Uh oh, there's battle lines being drawn: "I never cared about Henry Rollins," Los Campesinos! sing on their new single, entitled, yes, "The International Tweexcore Underground". The Cardiff, Wales septet risk swirlies and worse here by dismissing not just the ex-Black Flag frontman but also Ian MacKaye and twee icons like Amelia Fletcher, Calvin Johnson, and Sarah Records. It's not only another surging indie-pop song that on first few listens stacks up to much of their excellent Sticking Fingers Into Sockets EP, but also an enthusiastic ode to the uncool. "I never got my ears pierced, and look how I turned out," Gareth Campesino! exclaims.

After a couple of animated videos, "The International Tweexcore Underground" marks computer-chair potatoes' first real chance to see live-action Los Campesinos!. Gareth, Aleksandra, and the rest of the Camps play the hell out of their guitars, xylophones, violins, etc.-- um, twee-style-- showing why their live show was enough for Pitchfork's Scott Plagenhoef to write that they "could be the best new band of 2007." Los Campesinos! also give acting a try, reenacting the lyrics' musical arguments as a living-room drama. So maybe they don't mean all that stuff about those indie music icons, but you have to think Rollins would admire their cojones.

[from "The International Tweexcore Underground" single"; due 10/22/07 on Wichita]

Not only is Sweden hoarding all the best pop hooks, but now the innocent-looking Scandinavian country is trying to corner the market on videos too. Spliced together from footage of a tent revival, this clip for Familjen's "Det Snurrar I Min Skalle" (which translates to "It's Spinning Inside My Head") turns fluorescent electro-pop pulses into grainy black-and-white, but without losing any color. Director Johan Söderberg, who has worked on videos for the Knife, the Streets, and Beyoncé, syncs the preacher and the congregation to Johan T. Karlsson's beats, creating something very new from something very old. And the woman dancing in tongues is one of my favorite video moments of the year.

Nu-rave is dead? Long live nu-rave. UK quartet Late of the Pier's grand retro-futurism picks up on some of the indie-dance leanings of new Mercury Prize winners Klaxons, along with a hiccupy approach to Gary Numan synth-pop, and some of the glam-rock pomp of the Darkness or Memphis Industries' Pigeon Coup signees Zan Pan. The video for previously Forkcast single "Bathroom Gurgle" shows a kinetic young band performing in what looks to be a house of broken mirrors-- does that make this what the powers-that-be call a "post-kinetic environment"? There are geometric designs on the dudes' chests, ever-changing backgrounds, plenty of shadows, and an alien-looking figure in a mask and black robe. "We have all been wasting our time," the Nottingham lads begin. You know, it really feels that way sometimes. Not at the mo.

[from the "Bathroom Gurgle" 7"; out now on Moshi Moshi]

Modest Mouse were on Kimmel Wednesday night, performing "We've Got Everything", from their nautically-themed opus We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. They miss James Mercer a bit on those high parts, but otherwise they're in fine form. It looks like they are about to launch into "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes", but unfortunately that is as far as this clip goes. It's still a little weird to see Johnny Marr up there!

With help from Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart, Toronto's Picastro melt this smarmy post-punk snarler into something eerie, frail, and deflated. One could potentially read it as a response to the Fall's original "Older Lover" in the guise of a cover: Picastro vocalist Liz Hysen playing a character that spits Mark E. Smith's own advice ("you'd better take an older lover") back at him in monotone and out of spite. Stewart, meanwhile, is mostly here to add atmosphere to the spare sustained piano march.

At one point Hysen even plays on the broken record aspect of this arrangement, dropping a few seconds of tape noise in mid-sentence, in between "her love was like your mother's" and "with added attractions." And given the defeated languor with which Hysen sings, she could very well be that lover Mark E. Smith "got tired of". But Smith, of course, is actually the older one here. Something tells me they'd make for a delightfully miserable pair.

MP3:> Picastro [ft. Jamie Stewart]: "Older Lover"
[from the Whore Luck LP, out now on Polyvinyl]

Berlin-based Man Recordings specializes in officially releasing baile funk. Diplo gave Man a shout, and included a remix by the label's DJ Sandrinho, when he did his recent Pitchfork mix. Vienna-based DJ Beware has pulled together highlights from the label's releases this year as an all-killer 15-minute "megamix". This percussion-heavy Man mix has jagged, tingling beats, cocksure Portuguese-language rapping, and berserk breaks out of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Tracks from Baile Funk Masters 1-3 by Rio DJs Sandrinho, Sany Pitbul, and DJ Edgar are included, along with selectons from the Funk Mundial Series 1-5 by Sinden & Count of Monte Crystal, Stereotyp, Seiji and others collaborating with Brazilian MCs. Fans of compilations like Rio Baile Funk-- or of artists like Bonde Do Role, MIA, and, I dunno, Diplo-- should especially take note. Caipirinhas all around.

