Air’s new material actually surpasses the film’s running time, so it’s important that the songs function independently, which they do quite admirably. In fact, the only indication that anything else is afoot is the launch sequence voiceover that turns up near the beginning of the album. After that, songs named “Cosmic Trip” and “Moon Fever” would be right at home on any other release from France’s resident space cadets.

The latter is comprised mainly of a lonely piano loop swathed in misty ambience that would make Groove Armada proud. “Sonic Armada” can be forgiven its awkward title, since it’s a career highlight and certainly the album’s master stroke — a growling bassline and some manner of keyboard plinkery caught up in an argument so captivating that you’ll zoom right past the jam band-inspired organ solo yammering away on top, easily on par with the finest moments of their beloved 1998 debut Moon Safari. From any other artist, a title like A Trip to the Moon might indicate a curveball or a dramatic experimental break, but in this case we’re merely reminded that Air has been hanging out up there all along.

Rose is working on an essay when I arrive, writing about the independent filmmaker George Kuchar for a British magazine. “Nobody knows him, but he really inspired John Waters. He made these crazy, weird, lo-fi movies — over 200 of them — and he taught at San Francisco Art Institute, where I was for one semester. He was a total freak-o, a weirdo. He just had this kind of dirty, anything goes, aesthetic — like, there are no rules.”

For this Jukebox Jury, I decided to use a hand-selected playlist as a springboard to talk to Rose about her own disregard of the rule book, her days as aSan Franciscopunk and her fondness for Dungeons & Dragons.

No Use for a Name, “Until It’s Gone”

I’m not sure I know this one!

Yeah, this was a bit of a stretch. This is by No Use for a Name, who were pretty instrumental in the San Francisco punk scene. I know you moved to San Francisco after you left high school — what brought that on?

I think I really wanted to go to New York, but I was 17. I had just gotten my diploma — I didn’t graduate, but I did get my diploma — and I just wanted to be somewhere else. I went on a vacation with my friend to San Francisco; it was the first time I had been to a proper city, and I just fell in love with it. And then I found out that such a thing as “art school” existed, and that blew my mind. Before that I’d painted, but just for fun. I didn’t really think it was something people could study. But I made a portfolio, and I got in immediately.

Were you playing music at this time, too?

No. I didn’t start playing music right away. I was really into bicycles. I was a bike messenger for about six years. I had friends that played in bands, but I must have been 23 — I’m guesstimating here — when I met Hannah Lew, who is now in Grass Widow. We were having a kind of rough time, and we were like, “Why don’t we start a band?” Neither one of us had ever really tried before, unless you count my band in middle school, which I don’t. We were called the Offspring. I like to think that I thought of that name, by the way. Anyway, the idea of actually making music was not something I realized was possible until I met Hannah. And then there was that great DIY idea that you could suck, and it was OK. Hearing the Raincoats — that was big. Those ladies, I don’t think anyone ever taught them how to play their instruments. So I started playing with Hannah, and that’s just how I landed behind the drums. I’d never played the drums before that, we all just learned together. And we just played generator shows at the BART [San Francisco Public Transportation System] station.

Generator shows?

Yeah, basically. There’s all these power outlets in the BART station, so you’d just plug in amps and a PA and have a show at the station and people come. You don’t need a venue which made for playing shows all the time. If you tried to do that here, you’d probably get arrested.

Phil Collins, “Sussudio”

Oh, I grew up with this! My mother loves Phil Collins. I like him — I mean, he’s a drummer-turned-songwriter.

That’s kind of why I chose him, actually. Can you tell me a little about how you first started writing songs?

I always kind of wrote songs here and there, but I was too shy to share them. It seems like it’s very personal to write a song and then show someone, to put it out there. The Vivian Girls is the first album that was a big step for me in terms of writing songs. That was really hard — it was scary. Drumming is very impersonal. You’re just banging on stuff. There wasn’t really a whole process. But I wanted to write some songs, and I had ideas coming to me, and everyone in the band was down for whatever, so I gave it a shot and it worked out. Sort of. And now, it’s like — if I could not touch one instrument at all, not even sing anything, then I would. If I could just have the idea, and write the songs for someone else and just be the idea person, that would be the ideal situation for me.

Primal Scream, “Loaded”

I chose this because Primal Scream are a great example of a band that started out essentially as a twee, c86-style band, but then changed radically once they teamed up with Andrew Weatherall for Screamadelica. Kind of a similar thing happened to you on Interstellar — what brought about this transformation?

Well, for one, I never ever want to do the same thing twice. You can’t learn anything from that, and I want to learn from record to record. I’m going to have to put out a metal record someday. I want to push myself into new arenas of music-making. So it was obvious that I had to do something that was more ambitious, but I didn’t know how that would manifest itself, except that I knew I wanted to use synths, and I knew I wanted to mess around with sampled drums. So that’s what I started with. In the end, I can’t take full responsibility for the final product. I had an amazing producer for this record. When I started the record, I was initially working with this one person, but I was getting the same album [as the first one]. And I thought, “This is not what I want. I need a synth wizard.” And that’s when I met [producer] Le Chev. And he just had a million synths. He just had access to them. He’s really just a dance music guy — I mean, he never even listened to the Cure before. So we kind of taught each other.

How so?

Well, I really learned so much about synths and drums from him, and he got to sit down with me, never having heard a Cure song or a Smiths song. We had a lot of fun. He’d just show me something weird, like a Salt-N-Pepa video — my ideas about pop have really changed since working with him. I mean, I grew up listening to the Smiths and the Cure and Bauhaus. On the radio, of course, there was Boyz II Men and Salt-N-Pepa, but I was never grabbed by it. When it came time to make the record, the decision to have the drums be as loud as they are, the vocals be as loud as they are — that’s all from pop music. And I don’t mean, like, ‘indie pop.’ I mean like Christina Aguilera pop. This idea that you are affected by big drums and big melodies — that was something I had never thought about before.

Blade Runner Soundtrack, “End Credits”

I feel like I’ve seen this movie so many times. Sci-fi movies, big fantasy movies really affected me. Brazil — all the Terry Gilliam movies, really — blew my mind. They still do. They’re so weird, sort of on the verge of riding the edge of reality and mysticism. And there’s darkness, too.  That did come into play largely on this record, because I wanted to make this feel like a soundtrack. I wanted to make a record that was filmic. It was so funny, there was one comment on the Soundcloud [for "Interstellar"] which I think was supposed to be a dis: “This is the best song on the Avatar soundtrack.” And I was like, “Exactly! Right!” That’s exactly what I wanted to do — something that could be used in a movie, that large sounding.

You’re also a bit of a D&D fan.

Oh, yeah, totally. My favorite. I don’t play as much anymore, because it’s really hard to find a good Dungeon Master. I think the last person to be a Dungeon Master was Joe from Pterodactyl. Amazing Dungeon Master.

Did you play the same character every time?

Half Elf, Chaotic Neutral, Woman. There’s a nerd haven down the street called 20 Sided Die. It’s just right down the street. They have D&D night every week. Actually now, their space is too small because it’s so popular.

Julee Cruise, “Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart”

I picked this because both this song and pretty much all of Interstellar puts a pretty heavy weight on the vocals to to convey the mood. How easy was it for you to get to that place as a singer?

I really had to work on that — it took a lot of takes. On my first record, I thought you could just cover anything up with a bunch of reverb. I thought that was OK. So I didn’t spend as much time getting really good vocal tracks. This time around, I was like, “The most important thing is the vocal. We will do this all night until I get the right one, and the best one, and it’s great.” It should sound good without the angry reverb on it. It should be acceptable to be dry. It took me awhile to do that, but I’m glad I did. It made for a much better record.

