Best New Music Spring 2008

The 22-year-old Randolph Chabot is Deastro, a one-man machine synthesizing Death Cab for Cutie, M83, LCD Soundsystem and other future-rock practitioners into a glitzy world overflowing with regret. Keeper's' ten songs are culled from demos and home recordings Chabot pieced together in his parents' basement, a land decidedly far from the dance floors and neon-lit city streets of his music, a place where his bald yearning and incredible talents find no boundaries, a place where he still lives. Like any dreamer, Chabot's imagined world is infinitely better than the one where he resides, "a place where I am free," as he sings in "The Goodman of the House." After learning more and more of his life, I can't help but to think of Chabot as Bastion of The Neverending Story, a young man subtly shifting from spectator to hero in a world of his own creation.

And make no mistake: Keeper's is wholly Chabot's. Certainly M83 has influenced the cut of Chabot's jib, and his voice unmistakably shares qualities with that of Ben Gibbard. But the crisp, sparkling environs of Keeper's come from one young man, and one man alone. Chabot has no other collaborators, and his songs — even with their swooping electronics, enormous guitars and startling self-assurance — ring with a vulnerability that can only come from a belief that no one would ever hear them. Sure, they are about love and longing — universal inspirations — but they are also acutely idiosyncratic, the product of an imagination that has yet to meet an obstacle it can't thwart.

"The Shaded Forests," the album's amazingly pop track (if someone told you this was the new Killers single, you wouldn't blink), is built around the following lyric: "When the wolf lays down to marry the lamb/ He'll lay down his fangs, he'll lay down his plans/ I told you, we're gonna be fine/ I t-t-t-t-told you, we're taking our time" (that last stuttering revealing a bit of Ric Ocasek in our boy), as if he's Hansel telling Gretel to hang in there, we ain't no cake, yet.

Spiraling out from "The Shaded Forests" — and "spiral" is the perfect word for the towering, Autobahn tones of "Michael the Lone Archer of the North Shore" and the spaghetti sci-fi instrumental "Light Powered" — the album's heart rate ebbs, songs like "The Green Harbor" and "The Floating Cradle" emotionally naked and fragile: in the latter, Chabot's self-harmonizing falsetto beckons like a Greek siren. And then there's the cathartic "Leah's Daughter the Giraffe," strings plucking while Chabot gorgeously coos "Oooooh/ The difference is your… eyes."

It bears repeating: Randolph Chabot is only 22-years-old. Music like this doesn't just happen, especially not when only one person is involved. That wunderkind word used at the beginning of this review was carefully weighed, and we stand by it. To return to the fairy tale idea, this could absolutely be one. Except fairy tales end, and for Randolph, this is merely the beginning.

Santogold has a storied industry pedigree — she worked in A&R for a major label; helped write and produce an ambitious pop soul album by Res; and sang (as a no-name, no less) on a big collection of covers by Mark Ronson — but the savviest of her many charms is the way she sounds a bit strange, clumsy and even awkward on her solo debut. That’s not a knock against her; it just goes to show how much Santogold changes shape and how little she can be sized up as an obvious heir to M.I.A. Certainly songs like “Creator” pick up on M.I.A.’s beloved stomp-and-toast vocals and polyglot sci-fi world sound, but just as much of Santogold swings at hooky reggae, gothy balladry and even snappy indie-rock.

“L.E.S. Artistes” makes the moody range known from the start, with smeared guitars and vocal moves straight out of mid-tempo Yeah Yeah Yeahs before “You’ll Find a Way” wanders into sharp, sawing reggae of the kind reconfigured by the Clash. That’s just in the span of two songs, and swerves of the sort are standard. Graced by the odder quirks of Santogold’s nasal voice, “Say Aha” suggests M.I.A. fronting a gypsy-rock band like Gogol Bordello. Which, of course, has nothing to do with the affecting Siouxsie & the Banshees-like sulk of “My Superman” or the homey indie-rock crunch of “Lights Out.”

Or does it? The one main drawback of Santogold is how little it communicates a clear sense of identity that might be carried over into a career. But then, it does an awfully good job of making the question of what comes next a fun one to mull.

