most accessible (but no less odd) pop, country and folk songs, often in the vein of James Taylor or Jackson Browne and variously betraying his loves of Randy Travis, Jonathan Richman, and Talking Heads. Whether backed by tamboura and tablas, Van Morrison-like horn charts, pedal steel, DX7 and drum machine, or simply solo cello or acoustic guitar, Russell epitomizes the boundless new-wave/new-music hybrid that fermented in 1980s New York.

The Rough Guide To The Best Music You've Never Heard

Even if you actually have heard (or heard of) most or all of these less-heralded albums and artists, the anecdotes, quotes and playlists within make for great cross-genre supplementary reading. As selective as it must be in order to have been whittled down to digest-size Rough Guide form (at least there's plenty of room for more volumes to follow!), and despite the inclusion of a few younger acts (mostly British, it must be noted) arguably too new to really merit early canonizing, The Best Music You've Never Heard is still an awfully close equivalent to browsing in (and picking the brains of the staff of) a deeper-catalogue CD shop such as, well, ourselves.   

VA - Take Me To The River: A Southern Soul Story 1961-1977

An already stellar year for soul reissues (see the Sweet Soul Music series on Bear Family or the Eccentric Soul series on Numero Group) continues, as Take Me To The River compiles 75 deep soul songs, each one a matter of the heart and, in most cases, heartbreak. One great strength of the set is that superstars like Otis and Aretha sit side-by-side with overlooked masters like James Carr and O.V. Wright, bringing to light the depth of riches to be found in soul music.

LA DÜSSELDORF - S/T

For all the attendant frustrations when the odd scheduled reissue gets pushed back (we'd be looking at you if you weren't such a distant speck, Crazy Rhythms!), Water sure are thorough, licensing swaths of interrelated artists/albums in one fell swoop, as they have with the kosmische rock of Cluster/Kluster, Harmonia, Michael Rother and, now, Neu! partner Klaus Dinger's own vehicle, La Düsseldorf. La Düsseldorf and white-overall-clad successor Viva are as worthy a part of the late Dinger's legacy as the Neu! trilogy, expanding on 75's whisper-to-a-sneer Side B with utopian screeds spurring a new German consciousness, canned football cheers and all.

MOUNT EERIE WITH JULIE DOIRON & FRED SQUIRE - Lost Wisdom

Simple statements best cut through cluttered times, and many notable short or EP-length discs released this year prove the point. Add to the list Phil Elverum's newest, playing host to Julie Doiron and her current touring co-guitarist Fred Squire and coming away with 25 minutes of music. Shedding light/giving air after the smoky darkness of spring's Black Wooden Ceiling Opening (ten bursts of Rick White-like hardcore), Lost Wisdom's co-ed call-and-response and harmony singing fans the flames of domestic unrest, paying lived-through tribute to White and Doiron's work in Eric's Trip, a band that inspired Elverum to first record as The Microphones.   

DEERHUNTER - Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.

Staying with Kranky here in North America while joining the esteemed ranks of their idols in the Breeders, Stereolab and Blonde Redhead on 4AD in the UK, Deerhunter continue to clean up their sound, or least lose the menace at the edges of such earlier songs as Cryptograms' title track. Recouping from leak losses with the addition of bonus CD Weird Era Continued, this official edition of Microcastle makes for over eighty minutes of dashed-off, unkempt pop, while interstitial specks like scrape-percussed "Calvary Scars", creaky nylon-string/thumb piano-plucked "Activa", and the "Aux Out" segue of Weird Era Cont.'s "Calvary Scars II", falling into happy-apple spaciness and distant studio backtalk, blur the line even more between the band and Atlas Sound.