Arvo Pärt, “Tabula Rasa”

Arvo Pärt. I mean, talk about filmic. I feel like his music can bring me to tears immediately, which is why it’s in so many movies. The use of space, of something not happening — it’s so beautiful. Making something powerful and huge doesn’t mean something has to be happening all the time. I feel like he, as a composer, is the perfect example of that. So often, almost nothing is happening at all and it’s gorgeous. It’s beautiful, it’s perfect and I feel he has been an influence on me in that I don’t have to have something going on all the time. Sometimes the beauty is in the empty space of the track.

And that brings us to the end of the Jukebox Jury.

I think I won?

I mean, I think we all won.

A rough estimate: King’s written works have been stretched onto one screen or another more than 125 times. That’s counting TV mini-series, short films, both incarnations of Carrie and No Smoking, and the Bollywood interpretation of his short story “Quitter’s Inc.” Yep, Stephen King via Bollywood. I’ll wait while you put it in your queue.

And since his successes outside the bookstore (i.e. The Shining, Stand By Me, It, etc.) are so legendary, nearly his entire catalog has been optioned and adapted, sometimes with craptacular results (like Lawnmower Man, Thinner, Apt Pupil and Maximum Overdrive, for which King the writer can only blame King the director). In fact, putting together this whimsical little list proved somewhat difficult. His IMDB page thwarted me at every turn.

The Dead Zone? Dude, that was a movie and a TV series.

The short story “The General?” Sorry, that was part of the 1985 cinematic triptych Cat’s Eye.

How about that novella Riding the Bullet? Apparently that was a blip on the big screen in 2004, starring David Arquette and the chick who played the swim fan in Swimfan.

Still, like those intrepid langoliers in Langoliers, I pushed through and eventually came up with this list of five killer King books that, to the best of my knowledge, remain pristinely untainted by Hollywood (or Bollywood, for that matter).

Sleigh Bells, Reign of Terror: This is probably where we have the discussion about how bands almost never sound good on Saturday Night Live. Artists we know are great — Robyn, TV on the Radio — have all eaten it on live TV. And also, how were Sleigh Bells ever gonna be mixed for live TV anyway? It’s impossible to do. You’d have to go to the homes of everyone watching and kick the shit out of the woofers on their home theaters first. So Sleigh Bells didn’t sound great on SNL, but they did sound great at the record release show at Terminal 5 the night before, and they sound great all over this, their second record. eMusic’s Matt Fritch says:

Sleigh Bells’ spirited playfulness is alive on Reign Of Terror, but it’s subject to the kind of forethought, pacing and balance that’s normal to albums constructed for continuous listening. This means that in between the call-and-response fight song “Crush” and the manic whammy-bar bends of “Leader of the Pack” (which begins with the sound of a gunshot) is the ballad “End of the Line” — maybe not so much to provide caesura as to soothe the nerves. And in case you were waiting around for Sleigh Bells to do something macabre, “You Lost Me” is a typically over-the-top — and intriguing — stab.

Frankie Rose, Interstellar: For my money, this is the best record that’s out today. Frankie bids farewell to the garagey sound of yore and instead hitchhikes a ride to outer space in this shimmery, synthy and HIGHLY RECOMMENDED new record. Our own Jayson Greene wrote the glowing Pitchfork review. eMusic’s Matt Fritch says:

An appreciation for early-’80s new wave blankets Interstellar with a certain iciness — drum machines, oscillating keyboards, brittle-sounding guitars — but it’s not frozen solid. Rose’s voice unlocks these songs like a key; rather than apply the steely, remote effects given to so many electronic-pop vocalists, producer Le Chev (whose very name makes this album seem even more tilted toward the ’80s) keeps Rose’s voice at a tender, close distance.

Pulp, It, Freaks and Separations: I had 600,000 consecutive heart attacks when Pulp’s US shows were announced, and I consider Jarvis Cocker kind of my personal life icon, motivator and reason for being. So there’s all that. These are the first three Pulp records, made when Jarv was in his early 20s and hadn’t quite figured out what he wanted to do yet. So they’re good, but mostly as works-in-progress, “I’m still figuring it out” kinds of things. Almost twee in their reticence, each one gets a little bit more confident than the one before, but even Separations, the one right before breakout His ‘n’ Hers, doesn’t really indicate the heights to which they were headed.

Galactic, Carnivale Electricos: Galactic are from New Orleans, so the fact that they waited until now to make their first full-on Mardi Gras themed album is pretty impressive. It sounds pretty vibrant! Lots of percolating drums and blasts of horns and scuzzed-up guitars — honestly, I can hear a whole lot of Afrofunk lurking just beneath the simmering surface of these songs.

Sinead O’Connor, How About I Be Me (and you be you): Hmm. So I think I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got is as close to a perfect pop record as you can come. And this is the new record by the same person who made that record. Allegedly. It sounds a bit slower and more measured and maybe like what a Kate Bush record might sound like if she decided to go a little more adult contemporary. Also, I’m pretty sure that cover art is going to give me nightmares.

The Verlaines, Untimely Meditations: THIS IS A NEW VERLAINES RECORD. Kiwipop pioneers bring us another batch of rollicking pop songs. The songs here growl a lot more than we’re used to from these guys, the guitars scrappy and the vocals raw. Flying Nun, it is so good to have you back.

Dustin Wong, Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads: I loved Ponytail, and so was super bummed when they called it a day after their excellent last record. Fortunately, guitarist Dustin Wong soldiers on! Of his latest solo effort, Brandon Soderbergh says:

Communicating infectious joy through delicate, exploratory guitar work, loop maestro Dustin Wong’s follow-up to 2010′s Infinite Love is like a homespun version of Manuel Göttsching’s E2-E4. It has the same, super-determined, dude-in-a-room, one-take intensity, but this 16-part song, delightfully distracted by awesome effects pedals, layered riffing and the commanding knock of a drum machine, spazzes out (the very Do Whatever You Want All The Time-like “Feet Prints On Flower Dreads”), conjures up catchy, folksy melodies (“On/In The Way,” “Sprinkle Wet Toes”), and boldly starts over not once, but twice (“Pink Diamond,” “Pencil Drove Hill Moon”).

A Giant Dog, Fight: Another winner from the excellent Tic Tac Totally label, this band would spike the punch bowl at your 16th birthday party and bring over a bunch of toughs to steal the cake and break your toys. Marauding motorcycle punk rock that’s coming apart at the seams, gruff and greasy and good-to-go. RECOMMENDED

Colleen Green, Milo Goes to Compton: I’m fully on board with Colleen Green’s bedroom take on the Ramones, all the more so since this one comes complete with a great Descendants joke in the title. Super scuzzbucket four-track dollar-store punk gets a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED and this nod from Evan Minsker:

Milo Goes to Compton starts by showcasing Colleen Green as a cool, quiet singer with an electric guitar. She practically whispers her sensual lyrics in a detached tone beneath muted power chords on opener “Good Good Things.” In fact, “quiet” is her go-to vocal setting throughout, which could easily get frustrating since she’s often singing over a prominent thudding drum machine. Thankfully, she ramps up the tempo, and Johnny Ramone chord progressions, on subsequent track “I Wanna Be Degraded,” and while her voice stays soft, her instrumental aggression more than counterbalances any trepidation.

Band of Skulls, Sweet Sour: Chug-a-chug rock from UK band that people seem to really like. This is some industrial strength rocking, man. Big, blocky chords, boogie-woogie hooks — it’s like if the Black Keys tried to remake the early Kings of Leon records.