As with Amy Winehouse, the sheer power of Adele’s voice naturally attracts comparisons with ’60s soul greats like Dusty Springfield, but what makes her exciting is a rawness that was impossible in that era. Like Wimbledon’s Jamie T and, in fact, Amy Winehouse, Adele’s Tottenham heritage is instantly obvious to the native listener, from her gor-blimey, glottal-stopping enunciation to her street (or: Streets, as in Mike Skinner) vernacular. In a country where Queen’s English has dominated culture for centuries (including pop, oddly), her regional colour feels fresh, too.

In a broader sense, though, she "speaks" for a promiscuous, binge-drinking young generation, who have no recollection of Britpop, let alone War-time values. In a superbly poignant image, Adele was spotted throwing up out of a cab window after a 2007 Spice Girls reunion gig.

Vomit aside, 19 is a terrific pop record, brilliantly sequenced and fresh-sounding. For this listener, the only misfire is "Cold Shoulder," produced by the ubiquitous Mark Ronson, with his now rather jaded-sounding shuffling beat. For all its thrilling execution, the main reason that 19 will surely go the commercial distance is the quality of Adkins’ songs. Her lyrics, mostly about the lows (and very occasional highs) of romance, have a disarmingly direct impact. You’re in no doubt that she has lived these tunes.

"Daydreamer" offers a startling introduction to her world, as she lays bare a relationship with a bisexual guy who prefers his gay fella. "Best for Last" is a fantastically savvy (but moving) analysis of a casual liaison, where each partner is too cool to commit, acting out a charade of intimacy, but secretly longing for more. "Right as Rain" celebrates of the sweet agony of emotional ruin.

A minority chunk of 19 is dispatched by Adkins solo, sometimes armed with an acoustic, others on bass, or, as on "First Love," celeste. There, the one-on-one force of her voice is quite staggering, at times swooping and soaring, at others intricate and agile. Amid these moments of intimacy, other tracks begin minimally, as does her almost-chart-topping first single, "Chasing Pavements," only to erupt into orchestral splendour of epic proportions.

There's probably no finer compliment, however, to offer Adele than this: Bob Dylan’s "Make You Feel My Love," beautiful covered midway through, anything but towers over the rest of 19, songwriting-wise. For once, Britain’s next big thing has the talent to warrant such attention. Let’s just hope that fame now provides her with an ongoing supply of crap boyfriends...

Au, a not-particularly-easy-to-classify band from Portland, play a weird, welcoming brand of quasi-ritual music with alternating strains of futurism and anachronism that run on parallel tracks. No talk of them can go long without mention of Animal Collective, but Au take that obvious influence into some less-than-obvious corners. Dense with handclaps and whoops of elfin provenance, “Are Animals” sounds like Animal Collective hanging out a carnival booth where feats of derring-do are rewarded with toy thumb pianos — but only before it swerves, halfway in, towards jazz-fusion with a squirming bass line and vintage organ sounds. The same sense of sepia-toned history drifts into “RR Vs. D,” which mixes would-be showtune murmurs with hints of barrelhouse piano before launching into full-bore parade music. Likewise “Prelude,” which slows down to an ambient crawl but still derives its drama from what sounds like an old accordion or hurdy-gurdy. Some of the other slower songs, given to wandering lines of languid guitar, sound slight and bare in comparison to Verbs’ more unique highlights. But then there’s an arresting exception like “Summerheat,” which builds an ethereal singing-saw mood into something more brash and cathartic with splashy cymbals, sliding strings and flecks of good old-fashioned banjo.

Sure, All We Could Do Was Sing is a bit of an amalgam, its 11 songs effectively capturing what so many people love about the Decemberists and Arcade Fire and other indie luminaries, sometimes musically but more often in a sort of nervous, brainy excitement that explodes in songs like opener "I Woke Up Today," with its beginning drum pounds that I find myself wishing would continue through the whole album, like some indigenous revival. But the record does slow and swoon, and singer Van Pierszalowski has the perfect, broken voice to lead those disappointments and slow crumbles to the floor. "I'm doing okay for a young man/ I've got a place to stay," he sings in "Fisherman's Son" (my favorite track), sounding a bit like Neil Young on After the Gold Rush, a boy realizing he is destined to be a man he distrusts. There's a heartbreaking sweetness to his lament: "I am a fisherman's son/ That is what I will become."