DEPARTMENT OF EAGLES - In Ear Park

While you wait for "While You Wait For The Others", the Dan Rossen-written song that Grizzly Bear have performed on TV and radio appearances throughout 2008 (and sure to be a highlight of their next disc), give a listen to this new record from Rossen's other project Department Of Eagles, a partnership with Fred Nicolaus predating his and Chrises Bear and Taylor's recruitment into the former (the latter two having now joined this band as well). Van Dyke Parks and Gene Clark have been mentioned as touchstones for In Ear Park, but this reviewer hears the pent-up elegance of Jeff Buckley's Grace over either elder, arrived at more in sentiment than intent.

EL GUINCHO - Alegranza!

With shockwaves still radiating out from that initial blast deep in the Canary Islands, Alegranza! has already seen release over the last year in Spain through Discoteca Oceano, then Australia and New Zealand via Mistletone Records, first reaching these shores in March as a sadly pricey import. Having spent the better part of '08 clearing samples, XL (more specifically, upstart indie-dance imprint Young Turks, whose only full-length issued as yet was Holy Fuck's last LP) now affordably looses El Guincho's solo street-party exotica upon the world at large, its tropical loops tolling ad infinitum to either endure or revel in. Hear him live at the El Mo Thu. Nov 27.

SHUGO TOKUMARU - Exit

Shugo Tokumaru's a Japanese gent, but the way in which he softens the syllables of the title to first track "Parachute" sounds more like "pra-geu" or something equally phonetically Portuguese. "Green Rain"'s seven-beat spriteliness, led by an accordion or concertina, stops for 4/4 piano balladry before a slight return. Exit's quick-edit cheer's comparable to Cornelius, but there's something old-world and hand-cobbled about Tokumaru's approach, less space-age bachelor pad than Rube Goldberg repair shop, with a higher-pitched singing style much closer to Dungen (peddling their own new disc, 4), especially when laying into the '70s chorus harmonies as on "Button".

BRIAN BORCHERDT - Coyotes EP

Before Brian Borcherdt formed Holy Fuck (anyone remember Hot Carl?), he was best known for his solo songwriting, and while two CDs as The Remains Of... were released on Dependent in the mid-naughts, the record that's still closest to the hearts of many fans is 2002's Moth EP. Coyotes' intimate tone makes for a more-than-worthy companion piece, strummed and sung in a Hayden-like hush that creates tension through staying restrained, a private, heart-on-sleeve candor that needs the security blanket only headphones can provide to quell the self-consciousness of listening in the presence of others.

JUANA MOLINA - Un Dia

Un Dia's title track has the pedal-twiddling Argentine locking background coos into a groove that later compels her to wail overtop like a polite cross between Gal Costa and OOIOO. Said politesse allows Molina to execute even her kookiest rhythmic ideas without alienating listeners, unlike Yoshimi's aforementioned lot. Claps in threes on the second half of "Lo Dejamos" combine with dryly-picked guitar to provide an avant-lite estro-alternative to Bird Show's astral travels. Like Jose Gonzalez (also of Argentinian heritage), Molina's modern folk is one of the more scenic middles of the road around.

ANTONY & THE JOHNSONS - Another World EP

He may not be for everyone, but those enchanted by Antony's campless cabaret should find Another World to be a filling twenty minutes. Eyebrows might especially raise upon hearing two-part rave-up "Shake That Devil", channeling Nina Simone full-on for once with his own bizarro-SNL Downtown twist to add to "See Line"-style gospel (with intense elemental imagery to match), nevermind the sudden pomp of "Hope Mountain"'s castle-drawbridge horn fanfare. Multiple spins are a must, and like Final Fantasy's new Spectrum 14th Century, this EP may be the man's best work yet, boding well for his proper followup to I Am A Bird Now, expected in early 2009.

DEERHOOF - Offend Maggie

Possibly the biggest underground art-pop band of the decade (so they aren't Radiohead, or even TV On The Radio, in terms of accessibility or fanbase, but both those bands are surely fans by now) take enough time off from perpetual touring to continue their biennial album output. The guitar tones might ring more consistently cleanly than on their last two, with occasional auxiliary instrumentation this time including an impressively unobtrusive piano presence on fuzz-bass thumper "Buck And Judy". When guitarists John Dieterich and Ed Rodriguez do step on their stompboxes, as at the dramatic pause halfway through "Eaguru Guru", though, they bite and slice in a way that still exhilarates like few other modern rockers can muster. Catch the cuddly killers live if you can, but this is a more-than-sufficient supplement to hearing these players' players in concert.