Appolonia, Crimson Shades: This is not this Appolonia. This is some anvil-to-the-solar-plexus heavy metal. You’ve been notified.

The Chap, We Are Nobody: Rubbery electro group The Chap smuggle meaty hooks inside their dance music Trojan Horse. Endless pleasure ensues. eMusic’s Rob Young says:

Chap songs are built on tautly metronomic pulses, busy meshes of lo-fi synths and clipped ’80s-funk guitar licks, with fembot backing vox from Claire Hope and Berit Immig. We Are Nobody, the self-deprecatingly titled follow-up to 2011′s “greatest hits” compilation We Are The Best, is loaded with all of the above, as well as hints of early-’80s boffin bands such as New Musik and The Flying Lizards, if they had been keeping tabs on the latest techno microstyles.

John Wesley Coleman, The Last Donkey Show: A little bit cleaner than what we’ve come to expect from the always-great Goner, Donkey hangs out smoking ciggies around the same derelict street corner where Wreckless Eric parked his beat-up Mustang in the early ’80s.

Terry Malts, Killing Time: Straightforward: barreling Ramones-by-way-of-JAMC jams, like someone playing Rocket to Russia through a guitar amp with the echo cranked. Are you mad at that? Do you hate summer? Thought so. eMusic’s Mikael Wood says:

Terry Malts bash through their three-chord rave-ups with an efficiency that indicates a deep understanding of why we play those old Ronettes and Shangri-Las singles over and over (and over) again. Precisely two of the 14 tracks on the band’s first full-length stretch beyond the three-minute mark, and one of those is called “Waiting Room”; they know when they’re indulging themselves, these guys.

Chelsea Crowell, Crystal City: Some really lovely country music, a little bit dusky, a little bit shadowy, a little bit aching and yearning. This kinda hits my soft spot, applying shambling indie aesthetics to country’s pine and wail. I’m going to confidently give this a RECOMMENDED for fans of measured country/folk.

Pallbearer, Sorrow and Extinction: Blistering funeral doom record from Little Rock, Arkansas (!) sounds like being smothered in hot tar while a demonic priest sings the Nicene Creed over your collapsing skull. I cannot believe how slow-moving this record is. It would get its ass handed to it by a sloth in a 100-meter relay. This, of course, is exactly how you want funeral doom to sound and, topped with such searing, expressive vocals, this one earns a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Chieftans, Voice of Ages: The Chieftans have been a band for a long time, and they get a bunch of indie rock friends to help celebrate their legacy on this, their umpteenth record. Which friends, you may ask? Bon Iver, The Decemberists, The Civil Wars, the Pistol Annies and many many more. As for which one of those stole their Lucky Charms, however, the jury is still out.

Tindersticks, The Something Rain: New record from the band that’s the Power Glove to the National’s Wii. Dour baritone vocals, illusive lyrics and instrumentation full of wide open spaces and a nagging sense of desperation that pervades basically everything. They were on a blood buzz before you were born, buddy.

My Best Fiend, In Ghostlike Fading: Some hazy, slow, psyched out stuff from Warp with, I’m told, pretty spiritual lyrics. Songs twinkle like far off stars, and the vocals drift by passively, like a cult member with a beatific grin on his face hanging out feather flowers at an airport. This is some Zen stuff — as in: totally placid, and not in a rush to get anywhere in particular.

Cheap Girls, Giant Orange: Great melodic rock & roll produced by Tom from Against Me! This is a one-way ticket to hook city, sunny vocal lines and big, bright guitars.

Kevin Kinney & the Golden Palominos, A Good Country Mile: The cover does not lie — this is pack-a-day, whiskey-slugging bar-fight country from the Drivin N Cryin frontman, teamed here with Anton Fier of Golden Palaominos. This is some nasty, snarling, butt-ugly broke-truck country music, the kind of songs that will break your jaw and steal your wallet.

Disappears, Pre-Language: Psych-proggers are joined by Steve Shelley from Sonic Youth on this steady-chugging batch of haze-rockers. Conversational vocals offset clanging guitars, and the rockier moments imagine a Girls Vs. Boys cover band at their very first practice.

fun. Some Nights: This band! The little power-poppers that could! fun. have been around forever, but this record is finally starting to turn some heads — helped in no small part, I’d imagine, by the appearance of “We Are Young” in an Expedia ad (Sample it! You’ll see!) What you’re getting here are gallons of glistening harmonies and some steady-chugging guitar pop. It’s pretty good!

La Big Vic, Dub the World: Actually Revisited: Remix album from Brooklyn group La Big Vic turns the originals on their skulls and emerges with something completely different and riveting — buzzsaw bands of sound, nasty no-wave guitar and boot-to-the-gut drums that threaten to punt you into the next galaxy. RECOMMENDED

Knife & Fork, The Higher You Get, The Rarer the Vegetation: First things first: can this band book a tour with Spoon, please? I just want the show poster that says “Spoon, w/ Knife & Fork.” Musically this is lovely indie rock, with intertwining boy/girl vocals.

Jonquil, Point of Go: In Lebanese, Jonquil means “pointillist guitars and breathy vocals, augmented by occasional piano.”

–> Jazz Picks by Dave Sumner

Menschmaschine, Hand Werk: A Swiss jazz ensemble that wears their love of Kraftwerk on their sleeves. Two feet very much in the modern Euro-jazz sound, they’ve constructed a series of unavoidably catchy tunes. Instruments include tenor sax, piano, bass clarinet, contrabass, percussion & drums, and some flute, glockenspiel, and vocals occasionally. Lively, unpredictable, and Recommended.

MSV Brecht, Hippie Tunes: A Berlin quartet of sax/clarinet, guitar, bass, and drums. They’ve got a Euro-jazz jazz-rock fusion thing going on. What that means is that it’s introverted music that’s good for staring out windows at rainy day landscapes, but has way too much kick to actually fall asleep to it. Warm sweater sax notes and drifting melodies, guitar that sometimes hums, sometimes screams, percussion that doesn’t settle for just-good-enough, and some nice matching of clarinet and bass. Jazz fans, if you like Brian Blade’s Perceptual, you might find something to like here. Rock/Indie fans, if you like the Doves Last Broadcast, give this album a run.

John Moulder Quintet, The 11th Hour: Live at the Green Mill: Backed by saxophonist Geof Bradfield (who also double on bass clarinet), pianist Jim Trompeter, Larry Gray on bass, and long-time collaborator Paul Wertico on drums, guitarist John Moulder presents an excellent live set from Chicago’s historical jazz venue, The Green Mill. Moulder has emerged as one of the unique voices on jazz guitar, equally comfortable showing a face of quiet solitude as he is of sharpened steel. No better representation of that is on the album’s final song “Time Being” Pick of the Week.

Kyle Bruckmann, Kyle Bruckmann’s Wrack: Cracked Refraction: An intriguing session with Bruckmann on oboe & English horn, and backed by bass clarinet, viola, percussion, and bass. A little bit jazz, a little bit nu-classical, a little bit avant-garde, and now there’s enough ingredients to make this an unclassifiable dish with an addictive taste. Some compositions have the frenetic pace of a horror movie chase scene, and some compositions only need two lovers and a pastoral scene in the countryside to make it complete. Back in Chicago, Bruckmann had his hands in disparate projects, including classical, post-punk, free jazz and electronic experimental, so it’s no surprise that this album pretty much shatters boundaries on sight. Highly Recommended.