The theme of All We Could Do Was Sing is desperation, but not, interestingly, resignation. Pierszalowski and Cambria Goodwin understand the slow death of life, and they react with either a quiet fortitude ("I'm not ready to settle down" in "Don't Take My Advice," a possible answer track to (again) Neil Young's brilliant "Tired Eyes") or a euphoric sense of denial, both polemic, American reactions to the absurd challenges of life.

So does that make this record a bummer? Not at all. It's more of a commiserater and collaborator, a conspirator in your own plots against life's exhaustions. The sounds are familiar, and so are the sentiments. It's from those recognizable perches that All We Could Do anchors itself deep in your insecurities and darkest sadness. And there it stays.

The Eels song “I Like Birds” could’ve been written about Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg. This Austin, Texas frontman is a graduate student in ornithology, has named the band he started with Okkervil River’s Will Sheff after a seabird, and has titled Shearwater’s fifth album after a European crow. It’s nearly impossible to think of Shearwater’s intimate, emotional music — in particular, Meiburg’s seemingly airborne tenor — without such words as soaring, swooping or sailing. Both the quartet and its singer seem to be, like the winged life with which they’re clearly obsessed, on the verge of defying gravity.

Meiburg’s no longer an Okkervil River member, and unlike previous Shearwater albums, Rook does without Sheff's contributions. This is as it should be: Meiburg's found himself as Shearwater’s guiding force and focus. His wafting vocal performance here and the fluttering arrangements gliding around it transcend Shearwater’s initial side project status as a repository for Meiburg and Sheff's quiet songs. As the grinding midsection of opening cut "On the Death of the Waters" makes clear, Rook gets quite loud in parts. With its lopsided rhythms, multiple distorted guitars, and enraged Meiburg vocal, "Century Eyes" is unabashed post-punk.

These brief excursions in clanging fury heighten the hushed beauty of Rook’s fragile bulk. The band’s austere presence on muted guitars, keyboards, and percussion is magnified by strings, woodwinds and horns that maximize Meiburg’s poised sense of dynamics and drama as the instrumentation rises and falls in support of his keening cry. In "I Was a Cloud," the seemingly aerial accompaniment hovers as the singer lovingly contemplates a sparrow. This would be ridiculous if it wasn’t done with such disarming, heartfelt care.

Esperanza documents a 23-year-old prodigy near the onset of her career, wielding her ambition and effervescence to put the development of her myriad talents on fast-forward. It's a shrewd showcase, giving full measure to the jazz bass chops that have made Spaulding the second-youngest faculty member (behind her friend Pat Metheny) ever to teach at Berklee. Also on display are Spalding's lithe, airy vocals (sung in English, Portuguese and Spanish), and her compelling knack for songwriting and arranging.

As a singer, the Spalding gravitates toward the breathy-but-rich female vocal tradition of Brazil, from Elis Regina to Ceu, with Astrid Gilberto as the touchstone for common reference. Thus, Milton Nascimento’s lush “Ponta De Areia” (one of only three cover songs among the dozen tracks) is an ideal opener; the rapid-fire “I Know You Know” is cute, catchy, clever and somehow not cloying; and the ballad “Fall In,” with just piano as accompaniment, relies on a beautiful blend of melody and narrative to cover for its limited tonal range.

On the next two numbers, Spalding the jazz bassist steps forcefully to the fore, her playing creating a dazzling, scat-pluck duality with her vocals. Spauling's penetrating tone — rounded, scampering notes, like Charles Mingus although obviously not as advanced — acts as a catalyst for her highly-regarded horn players (trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and saxophonist Donald Harrison). And her sexy, elegant put-downs of would-be and past lovers on “She Got to You” and “Precious” are kinetic jazz-pop and, with any justice, full-fledged radio hits. Throw in her funky good looks, and stardom seems likely — if not inevitable.

