Rod Modell Incense & Black Light

In the same rarefied vein of Porter Ricks’ Arctic sounds, inhuman techno throbs on Rod Modell’s Incense & Black Light. With Incense, the man behind Deepchord (and half of Echospace) plunges even deeper into the techno-dub void. This album is so icy and tar-on-coal dark, your brain will get frostbite listening to it (check the gyroscopically demonic “Temple”). “Aloeswood” sets the tone with muffled 4/4 kicks scudding like walruses over tundra while glaciers crackle in a polar cave. “Body Sonic” allows slivers of sunlight into the tenebrous mix; it’s one of the few cuts among the 10 here that’s more about moving asses than paralyzing limbs.

Man Man Rabbits Habits

“Pig’s feet and snake piss/Crow tongue and cat face” bellows Honus Honus on “The Ballad of Butter Beans.” He’s describing a recipe for black magic, but he might as well be talking about his music. Man Man’s caterwauling carnival pop bubbles over with the arcane, the bizarre, and the downright repulsive. Rabbits Habits–the band’s third full-length–is their most focused, and most satisfying, yet. Now the quintet’s eccentricities–those random brass breaks, synth quakes, and vocal aches–are nestled cozily against hook-heavy, Tom Waits-indebted heartbreak. Check “Big Trouble” and the lusty, Rhodes-driven “Top Drawer” for the best of the sweaty bunch.

Various From Dubplate to Download: The Best of Greensleeves Records

For the last 30 years, Greensleeves has been issuing a steady supply of modern Jamaican music, being one of the leading labels devoted to its dissemination. Although this London-based company began issuing roots music in the late 1970s, the futuristic sound of upfront dancehall became their primary focus, as profiled on this double-disc set. Disc One is nearly flawless, with wonderful works from the Wailing Souls, Doctor Alimantado, Frankie Paul, Cocoa Tea, and Wayne Smith, and although Disc Two becomes increasingly commercial through hits by Shaggy, Mr Vegas, and Elephant Man, the music has a typically high standard; composed of their biggest-selling releases, there are few surprises here, though the music itself remains eminently listenable.

Fat Ray and Black Milk “Get Focus feat. Phat Kat and Elzhi”

Detroit, historically, has had two great exports: cars and music. Well, there aren’t as many cars coming out of Michigan these days, but Fat Ray and Black Milk want to let you know that Detroit music isn’t slowing down or outsourcing any time soon. Black Milk is just 24 years old, but he’s already worked his production skills with some motor-city legends like J Dilla and Guilty Simpson, not to mention east coast artists Canibus, Lloyd Banks, and Pharoahe Monch. Fat Ray, emcee of the BR Gunna trio, collaborates on the The Set Up with Black Milk, his follow-up to 2007’s lauded Caltroit mixtape. Phat Kat and Elzhi, both from Detroit as well, are featured here on “Get Focus.” Wyatt Williams

Fat Ray & Black Milk – Get Focus Featuring Phat Kat And Elzhi

Ghostly and Adult Swim Release Free Compilation

Ann Arbor’s Ghostly imprint has teamed up with the Adult Swim crew for not just any old release, but a free one. The 19-track, digital-only Ghostly Swim compilation will feature the label’s usual suspects, like Matthew Dear, Aeroc, Kill Memory Crash, and Osborne, along with Flying Lotus, Samiyam, Dark Party (Eliot Lipp and Leo 123), and other friends. BoyCatBird, Ghostly’s new mascot, also makes its animated debut here, in the form of a music video. We’ve been instructed to check out the new BoyCatBird website, for avatars, wallpapers, comics, and other items.

Download Ghostly Swimhere.

Tracklisting
1. Michna “Triple Chrome Dipped”
2. Dabrye “Temper”
3. The Chap “Carlos Walter Wendy Stanley”
4. Dark Party “Active”
5. Tycho “Cascade” (Live Version)
6. JDSY “All Shapes”
7. Deastro “Light Powered”
8. Mattehw Dear “R+S”
9. Flyamsam “The Offbeat”
10. Cepia “Ithaca”
11. Aeroc “Idiom”
12. The Reflecting Skin “Traffickers”
13. School of Seven Bells “Chain”
14. Ben Benjamin “Squirmy Sign Language”
15. Kill Memory Crash “Hit + Run”
16. Osborne “Wait a Minute”
17. Milosh “Then it Happened”
18. 10:32 “Blue Little”
19. Mux Mool “Night Court”

Photo of Matthew Dear by Doug Coombe.

Spectrum Meets Captain Memphis “Take Your Time”

“Take Your Time” is considered one of Spectrum‘s ultra-rare songs, and thanks to a collaboration that happened in Mississippi with Jim Dickinson, a.k.a. Captain Memphis, the track will be in wide circulation as part of the duo’s Indian Giver album. The release also features a fuzzy rendition of a Mudhoney song, a new Spectrum number, and contributions from the Tate County Singers.

SPectrum Meets Captain Memphis – Take Your Time

Boredoms Super Roots 9

Over the last decade, no group has more convincingly and consistently replicated peak hallucinogenic experiences through sound than Japan’s Boredoms. The unparalleled highs continue on Super Roots 9, which contains a single 40-minute track titled “LIVWE.” Starting with angelic, male/female choral aahhs, bell-tree shaking, panning cymbal splashes, and booming bass drum, the piece gradually blossoms into a spiritualized whirlwind. Twenty-four massed voices ebb and flow, reaching heavenly heights of transport while three drummers generate galloping thumps with Olympian might. Earth’s greatest psychedelic band thus has created a masterpiece of gospel-tribal-interstellar overdrive that dwarfs all other musical efforts. By disc’s end, you’re convinced the Wagner-on-mescaline storm Eye & Co. have conjured could cure cancer and eradicate terrorism.

Indian Jewelry We Are the Wild Beast

Before they were Indian Jewelry, the Houston-bred, L.A.-based noise-rock group performed as NTX + Electric. We Are the Wild Beast, NTX + Electric’s sole full-length (reissued as an Indian Jewelry album), is based on ideas that came to frontwoman Erika Thrasher in a dream, and were written and recorded in the band’s kitchen in 2003. The album’s lo-fi aesthetic adds a certain moodiness to its noisy No Wave feel; from the skuzzy saxes on “Walk Through Fire” to the distorted bassline on closer “Fuckface,” the instruments blend together, thanks to the record’s ramshackle production values. Trends may come and go, and many have since this record was first made back in 2003, but it still sounds fresh.

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