Metta Quintet, Big Drum, Small World: Metta Quintet is the performing arm of non-profit organization JazzReach, dedicated to the promotion, performance, creation and teaching of jazz music. Past members have included Miguel Zenon, Omer Avital, Helen Sung. among other musician all-stars. The current line-up features mainstays Marcus Strickland (tenor sax) and Josh Ginsburg (bass), and two newcomers- David Bryant (piano) and Greg Ward (alto sax). It’s a straight-ahead affair, and short, too: Five tracks clocking at just over a half hour. But it’s solid jazz that won’t steer anybody wrong. Also worth listening to is an earlier album Subway Songs, with the NYC train system as the thematic device. Neat stuff. Recommended.

Guillaume de Chassy, Silences: It seems, lately, that jazz albums recorded by former classical pianists have been hitting New Arrivals with some noticeable frequency. A common trait among the better of those releases is that the pianist seems unwilling to fight the gravitational pull of either music. One would think that it would lead to a confused muddle of compositions, but instead, many of these albums fuse the best of both worlds and lead to some intriguing music. That’s what we got here. With de Chassy on piano, in a trio with bass and clarinet, he gives us a startlingly resonant chamber jazz recording. Elegant and haunting. Find of the Week.

Jean-Philippe Scali, Evidence: Pretty cool large ensemble album from the French saxophonist. Scali on alto, baritone, and soprano saxes, and backed by piano, Fender Rhodes, trumpet, trombone, bass, drums, and some guesting with vibes, bass clarinet, tenor sax, and an additional trombone. Nice hopping tunes with some nifty wrinkles to keep things interesting; the sublime tune “Eternal Present” is a nice example of this. Unmistakably jazz, from a musician with an inventive touch.

Malte Schiller’s Red Balloon, The Second Time Is Different: Nice big band recording from a young group of players. Lighthearted, with that necessary touch of melancholy that gives gentle texture to any solid large ensemble session. This should take care of anybody’s need for a warm big band fix to fight off the bleak winter months.

And let’s wrap up with one of those albums that probably shouldn’t be categorized under jazz, but it’s too cool not to mention:

Yom & Wang Li, Green Apocalypse: Yom on Klezmer Clarinet, Wang Li on Jew’s Harp and Calabash Flute. Experimental World music, I suppose, might be the best way to sum this album up. It’s definitely different, and there was no way I was gonna let this one slip by.

–> Singles & EPs
James Vincent McMorrow, We Don’t Eat: New EP from falsetto-favoring JVM features very tender covers of Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” and “Wicked Game” by Chris Isaak. Pretty.

Tip Top Tellix, Tip Top Tellix: I really like this! If the internet is to be believed – and when has it ever lied to us before? – this band is from Russia and they deliver buckets of brash, filmy twee pop faster than you can say “What a Country!” The usual touchstones — Lush, sped-up Slowdive — all come into play, but there’s something bigger and more grandiose going on here. Do I want more? DA! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Zola Jesus, “In Your Nature (David Lynch Remix”): Remix of the latest single from the excellent, underrated last Zola Jesus record. Of course it’s by David Lynch, because basically her whole persona is by David Lynch. Which you know is not a dis, because we love Nika and her music more than most things. Certainly more than a few of those mid ’90s David Lynch movies. What the fuck was he thinking there? RECOMMENDED

Santigold, “Disparate Youth”: Another new Santigold single. I loved her last record. The new stuff is sounding kind of characterless to me so far. I trust I will be proven wrong when I hear the full album.

The lyrical self-flagellation is not entirely new to Jurado’s catalogue; he is an extraordinarily sensitive singer-songwriter, one whose reedy voice and deft lo-fi arrangements do little to offset his frequent anguish. He has rested comfortably on cult idolatry for well over a decade by singing with a thoughtful hitch in his throat, largely eschewing the gratuitous noise of his hardcore punk youth. Yet on Maraqopa, his liveliest yet, he indulges in all the lush, psychedelic instrumentation that his modest prior efforts have only suggested; as the acidic opener “Nothing is the News” portends, the plentiful backing vocals and writhing guitar solos are the work of a brazenly confident artist.

One of the album’s tersest tracks, “So On, Nevada,” finds his delicate vocal chords straining to something akin to a yowl, acoustic strings providing thoughtful counterpoint; it echoes the more overt intensity of his 2010 record, St. Bartlett, his initial collaboration with Maraqopa producer Richard Swift. It contrasts so beautifully and unexpectedly the album’s longest track, the swooning Wall of Sound pop ballad “Reel to Reel,” of both prove equally clear glimpses of Jurado’s mercurial mind; as he croons on the latter’s heroine, “The greatest songs I’ll ever hear from a band you started in your mind.” This is the crux of Jurado’s excellent effort, it seems: closing the balance between impulse and craftsmanship, letting both unfurl fully with ease. This, in every way that matters, is progress.

Chap songs are built on tautly metronomic pulses, busy meshes of lo-fi synths and clipped ’80s-funk guitar licks, with fembot backing vox from Claire Hope and Berit Immig. We Are Nobody, the self-deprecatingly titled follow-up to 2011′s “greatest hits” compilation We Are The Best, is loaded with all of the above, as well as hints of early-’80s boffin bands such as New Musik and The Flying Lizards, if they had been keeping tabs on the latest techno microstyles. On opener “Rhythm King,” Johannes Von Weizsäcker manages the trick of belittling vacuous dancefloor chat while also expressing the ecstatic, wordless abandon that a darkened dancehall can provide.

If his deadpan delivery gets pushed to the edge on “Look At the Girl” — in which an idyllic hairspray-ad vision turns uncomfortably sour — The Chap’s infectious sense of pacing and the quirky twists and turns of their self-produced sound world are compelling reasons to ignore the arched eyebrows. “Writing’s for cowards, talking’s for men/ Cowards write songs and never do what needs to be done,” confesses Von Weizsäcker in silvered multitrack harmonies on “What Did We Do?” We Are Nobody is the revenge of the cowards.

For all that the advance publicity for Mr. M has spoken of Lambchop applying a “radical approach,” the truth — probably inevitably, and certainly delightfully — is that Mr. M sounds entirely and unmistakably like a Lambchop album. The Nashville collective exist almost as a genre unto themselves at this point, defined by their stately strings, dryly funny words and Wagner’s parched whimper. All are present and triumphantly correct on Mr. M, especially on the swooping, featherlight “Buttons” and the exquisitely mournful closer “Never My Love.”

The only fault with Mr. M is the only fault with all Lambchop albums ­- a faint sense that they’re maybe too comfortable lolloping languidly along their famililar furrow, and that they might surprise themselves as well as their listeners if they ventured a foray into third gear ever so often. Rueful country trundler “The Good Life (Is Wasted),” the album’s unassuming highlight, is a tantalizing hint of what might yet result if Wagner ever fully embraces his inner George Jones.

For all that the advance publicity for Mr. M has spoken of Lambchop applying a “radical approach,” the truth — probably inevitably, and certainly delightfully — is that Mr. M sounds entirely and unmistakably like a Lambchop album. The Nashville collective exist almost as a genre unto themselves at this point, defined by their stately strings, dryly funny words and Wagner’s parched whimper. All are present and triumphantly correct on Mr. M, especially on the swooping, featherlight “Buttons” and the exquisitely mournful closer “Never My Love.”

The only fault with Mr. M is the only fault with all Lambchop albums ­- a faint sense that they’re maybe too comfortable lolloping languidly along their famililar furrow, and that they might surprise themselves as well as their listeners if they ventured a foray into third gear ever so often. Rueful country trundler “The Good Life (Is Wasted),” the album’s unassuming highlight, is a tantalizing hint of what might yet result if Wagner ever fully embraces his inner George Jones.