This is anti-stress music that calms rather than anesthetizes, deploying delicate, intelligent interplay instead of insipid repetition. Many of the 13 tracks exude that sense of quiet-but-quickening mystery that unfolds in the space just before and after dawn. Maupin’s bass clarinet caresses like velvet on the Latin-ish “Escondido,” and his tenor sax explores the crevices of the collective improvisation “Inside the Shadows.” Occasionally he’ll grab his soprano and dramatically up the intensity, as on the remake of his mid-'70s classic “The Jewel in the Lotus” or the Coltrane-oriented title song.

After being a crucial foil for Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis decades ago, Maupin, now 68, fell out of sight for awhile. His reemergence on the sublime Penumbra two years ago has now been matched by this gem (accompanied by relatively obscure European sidemen), and provides jazz with another much-needed shaman.

Though it’s more tightly focused and accessible than the glorious sprawl of Benevento’s 3-disc, Live at Tonic outing last year, Invisible Baby remains a daring, genre-bending trio record, one that showcases more of the acoustic piano chops Benevento gleaned from Joanne Brackeen and Brad Mehldau. The opener “Bus Ride” features some of the anthemic, vamp-oriented virtuosity one might expect from a former sideman of Phish’s Trey Anastasio. It leads into a gentler redux of “Record Book” from Live at Tonic, connoting innocence — like a soundtrack to a birth or a sunrise — with its simultaneous sense of peace and rustling.

One of the best things about Benevento, honed from his long association with Joe Russo, is his synergistic sharing of the spotlight with drummers. You hear it on “Atari,” when Benevento leads with a jittery riff that sounds like Liberace at the harpsichord and drummer Matt Chamberlain immediately catches the frenetic campy spirit and carries the tune the rest of the way. And check out drummer Andrew Barr’s ingenious rhythmic shadings on “Ruby,” a mélange of Benevento’s first dream about his daughter and the actual experience of her falling asleep in his arms (it turned up on Tonic as “The Arrival of Greatness”). Some of the more lightweight material ranges from inspired giddiness (“The Real Morning Party,” like a goofy video game gone a-clatter) to perverse (“If You Keep Asking Me” features a riff that is meant to be annoying, and succeeds). The finale, “Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody?” bookends well with “Bus Ride,” with its swelling (mellotron fueled) climaxes and stylish interplay.

Chicago’s Vandermark 5 are both prolific and predictable, yet usually fingerprint each album with an enticing twist. For Beat Reader it's the increased influence of newest member Fred Lonberg-Holm on cello, whether adding liltingly hummable bowed lines to the chamber jazz of “Further from the Truth” or igniting a Hendrixian bonfire on “Speedplay.” Elsewhere, Vandermark retains his penchant for making interlocking chock-a-block rhythms into toe-tapping melodies, and for creating compelling sonorities with saxophonist Dave Rempis on baritone sax or a variety of clarinets (like his wonderfully burred bass clarinet tones on the opening “Friction”). The rhythm section, especially tommy-gun drummer Tim Daisy, is typically staunch.

For their third album, mischievous Parisian duo Nicolas Sfintescu and Ezekiel Pailhes have forsaken the conventional techno that made their name and fully embraced a Brechtian bierkellar aesthetic. The result is a 47-minute mini-masterpiece that should, if there is any justice, make Nôze the disco Gogol Bordello.

Songs on the Rocks opens with its best shots. "L’Inconnu Du Placard" finds the hitherto hidden connection between Rain Dogs-era Tom Waits, funky house and Walt Disney’s "Pink Elephants on Parade." Based around a timpani-charged rhythm, an ever-circling three-note marimba riff and Nicolas Sfintescu barking "Uncle Charlie!" in a Franglais growl, it's close to being the perfect globally-informed dance tune for a pop scene rediscovering the pleasures of witty disco. It's followed by the irresistible "Danse Avec Moi," which manages to showcase saloon bar piano, a dreamily-arranged orchestra and a deliciously sexy French duet between guest vocalists Dani Siciliano and David Lafore.