MERCURY REV - Snowflake Midnight

Reactions are already divided about the electro-happy turn taken here, but, to the band's credit either way, at least people are back to talking after a two-snooze run following the highlights that lit up Deserter's Songs. Anyone allergic to Donahue's LSDisney doggerel ("Senses On Fire"'s "Ready or not/Here I come" Broken Social call across the playground; "People Are So Unpredictable"'s lapse into hackneyed "There's no place like home" lament) could cheap out and go with free instrumental download companion Strange Attractor instead, although, misgivings aside, muting those helium vox would alter Midnight irrevokably. Strange relations in the Lips again supplanted?

FINAL FANTASY - Spectrum 14th Century EP

Stay posted for the 10" release of showtune-transformed Lukashevsky rags, Final Fantasy Plays To Please (pushed back to who knows when), but 'til then, full attention can be gladly paid to these 14th Century fakeways of the lordliest order. Birdcalls and faded-in mathy stabs in fifteen yield to distant swells of orchestration on opener "Oh Spectrum", using a nifty tympani transition to reach "Blue Imelda"'s steel-pan sweetening. "Cockatrice" mixes what might well be sandpaper and sticks as its base, intermittently breaking into thumb-piano pauses. Life on Spectrum ends with "The Ballad Of No-Face", whose pith could even be matched with a dead-end mag meme.

MADLIB THE BEAT KONDUCTA - WLIB AM: King Of The Wigflip

BBE's Beat Generation sends itself off with one last commission, an Oxnard Omega to Jay Dee's pre-ordained Alpha ode to the 'D', Welcome 2 Detroit. "The New Resident"'s an ADD ...In India equal to Badu-bought Kendricks re-vision "My People", its chromatic Nyabinghi bounce briefly bound to Ra-like uncredited female vocals. WLIB AM's reception's a bit scrambled overall, especially if you're looking for more cameo-free instrumentals than appear (wind 1:30 into "Blinfold Test #10" [sic] for J-Rocc's jazz-bass scratch clinic, though), but G. A. Muldrow and Defari's early guest spots are both bang-on (viz. the latter's Sunset Strip G'd-out gambol "Gamble On Ya Boy").

LINDA LEWIS - Fathoms Deep / WEE - You Can Fly On My Aeroplane

Here lie two very smooth, but very innovative mid-'70s soul albums entirely unknown to us prior to respective recent reissues on Collector's Choice and * (that would be the Numero Group's full-length Asterisk imprint pulling a Prince right there), whose catchiness has helped them worm their way into the listening habits of many of us here at the shop over this past month.

Fathoms Deep, Riperton-ian UK session singer (for Cat Stevens, David Bowie, Al Kooper, and Elton John) Lewis' second solo effort from 1974, has slightly savvier sequencing (and stronger songs, arguably) than debut Lark; "If I Could"'s reggae gallop anticipates peppy Stiff young'un Rachel Sweet's later hand at chirpy Caribbeana "It's So Different Here"; clean-sleaze clavinet wobbler "Kingman-Tinman" dirties up Betty Davis-style for some chorus breakdown funk; and under-two-minute live excerpt "Moles"' unadorned self-accompanied guitar shows that she could wow with solo folk as well.

Wee, a decidedly more obscure act by comparison, was the studio creation of Columbus songwriter and peripheral Capsoul Records roster alum Norman Whiteside, originally released in a 1000-copy pressing by Owl Studios in 1977 following Capsoul's rejection of his solo material and its subsequent dissolution. Aeroplane's spaced keyboard textures, melodic drive and oddball ambition should endear it to lovers of For You, Small Talk, Music Of My Mind, and Inspiration Information.