In some respects, Somatic feels like a Paul Motian album. Motian, the late, legendary drummer who recorded extensively for the Winter & Winter label, was a master of the gentle ambush, and of seeming to imply rather than directly state the themes and motifs of his music. The much-in-demand bassist in the Jim Black Trio, Thomas Morgan, played often with Motian (and Steve Coleman, David Binney, John Abercrombie…), and knows how to create the tenuous but still spontaneous intensity Black seems to be going for here. The third member is Elias Stemeseder, a young, conservatory-trained Austrian pianist, whose deep tonality appealed to Black and accounts for the ruminative feel of many of the songs.

All that said, Somatic strolls and swings as much as it ponders, and longtime fans looking for adrenaline should check out “Beariere” for its welter of beats and rhythmic combinations, and “Protection” for Black’s signature ability to perform the rhythmic equivalent of Fred Astaire faux-stumbling from dance move to dance move. There are treats all over Somatic if your ears take the time to let the music unwrap them.

After the demise of their indie pop outfit Sexy Kids, Clifford and drummer Patrick Doyle formed Veronica Falls in 2009, recruiting guitarist fellow ’60s-pop enthusiast James Hoare and French bassist Marion Herbain. The interlocking elements in their music — Clifford and Hoare’s braided riffs, the full-band harmonies — make the chemistry between the quartet clear.

Fittingly, there was gloomy weather on both sides of the phone when Lindsay Zoladz called up Clifford to discuss muzak on the tour bus, celebrity airport sightings and just how a band goes about shaking off that pesky “twee” tag once and for all (spoiler alert: turn up the amps).

On getting signed 10 minutes after they uploaded their demos to MySpace:

That sounds too good to be true, but it did actually happen. We had been in contact with Mike [Sniper, of the label Captured Tracks, who put out the band's first 7"] previously, because Patrick and I had been living in New York for a bit and had met people in that scene, so they were aware that we had a new band. It wasn’t quite so out of the blue as it sounds, but it was still really amazing.

On their musical tastes:

We all have general things that we all really like — like the Velvet Underground and REM — but we each have specific interests too. James is into more obscure ’60s bands, and I’m really into bands from the U.S. in the ’90s. People ask if we have any dark, embarrassing favorite songs, but I don’t think we’re embarrassed of anything we like. If we like it, it must have something, you know? Although Patrick really likes that song “Love is in the Air.” He always plays it in the van and we all actually hate it. You know that one? [Sings] “Love is in the air…” In theory, you think it’s a good song, but when you actually listen to it, it’s quite cheesy. Patrick likes the muzak version of it as well, which is just strange. [Laughs]

On the boy/girl dynamic:

After James joined, we started thinking about the harmonies, and we needed another female voice. So the only reason I wanted [another female member] was because of the harmonies. But after [Marion joined], I realize it’s a good thing in that it keeps the dynamic balanced, having half and half. Two boys, two girls, I think it works quite well. We all get on really well. And anyway the boys are very in touch with their feminine side, and me and Marion are quite tomboyish, so it balances out.

On arranging their signature harmonies:

We spend quite a lot of time on that. I think it’s really important to our sound. Vocally, [we're inspired by] ’60s girl groups, but also REM did it really well too. They’ve got a lot going on, but it all sort of fits together really nicely. Usually I’ll write my vocal melody and then we’ll try and make the songs more interesting by adding call-and-response parts or harmony, just trying to add more texture. Because they’re quite simple pop songs — or a lot of the ones on the first album are anyway. So we did our best to try and make the vocals a bit more interesting.

On doom and gloom:

When we first got together, a lot of the “darkness” in our music was quite tongue-in-cheek. We were interested in being kind of theatrical, and painting a picture or telling a story that was all about the drama of the song. I was listening to a lot of Roky Erickson at the time and I really like his lyrics and his approach. He’s called it “horror rock.” He writes these lyrics that are all about very primal emotions, all about love and death. I was inspired by that approach; I think that makes for a very direct pop song. We don’t want to pigeonhole ourselves, though, because we get asked a lot about our dark side or sinister side, but they’re all kind of love songs at the end of the day.

On meeting their musical heroes:

Johnny Marr was nice, but [when we interviewed him for Loud and Quiet magazine] we just talked over email and didn’t actually get to meet him. We haven’t really [gotten to meet any of our idols] because we’re not very good at networking or anything like that. I did meet Jarvis Cocker about six months ago, and he was really nice. I think if it’s a very genuine meeting it’s great, but we don’t necessarily seek that sort of thing out. Oh! Although we did bump into Ronnie Wood at the airport once! We got our photograph taken with him. [Laughs]

On recording their new material:

We know now that we need to just do it in our own way and not make it too polished, and just have the amps up really loud so they kind of bleed into each other. I think for the new stuff, we’re just kind of experimenting with more complexity and interesting elements. We just want to push the songs a little bit more. Most of the songs on the first album are fast and have a similar tempo, so [on our next record] we want to push the songs a little bit more. We definitely want to shake off the “twee” tag, because we don’t think of ourselves as twee at all. So the next record will be bolder and a little bit louder.

After the demise of their indie pop outfit Sexy Kids, Clifford and drummer Patrick Doyle formed Veronica Falls in 2009, recruiting guitarist fellow ’60s-pop enthusiast James Hoare and French bassist Marion Herbain. The interlocking elements in their music — Clifford and Hoare’s braided riffs, the full-band harmonies — make the chemistry between the quartet clear.

Fittingly, there was gloomy weather on both sides of the phone when Lindsay Zoladz called up Clifford to discuss muzak on the tour bus, celebrity airport sightings and just how a band goes about shaking off that pesky “twee” tag once and for all (spoiler alert: turn up the amps).

On getting signed 10 minutes after they uploaded their demos to MySpace:

That sounds too good to be true, but it did actually happen. We had been in contact with Mike [Sniper, of the label Captured Tracks, who put out the band's first 7"] previously, because Patrick and I had been living in New York for a bit and had met people in that scene, so they were aware that we had a new band. It wasn’t quite so out of the blue as it sounds, but it was still really amazing.

On their musical tastes:

We all have general things that we all really like — like the Velvet Underground and REM — but we each have specific interests too. James is into more obscure ’60s bands, and I’m really into bands from the U.S. in the ’90s. People ask if we have any dark, embarrassing favorite songs, but I don’t think we’re embarrassed of anything we like. If we like it, it must have something, you know? Although Patrick really likes that song “Love is in the Air.” He always plays it in the van and we all actually hate it. You know that one? [Sings] “Love is in the air…” In theory, you think it’s a good song, but when you actually listen to it, it’s quite cheesy. Patrick likes the muzak version of it as well, which is just strange. [Laughs]

On the boy/girl dynamic:

After James joined, we started thinking about the harmonies, and we needed another female voice. So the only reason I wanted [another female member] was because of the harmonies. But after [Marion joined], I realize it’s a good thing in that it keeps the dynamic balanced, having half and half. Two boys, two girls, I think it works quite well. We all get on really well. And anyway the boys are very in touch with their feminine side, and me and Marion are quite tomboyish, so it balances out.

On arranging their signature harmonies:

We spend quite a lot of time on that. I think it’s really important to our sound. Vocally, [we're inspired by] ’60s girl groups, but also REM did it really well too. They’ve got a lot going on, but it all sort of fits together really nicely. Usually I’ll write my vocal melody and then we’ll try and make the songs more interesting by adding call-and-response parts or harmony, just trying to add more texture. Because they’re quite simple pop songs — or a lot of the ones on the first album are anyway. So we did our best to try and make the vocals a bit more interesting.