You could argue that the waltz-time "You Have to Dance," with its junkyard percussion, Dixieland clarinet and Marc Ribot-style guitar, wears its Waitsian influences a little too proudly on its whiskey-soaked sleeve; it sets the tone for much of the rest of the album, including "Childhood Blues" (Waits goes acid house), "You Have to Dance" (Waits goes ska-house) and "Slum Girl" (Waits goes Isaac Hayes). Nevertheless, "Slum Girl"’s epic arrangement — all stabbing brass and huge, sinister strings — exemplifies both the grand ambition and the come-hither humour of Nôze’s muse. And when they tear themselves away from the swordfishtrombones, the result is wonderful music like "Ethiopo," which takes the entire notion of tribal house to its natural conclusions. Add the extraordinary, lo-fi piano-house club hit "Remember Love" and it becomes patently obvious that, purely on the basis of melody, rhythm, arrangement and production, Songs on the Rocks is one of 2008’s finest, all-killer-no-filler albums.

2006’s Movements, the first album by Berlin electro-house duo Booka Shade, wormed its way into the lay listener’s ear by couching its freaky noises in gliding grooves. The album warranted multiple listens to tease its secrets out, and that subtlety — this was dance music that didn’t bash you over the head with how ecstatic it was — made it appeal to club-rats and non-dance-lovers alike.

If anything, The Sun & the Neon Light is even subtler, and it’s not exactly surprising that it’s also slicker and sleeker than the debut. But once Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier’s constructs click — it took me three full listens — you begin to notice the many details they sneak in. The muffled vocals on tracks like “Control Me” and “Sweet Lies” give the songs a fluorescent-glow resemblance to, respectively, Depeche Mode and New Order at their most twinklingly robotic.

Not including the come-down “Comacabana” and self-explanatorily subtitled “You Don’t Know What You Mean to Me (J’s Lullaby),” the album’s sequence peaks higher as it goes: “Karma Car” features a heaving, follow-the-bouncing-ball keyboard hook, while “Psychameleon” rides a lightly shuffling beat and slurping cascades of synth bass. It’s the definition of a grower — the more attention you pay it, the greater the reward.

In 1983, a 30-ish ad copywriter named Steve Stein and his sound engineer friend Doug DiFranco followed an ad from Tommy Boy Records to the glory of a $100 remix contest win. Not much of a creation myth, but “The Payoff Mix,” with its gleeful and increasingly frantic spray of tiny tape-slices of Culture Club, Little Richard and Bugs Bunny, became a keystone of mash-up culture. Now, after decades of overpriced bootlegs and whispers from the underground, the collected works of the man called Steinski have finally surfaced in one place, courtesy of the pirates at Illegal Art (home of clear Steinski disciple Girl Talk). What set the world alight here was the anything-goes authority with which Stein and DiFranco (and later Coldcut) would marshal anything within reach, so long as it squared to the omnipotent beat.

The early party-rockers roll together the hits of James Brown, the Sugar Hill catalog and whatever was playing on KISS-FM at the time to create warped, elastic, floor-filling mixes. As utterly classic as those are, the real excitement comes when these elements were grafted to Big Statements, chopping up the words of anyone from Bush I to Gloria Steinem until they flow — like accidental MCs, scattering their words from their meanings and putting the “head” back in head-nod. Included is a mix Stein created for Coldcut's “Solid Steel” radio show in 2002, which riffs on Stein's practically Paleozoic age — he's pushing 60. But who else would begin a hip-hop mix with a snatch of '50s big-band rumble before tumbling into bed with Li'l Kim? Too much fun for a history lesson.

In dance music, the pseudonym reigns supreme. So it's not surprising to learn that half of the duo Quiet Village is Matt Edwards, the British DJ-producer who’s worked under numerous monikers; he’s best known for the frequently brilliant singles he’s put out as Radio Slave. (He also issued a legendary Kylie/New Order mash-up under that name.) The attention to detail Edwards shows on Radio Slave tracks like "Bell Clap Dance" and "My Bleep" makes Silent Movie, the first album he's released with Quiet Village partner Joel Martin, less surprising than it might be — but only slightly. Martin is a former film editor who venerates cutout soundtrack and cheesy-listening vinyl as much as his partner does, and they fill Silent Movie with enough out-of-nowhere snippets to turn even obviously familiar elements on their head.