MP3:> DJ Beware: "Man Recordings Mix 07"

It's 30 years after Tony Manero strutted down the streets of Brooklyn to the tune of the then chart-topping Bee Gees, and somehow the disregarded disco regals are en vogue once more. Here we have the hit single from Saturday Night Fever (and namesake of the Sly-directed film sequel), "Stayin' Alive", getting the remix treatment from Sweden's Teddybears. After an opening "Jive Talkin'"-style strum, the 'bears meld the track's famously funky guitar line to a fuzzed-out bass tone reminiscent of current dancefloor kings Justice. Sadly, the remix slides in at just under three minutes-- not quite long enough to squeeze in the "goin' nowhere" bridge. But hearing those classic Gibb falsettos meshed with some revving snyths and a few bells and whistles means that, whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother, these guys are still stayin' alive.

Middle-of-the-road, garden variety, Garden State indie rock has been grabbing ad jingles, soundtracks, and blog love for the past few years, but the noise underground is still alive and well for those whose lives were unchanged by the Shins. Take Sightings, a Brooklyn trio who push sonic boundaries with plain old guitar, bass, and drums. Even if you don't like them, at the very least the band makes a memorable impression. "Perforated", from the forthcoming Andrew WK-produced release Through the Panama on Load, sucks you in right away with a bassline that sounds like an off-kilter "Ace of Spades", hypnotic, tribal drumming, and a speaker-shredding wall of wailing guitars. Stream-of-conscious lyrics in Thurston Moore-like murmurs follow about a perforated self, cutting along the line, trading faces, and shedding skins. It's a big, bad freakout that gets better with each listen.

Last year the Voyager spacecraft broke free from our solar system, carrying a golden record of sounds and images from our world. As seen in the Tom Haines-directed video for previously Forkcast track "Bullets", at least, the members of London sextet Tunng could tell future alien civilizations nearly as much about this weird place called Earth. As keyboards swell, Tunng orbit the planet in a satellite seemingly constructed from all the detritus of the past century or so-- musical instruments, sporting equipment, bicycle tires, stuffed animals, rubber duckies... you name it. An astronaut looks on in stunned silence. After the band members poke their heads out, all the junk starts moving in oompah rhythm. A few nifty View-Master shots later, they get too close to the sun, and some cool shit goes down. "And now we don't remember," they sing. So maybe "folk" doesn't quite fit, as we wrote before, but what about "space-folk"?

[from Good Arrows; due 09/25/07 in the U.S. on Thrill Jockey; out now in the UK on Full Time Hobby]

We've already talked about this song a couple of times here, including mention of the official video, but this live version from the San Francisco club the Independent is extra fun. Clips of this set have surfaced on YouTube, but the quality here is much, much better. Singer Will Sheff explains to the crowd the strangeness of the band's appearance on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" days before, and he talks about how they considered adding additional lyrics to "Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe", which they ultimately performed on the show, in honor of Conan guest Jeff Goldblum. He also explains why it didn't happen. Sheff performs the new verses here in an opening acoustic bit, and they reference The Fly and Geena Davis, among a few other of the actor's career highlights.

Most beats get better when you put the Clipse over them. "Flashing Lights", a string-laden, fashion-obsessed highlight from Kanye West's Best New Music'd Graduation, has a pretty memorable beat already. DJ Benzi, who earlier this year brought you Lil Wayne's star-studded None Higher: We Got the Remix mixtape, puts Clipse's tangled wordplay over the "Flashing Lights" instrumental. The results make for a better track even as they show up West's lingering shortcomings as a rapper. While Clipse's rhymes aren't exactly fresh-- a line about Return of the Sith [sic] dates back to 2005's We Got It For Cheap mixtapes-- otherwise there's not much to complain about. Unless maybe you're a hugely successful rapper/producer who spends an inordinate amount of time thinking about award shows. Hear the track over at Vibe's RapidShare blog, written by former Pitchfork critic Sean Fennessey.

Stream:> Clipse: "Flashing Lights (Benzi Refix)

Doesn't anybody just sing songs onstage anymore? Of all the "Shoot (x) band in (y) location" sites that have sprung up (I'm hoping for someone to step up and do "Unplugged on the Wing of a Moving 737"), French video blog La Blogothèque and their "Take Away Show" is still king. And these clips of the Liars show why. The band's music is often claustrophobic and imbued with the texture of industry, so why not film them performing Drum's Not Dead opener "Be Quiet Mt. Heart Attack" in a steel elevator, using the walls as percussion? And it works! The video really does capture something essential about the music, which should be the goal for this sort of thing. A performance of "Freak Out" in another part of the same building is nice for revealing the song's traditional structure but not quite as essential.

Liars: "Be Quiet Mt. Heart Attack"

 

Liars: "Freak Out"

[Liars is out now on Mute]