On doom and gloom:

When we first got together, a lot of the “darkness” in our music was quite tongue-in-cheek. We were interested in being kind of theatrical, and painting a picture or telling a story that was all about the drama of the song. I was listening to a lot of Roky Erickson at the time and I really like his lyrics and his approach. He’s called it “horror rock.” He writes these lyrics that are all about very primal emotions, all about love and death. I was inspired by that approach; I think that makes for a very direct pop song. We don’t want to pigeonhole ourselves, though, because we get asked a lot about our dark side or sinister side, but they’re all kind of love songs at the end of the day.

On meeting their musical heroes:

Johnny Marr was nice, but [when we interviewed him for Loud and Quiet magazine] we just talked over email and didn’t actually get to meet him. We haven’t really [gotten to meet any of our idols] because we’re not very good at networking or anything like that. I did meet Jarvis Cocker about six months ago, and he was really nice. I think if it’s a very genuine meeting it’s great, but we don’t necessarily seek that sort of thing out. Oh! Although we did bump into Ronnie Wood at the airport once! We got our photograph taken with him. [Laughs]

On recording their new material:

We know now that we need to just do it in our own way and not make it too polished, and just have the amps up really loud so they kind of bleed into each other. I think for the new stuff, we’re just kind of experimenting with more complexity and interesting elements. We just want to push the songs a little bit more. Most of the songs on the first album are fast and have a similar tempo, so [on our next record] we want to push the songs a little bit more. We definitely want to shake off the “twee” tag, because we don’t think of ourselves as twee at all. So the next record will be bolder and a little bit louder.

DeJohnette has logged time with an incredible array of iconic players and scenes. Legendary names like John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock and Sonny Rollins all show up on his resume. He was in on the ground floor of a variety of influential movements, including the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in his native Chicago; the crossover of jazz into the Fillmore West rock scene of the ’60s with Charles Lloyd; the establishment of inimitable jazz labels such as CTI and ECM (he has appeared on more ECM records than any other musician). He has led a half-dozen bands, including Directions, New Direction and Special Edition. He has an ongoing 30-year existence with the Standards Trio alongside bassist Gary Peacock and pianist Keith Jarrett, his partner with Lloyd and Miles. He has performed with a Native American elder, played a duo disc with Gambian kora player Foday Musa Suso, won a Grammy in 2009 for his new age disc, Peace Time, and has been involved in forward-thinking electronic music and remixes.

In January, DeJohnette was honored as an NEA Jazz Master. In August, he turns 70. To commemorate this special year, he has released Sound Travels, which covers a lot of the musical territory and some of the past associations of his career, and features young stars such as Esperanza Spalding and Ambrose Akinmusire along with veteran luminaries from across the spectrum, including Bobby McFerrin, Bruce Hornsby and Jason Moran.

eMusic’s Britt Robson recently reached DeJohnette by phone at his home inNew Yorkfor a thorough overview of his incredible career and his thoughts on the new record.

Let’s literally start at the beginning, with your involvement in the nascent stages of the AACM.

That relationship came about through my association with the AACM’s founder and composer and improviser, Muhal Richard Abrams, along with some other musicians I met when I was in college — Roscoe Mitchell, Joseph Jarman and Malachi Favors, just to name a few. It was a time of exploration and changes. There was no outlet for an alternative music. Roscoe and Joseph and I would get together to play our music and our concepts of improvisation. Muhal realized that we needed to have a space and an organization, we needed a structured outlet to get that creative energy out and so he got together a charter and a performance space and formed the AACM, with an orchestra that then spun off smaller groups.

Muhal was one of my mentors. He helped me a lot with my music and with life problems, and he was the one who encouraged me to come to New York.

How did that happen?

Well the Go-Go music scene started taking over, and there were fewer and fewer places to play jazz inChicago. I felt like it might be time to leave. Muhal encouraged me; he said thatChicagohad prepared me forNew York.

My first major gig inNew Yorkthat went on for a time with a horn player of note was with [alto saxophonist] Jackie McLean — see, Jackie came before Charles Lloyd but the albums we made together came out after. We did three records on Blue Note and also toured the states.

There was also a period when you got to play with John Coltrane in a dual-drummer ensemble with Rashied Ali in the final year or so before Coltrane’s death. Can you describe that relationship?

It has been said that Coltrane put the “om” into jazz; he became a very spiritual musician and through his searching and constant practicing, he more than influenced the musicians, he put some positive energies into our planet’s feed, trying to make it a better environment for us to work in. I enjoyed both playing and listening to him — I still practice to him. He gets to the soul of everything in a language that goes beyond the notes and theory and harmony — it is a vibration.

Not long after that you joined the Charles Lloyd Quartet, which among other things began your long relationship with pianist Keith Jarrett.

While playing with Jackie, I had seen Charles playing around New Yorkand, I forget how, but somehow he approached me to play with him. He said he was changing personnel, and asked me about any bassists and pianists. I recommended Cecil McBee — we both had worked with Betty Carter — and Charles and I both had heard Keith Jarrett in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. That Charles Lloyd Quartet was a very intense experience. We did a lot of touring and our manager, George Avakian, got us a lot of press. Our first album, Dream Weaver, sold more than a million copies and was one of the first crossover jazz bands.

After Charles, I worked with Stan Getz and then Bill Evans and then with Miles. I did the recording Live at Montreux with Bill Evans. And then Miles called.

I had worked with Miles before, when [his then-regular drummer] Tony Williams wasn’t available. He had heard me with Jackie and they had similar taste in drummers. In fact Miles got Tony the same way, after hearing him with Jackie.

You were on the legendary Bitches Brew sessions, which many regard as the polestar of fusion jazz. What were those like?

Miles didn’t talk that much; he just kept the music coming. The Bitches Brew project was a work in progress, with Miles bringing in sketches of what he wanted, then basically recording a lot, with Miles conducting a lot and [producer] Teo [Macero] putting it all together.

Did it feel like you guys were doing anything special?

It was a recording session with Miles, which was enough in and of itself. Having it be more than that was icing on the cake. But playing with Miles took on an energy of its own.

Did the time with Miles put your own music on hold?

I was just starting recording as a leader for [record label] Milestone during that same period. I was still playing some piano, but had started to make the drums my hallmark, because I felt that is where I could make the most contribution and the other thing was being in the drum chair enabled me to work with outstanding pianists.

Did all your time as a pianist help your style of drumming?

Piano, vibes and drums are all part of the percussion family. You have to tune drums like you tune other instruments and cymbals — I paid attention to the point where I designed my own cymbals. So it was still an extension of the orchestra concept of playing with compositions and improvisers.

In the ’90s, things began to get pretty spiritual for you, it seems.

There was Music For the Fifth World, which was a pretty important record because it was inspired by a Native American elder, by the name of Grandmother Twyla Nitsch. My family and I took lessons from her, and were initiated into a wolf clan in upstateNew York. There is a creation story around it, talking about the fifth world and the changes we are now experiencing and about greed and love and separation. That record had an all star cast including Vernon Reid from the Black Rock Coalition and John Scofield.

Did you suddenly feel the need to make it more overt in your music? Because right after that, you recorded Music in the Key of Om and Peace Time.

It just naturally evolved. Those records you are talking about, the relaxation and new age records, were with my own label. That arose out of working with my wife, Lydia, who is an aboriginal healer; I made Music in the Key of Ohm for her sessions. Peace Time won a Grammy, my only Grammy.

The last couple of things, one is Hybrids, an electronic group. A lot of the credit goes to Ben Surman on that. I believe the remixes he did are really ahead of their time. And then there is Music We Are.

And now we have your latest record, Sound Travels. How did that come about?