The album is an exercise in opulence. "Victoria's Secret" opens things with gulls and waves lapping ashore alongside serene strings and woodwinds. But it’s also slightly seasick, befitting its despondent source material, the Chi-Lites' "Coldest Day of My Life." Similar strings underpin "Circus of Horror," but the main attraction there is a guttural guitar riff reminiscent equally of blaxploitation-soundtrack funk and hairy ’70s sludge-rock. “Free Rider” crosses trip-hop atmospherica, stoned acoustic folk, wah-wah guitar that calls to mind the lonesome whistle from Ennio Morricone spaghetti western themes and oddly unsettling crowd noises. "Singing Sand" sounds like its title. Chimes, pitter-patting bongos, filtered whispered exhales, sideways strings and a ponderous piano line — on paper, it seems like treacle, but the elements are arranged to unsettle, and succeed.

Of course, flirting with cheese means you sometimes fall in — "Keep on Rolling" is a little too yacht-rock for its own good, for example, even if that's its explicit goal. But at its frequent best, Silent Movie is head-spinning, sample-slaw exotica, one of the best albums of its type this side of the Avalanches' debut.

The coolest kids you knew when you were younger always displayed a weird mastery of meaningless skills. Maybe they could win Contra without entering the secret 30-guy code, or maybe they could ride a wheelie for a whole block. Whatever their specialty was, their easy command of it, and their overall devotion to the cosmically insignificant, somehow enhanced their Zen-master aura of coolness.

The Cool Kids, two smirking teenagers hailing from Chicago and Detroit, understand this truth instinctively. On The Bake Sale EP, their first official release, they boast effortless control of a wide range of utterly trivial skill sets. They know, for instance, that when you rhyme over self-consciously retro electro-rap beats made on cheap software, it’s best to state your breakfast-cereal preferences early, and often (Fruity Pebbles receive special mention). They understand exactly how little should go into simple, Rick Rubin-aping tracks, but grasp how hard it is to make an interesting one (they knock out ten in a row here). And they have perfected the art of the old-skool rap quotable: “Did you know I made this beat with a mouth and a bell? That’s F-Y-I/ I’m F-L-Y/ And for those that can’t spell/ I’m a pretty swell guy.” Or how about: “It’s that sick, it gets sicker than the flu/ — enza, you tend to pretend I’m you/ So attend you a class on how to be cooler/ In fact I’m the superintendent of the school.”

Most importantly, they seem to understand just how long this sort of ironic costume-party fun lasts; the EP runs exactly 36 minutes, stopping precisely one second before the affectation starts grating. These kids, after all, were not yet out of diapers when the era they are insouciantly mimicking was in full force, and they know better than to stick around after the novelty of 19-year-old kids in dookie chains wears off. Thanks to their knack for such minutiae, The Bake Sale EP is one of the most outrageously fun party-rap records of the year.

The Chicago rap duo Kidz in the Hall have managed to make some pretty impressive friends in their short existence. First of all, they were svengali’d by Just Blaze, whose tastes run to throwback rap when he’s not cranking out bangers for Jay-Z. Now, for their second full-length, the Kidz have gathered an even more impressive roster of guests. The In Crowd, indeed. All the cool kids are here — hell, even the Cool Kids showed up — and they’ve come from all corners of the rap world. Bun B chops it up alongside a Masta Ace sample on the monstrous first single “Drivin Down the Block,” which also features Clipse’s Pusha T. Elsewhere, underground hip-hop luminaries from Phonte of Little Brother to the legendary rap duo Camp Lo turn out to show their support.

The result is not only a proud display of old-school battle-rap enthusiasm (very few guns are pulled or mentioned, but it is noted that “rookies” will get crushed “like a bag filled with pink cookies”) but also a refreshingly loose indie-rap party album. Producer Double-O is equally adept at breezy Chicago soul (“Paper Trail” and “Mr. Alladatshit”), boom-bap formalism (“Black Out”), sleek club beats (“Love Hangover”) and trunk-rattlers like “Drivin Down the Block.” Rapper Naledge, despite his stern, didactic name, is a playful crowd-mover, not above a ludicrous pick-up line but also capable of compassionate, clear-eyed storytelling (“The In Crowd” is a good example.) There are more cerebral indie-rap records out there, and more hard-hitting mainstream ones, but The In Crowd will appeal to tons of people who fall in between.