The idea came from my wife Lydia. I was being nominated as a NEA Jazz Master, and also will be celebrating my 70th year on the planet in August. The plan is to celebrate [being 70] all year. We did it with Herbie [Hancock] in 2010, Chick [Corea] last year, and now me this year.

Chuck Mitchell from eOne Music is a dear friend of mine and he said we should do a special album and that he would get behind it with some financial support. We had a meeting and I said I really wanted to use some of the younger players on this. Chuck said he wanted me to play some piano on it. I started to write and I came up with some grooves and beautiful melodies.

You begin and end the record with quiet solo piano, and so the first track is “Enter Here.”

It was Chuck’s idea to put “Enter Here” at the beginning as a neutral way to enter recording, so people wouldn’t think it was a Latin album if they heard a salsa or something. It cleared the energy so people could be able to go on this great journey.

And then there is the Latin groove in “Salsa For Luisito.”

The original plan was not to have Esperanza [Spaulding] sing. But she improvised over a series of chord changes where the guitarist, Lionel Loueke, was playing, and came up with something phenomenal. The chant over the drum exchanges was my idea, but [percussionist] Luisito [Quintero] came up with the Spanish chants and then we had Ambrose Akinmusire, the trumpeter] come in blazing, and an amazing idea of his sets up the melody. That piece actually covers a lot of ground.

Then we come to “Dirty Ground,” with the vocal and lyrics by Bruce Hornsby.

Again, the piece was not originally written with a vocal in mind. But I played the piece for Bruce and said casually, “You want to write some lyrics?” and he said, “Yeah! Send it to me.” I said the idea for this is the Band meetsNew Orleans, and that is where he went with this. The first verse is a nod toward [former Band member] Levon Helm; the way he plays the drums and the way he sings, he is just a pure organic soul, and really funky the way he lays it down. Bruce and I had an occasion to sit in with him on one of his Midnight Ramble shows.

It isn’t hard to know who “Sonny Light” is dedicated to. You have played on a handful of albums with Sonny Rollins and his favorite and often most incendiary moments of inspiration come from calypsos like this.

The horns are the lead instrument at first but then there is the guitar. I played it for Sonny he was touched by it. I have a penchant for writing compositions for my favorites — Eric Dolphy, Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, Ahmad [Jamal] and here Sonny.

The most beautiful song on the record is probably “Oneness,” where Bobby McFerrin just knocks out of the park.

It is a beautiful piece. “Oneness” is a piece I wrote recorded on a Gateway Trio album [in 1995]. I really wanted Bobby to sing on it, but I also wanted to improvise and have us do a call-and-response and sort of bookend the intro at beginning with the way we go out very playful at the end.

You finish up featuring your piano again on “Home.”

That was last piece I recorded, just an improvisation. It was kind of a tribute to one of my favorite pianists, Abdullah Ibrahim. It reminds me of South Africa and the church, and is a nice way to settle it down — “Home.” It is a soulful thing and people respond emotionally to that last track.

It’s fitting, then, that the follow-up begins with the roar of an audience and some foot-stomping and hand-clapping: Sleigh Bells’ spirited playfulness is alive on Reign Of Terror, but it’s subject to the kind of forethought, pacing and balance that’s normal to albums constructed for continuous listening. This means that in between the call-and-response fight song “Crush” and the manic whammy-bar bends of “Leader of the Pack” (which begins with the sound of a gunshot) is the ballad “End of the Line” — maybe not so much to provide caesura as to soothe the nerves. And in case you were waiting around for Sleigh Bells to do something macabre, “You Lost Me” is a typically over-the-top — and intriguing — stab. While Def Leppard-like arpeggiated guitars and divebombing keyboard tones telegraph the downcast mood, Krauss sings about something terrible that’s happened behind the Circle K: “Face down in the dirt, in a miniskirt…What a way to die.” The freaks, geeks and goths in rock ‘n’ roll high school used to be able to dismiss the cheerleaders in Sleigh Bells as being vapid and purely out for fun, but there’s no denying them now.

A week before Blondes left Brooklyn for a new European club tour,eMusicgave Haar and Steinman $50 credit to spend in our store. Here, they talk with Marc Hogan about what they bought.

Marcel Dettmann, Conducted

Zach Steinman: The first one that we bought was a Marcel Dettmann compilation called Conducted, which had a few tracks we already knew, and we were feeling the vibe of the tracks.

Sam Haar: It’s pretty deep and atmospheric techno. Some of this stuff we did on a FACT mix recently. This guy VRIL, we’ve been really feeling recently.

Steinman: It’s got a [track] from Sandwell District, Silent Servant.

Haar: It’s a good mix, you know? A good DJ mix.

Steinman: I was listening to it today. It wasn’t everything that I hoped for, but there were a few other good tracks that I didn’t know.

Casrten Jost, A Certain Kind

Steinman: Because we like Carsten Jost?

Haar: Yeah, we do like Carsten Jost! We like Dial Records and wanted to check that one out.

Steinman: We’ve been feeling some of his other tracks a lot recently and really like his record label.

Haar: Deep house.

Kassem Mosse, Enoha

Haar: He recently came out with these 12″s on Workshop — one this year and one a few years ago, that we’ve been listening to a lot.

Steinman: Yeah, basically we were just really feeling his Workshop stuff and never heard this release. I think that’ll be our running theme!

John Talabot, Fin

Haar: Hadn’t actually heard it yet. We’ve worked with him before, we did a remix of his, and wanted to get this record.

How did you guys get synced up with John Talabot in the first place?

Steinman: Our friend Dean sent him our first EP, I think, and then John contacted us about a remix.

Haar: [We have a] similar Balearic sort of sensibility.

Mario Diaz De Leon, Hypnos

Haar: A friend of ours just put it out on this record label called Shinkoyo. It’s really cool. It’s pretty wacky. It’s like kind of emotional, metal-inspired electronic music. It’s very — it’s called Hypnos so as you might think it’s pretty hypnotic. There’s all these synth arpeggios going into deep space but it’s kind of got this slow, metal sensibility.

Basic Soul Unit, Tuff Love EP

Steinman: [After reading the title] He bought this one!

Haar: He makes cool house music. I have one track of his that I’ve been DJing, and I just wanted to buy some more.

Theo Parrish, Parallel Dimensions

Haar: I’ve heard tracks from the album, but I hadn’t actually got it, or anything. It’s one of the few full albums that you can actually find. He doesn’t have many full albums.

So when you guys DJ, is it vinyl, or do you do mp3s and stuff, too?

Steinman: Digital.

Haar: I mean, vinyl would be cool, I guess, but we’re not DJs first and foremost.

Steinman: Actually when we’re DJing we’re so happy to not be lugging our gear around. So I don’t know if I would actually want to be lugging around vinyl.

Isao Tomita, Tomita’s Greatest Hits

Haar: He’s a Japanese sort of new age-y synthesizer composer that we hadn’t heard before.

Steinman: We were doing an interview with Lindstrøm, and he was talking about the Rene Hell remix of our track “Amber,” and he was like, “I think you guys should really get into Isao Tomita — check it out.”

Haar: And that was right when this feature was happening, so we were like, “Let’s buy one!”

Steinman: So we bought it!

Haar: There’s a cover of the main theme from Star Wars. What’s that called? I don’t exactly know what that track is called. [Hums theme]

What are your thoughts on new age? There’s that blurry line between some of the more ambient, psychedelic electronic music and then new age.

Haar: I love new age. I even like that it’s called new age. It really depends on the music. I think the majority of new age is probably pretty terrible, like any genre, but people can do good things with it.