A family legacy can be a real bitch. A lot of folks try to ignore or hide from it; others embrace it with the half-heartedness of the heir apparent who really just wants to be left alone. A lot of musicians’ children tend toward the latter, but not Seun Kuti. The youngest son of Afrobeat founder and Nigerian pop legend Fela Kuti, Seun began playing alongside his father’s band, the Egypt 80, when he was nine, and began leading them following Fela’s death in 1997, when Seun was 15.

While his half-brother Femi has found success with a lighter, updated take on Fela’s sound, Seun messes very little with the Afrobeat formula. The focus is on bare-knuckle-tense guitar lines from rhythm man Alade Oluwagbemiga and lead player David Obavendo, commanding horn lines alternating with hot, sweet saxophone breaks and mostly English-language lyrics that question society and government in no uncertain terms: Seun’s “Don’t Give That Shit to Me” and “Many Things” — “All this shitty-shit shooting/ All this shitty-shit killing” — are both clearly indebted to dad’s 1975 classic “Expensive Shit.” But Seun’s onto something of his own, too. “Think Africa” is dense, swirling near-disco that sounds cognizant of the clubbier styles Femi mines without surrendering its basic Afrobeat base, and while Seun’s voice is reedier than Pop’s, it’s got the sort of sit-up-and-pay-attention authority that’s rare whether a pedigree is involved or not. Seun is only 26; this superb debut hints that things could get even better from here.

Twentysomething twelve-stringer James Blackshaw has ascended to the forefront of the steel-string tradition in just a few short years. At an age when most young musicians are instead enamored with the high-metabolism and angst of overdriven rock (or hip-hop) outbursts, it’s startling how patient and focused on craft Blackshaw is — not to mention how prolific. Where Blackshaw outshines other modern-day practitioners (many of which can be found on Imaginational Anthem 1, 2 and 3) is how he weds such skill to the timbre of other instruments, so that his finger-picked flurries might sparkle all the more.

Already on his sixth album, with Litany of Echoes Blackshaw addresses his curious position — young yet enamored with elders like John Fahey and Robbie Basho, living in the 21st century yet plying a sound centuries old — with “Past Has Not Passed” (a William Faulkner quote). A sterling, moving piece, Blackshaw takes the acoustic guitar and plunks it firmly in the present, his cycling figures hewing to the slow-rising sympathetic figures of a viola. Elsewhere, he even foregoes the guitar altogether, as on the bookends “Gate of Ivory” and “Gate of Horn,” where Blackshaw shows that he’s been taking on the restless, repetitive piano meditations as practiced by folks like Charlemagne Palestine and Terry Riley. Who knows what other instruments he might master before he hits thirty?

One of the oddest of this decade’s Finnish groups (which is saying something), Paavoharju are a musical collective of born-again Christians formed around two brothers, Lauri and Oli Ainala. The title of Paavoharju’s sophomore release translates as A Song about Flowers of the Valley, and the album has the feel of a song cycle or opera — albeit one fractured by short interludes and sound collages. The occasional voiceover narration in their native tongue and fever-dream juxtapositions of computerized and acoustic sounds make listening to Laulu sort of like watching a science fiction movie about aliens landing on a post-apocalyptic shoreline.

The music is a fairy-tale mixture of laptops, pianos, music boxes and field recordings of forest animals. While Paavoharju are capable of a Leonard Cohen-style accordion waltz like “Italialaisella,” they're also not afraid to break out a big Europop number (“Uskalian”). “Kevatrumpu”’s tremulous female vocals and jingling organ even recalls the great '60s/'70s Danish cult band Savage Rose. Citing influences as disparate as Portishead, landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich, director Ingmar Bergman and black metal band Burzum, Paavoharju create a compelling meditation on the dilemma of being caught between both the natural and technological worlds and the experimental and commercial music worlds. Fans of Björk at her most eccentric would do well to seek this album out.