Steinman: There are definitely pioneers of the form.

Haar: There’s also a lot of cheesy crap. There’s definitely a lot of crap. But there’s definitely people who consider themselves new age who make good stuff.

Steinman: But then it also goes to like, spa music.

Haar: Speaking of ambient, sort of weird sounds, not new age really music though…

Chris Watson and BJ Nilsen, Storm

Haar: It’s on Touch Records. It’s all field recordings of animals spliced together into a sort of listening art.

Steinman: Manic white noise.

Haar: I really like that label.

How did you get into Touch? I know you studied electro-acoustic music in college — was that where you got into them?

Haar: Well, I definitely listened to Touch in school. But I actually saw Chris Watson at this really cool place in San Francisco called the Recombinant Media Labs. It was this weird, super fun place, they had all these surround sound speakers, you could just go and sit and lay there for two hours. That’s where I really got into him. He had some older records that I really enjoy, too, like this album called Outside the Circle of Fire — it’s a really weird record. He’d hide in bushes and record animals from like a mile away so they didn’t know he was there. He got, like, cheetahs sleeping. It was pretty weird. But it actually just sounds like crazy electronic music.

Vladislav Delay, vantaa

Steinman: Longtime fans! First-time listeners. Wanted to check it out.

Haar: Hadn’t heard this one yet.

Do you remember when you first started listening to Vladislav Delay?

Haar: A few years ago. What was that album? It was really good. When I got into Vladislav Delay first, it was Whistleblower. It came out in 2007. He’s really prolific, though, he comes out with all this music.

Lang Lang could only have emerged when and where he did. A rapidly modernizing China supplied his father, Lang Guoren, with both the freedom and the dream to quit his job as a policeman in the industrial city of Shenyang and move with his five-year old son to a Beijing slum. The father was insanely determined to turn the boy into a classical music superstar, even if it meant destroying him in the process. It’s hard for even the most fiercely ambitious parent to imagine urging a child to commit suicide rather than face the shame of mediocrity, but when his nine-year-old son failed to get into the Beijing Central Conservatory, Lang Guoren screamed at him to jump off a high-rise balcony.

China gets an early credit for the production of Lang Lang, but it was the West that completed him. Educated at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute from the age of 15, he quickly learned to harness the elaborate apparatus of star-making: the concert circuit, management teams, PR resources, record labels, fashion, and media machinery. The story came full circle when he became an idol in China, which has a far greater appetite than Europe or the United States for a Chopin-playing rock star.

There are countercultural strains in his story as well. At a time when classical music’s prestige and glamour are flickering, Lang Lang has leveraged it into global celebrity. Recordings are increasingly low-budget affairs of limited circulation, yet he has revived the lavishly produced CD. Culture gets disseminated today mostly in digital vapors, but Lang Lang makes a point of being physically present here, there, and everywhere, keeping a travel schedule that would tax an airline pilot and giving 200 concerts a year. At a time when renown has become Kardashianized and people become famous for doing virtually nothing, and doing it badly, he is both a serious artist and a contender for the title of “Hardest-Working Man in Show Business.”

At 29, Lang Lang the musician is even resisting domination by Lang Lang the concept. For much of his early career (and so far, that’s all he’s had), he has courted the love of audiences and the suspicions of critics with an extreme, extroverted style that treated the composer’s intentions as a starting point for hugely entertaining whizbangery. His trademark was excess, and he took an equal opportunity approach to good taste and tastelessness. There was a sense, though, that all this youthful exuberance was a phase, just part of the trajectory: planned obsolescence, leading to an upgrade.

But maybe that’s not what’s going on.

“After a decade of waiting for Lang Lang to grow up, to get over his circus act and become the magnificent artist that has always seemed to be [his] calling,” wrote the critic Mark Swed, “I finally gave up…and began to accept him for the pianist he is.” The Lang Lang that concert audiences hear most nights now is no longer either prodigy or product, but a performer comfortable with just about any interpretive approach, who flits nonchalantly from the ferocious to the sublime, the mechanical to the eccentric. What distinguishes him as a pianist is not a consistent voice, but a mercurial quality, the feeling that any one bar of music doesn’t necessarily prepare you for the next.

That changeability can be infuriating, it can feel false and superficial, or it can be utterly thrilling. Listen, for instance, to his performance of Chopin’s A-flat Major Polonaise from a live concert he gave in Vienna in 2010. The piece begins with an introduction that accelerates, slows, pauses, and reverses course, until it finally bursts into a joyful dance. Lang Lang exaggerates all the stutter-steps changes almost to the point of psychosis, and when the polonaise rhythm finally strikes up, the tempo remains scarily unstable, as if the dance floor were slicked with oil.

The essence of this playing is spontaneity, which doesn’t jibe well with his perfectionism, or with the demands of a studio recording. Maybe that’s why so many of the tracks on his latest recording “Liszt: My Piano Hero” have a certain stiffness, as if his inspiration and energy hardened a little more with each take. In the 2004 concert recording Live at Carnegie Hall he plays Liszt’s Liebestraum No. 3 with an oddly fitful beat, but it has a ravishing idiosyncratic energy. He plays the same piece on the “Piano Hero” CD, only now it sounds like the outcome of a strategy. In a performer so dynamic and self-conscious, the discography lags behind the development. But it’s a good bet that as Lang Lang ages, the live recordings will continue to capture this consummate creature of the concert stage, while the studio projects will be polished to a dead sheen.

It’s fitting, then, that its follow-up begins with the roar of an audience and some foot-stomping and hand-clapping: Sleigh Bells’ spirited playfulness is alive on Reign Of Terror, but it’s subject to the kind of forethought, pacing and balance that’s normal to albums constructed for continuous listening. This means that in between the call-and-response fight song “Crush” and the manic whammy-bar bends of “Leader Of the Pack” (which begins with the sound of a gunshot) is the ballad “End Of The Line” — maybe not so much to provide caesura as to soothe the nerves. And in case you were waiting around for Sleigh Bells to do something macabre, “You Lost Me” is a typically over-the-top — and intriguing — stab. While Def Leppard arpeggiated guitars and divebombing keyboard tones telegraph the downcast mood, Krauss sings about something terrible that’s happened behind the Circle K: “Face down in the dirt, in a miniskirt…What a way to die.” The freaks, geeks and goths in rock ‘n’ roll high school used to be able to dismiss the cheerleaders in Sleigh Bells as being vapid and purely out for fun, but there’s no denying them now.

From his apartment in Brooklyn, Derek Miller spoke with eMusic’s Matthew Fritch for an inordinate amount of time about football (despite growing up in Florida, Miller is a New Orleans Saints fan) before moving on to more pertinent subjects such as sunglasses and Beyoncé.

I know you’ve told the story about meeting Alexis a million times; you were waiting on her and her mom. I used to work as a waiter, and I still sometimes have nightmares about being in the weeds.

Oh, dude. Yes. I used to expo, too. Did you have an expo at the restaurant you worked at, like taking tickets?

Yeah, I did some of that. Expediting was my favorite, actually, because you get to yell at people.

I worked at a really busy restaurant expoing as well. I barbacked, too, and there was a system I had: napkins, straws, check the beer, check the liquor. I found a rhythm. I would 100-percent have nightmares about everything being depleted all at once and me being totally fucked.

What are your occupational hazards these days? You and Alexis move around onstage so much, someone must trip on a wire once in a while.

People are always asking Alexis and I how we don’t kill each other onstage, because it’s dark and there’s lots of smoke and strobes. InAtlanta, I threw my guitar in the air and it came down on her head. I stopped playing and looked at her to see if she was OK. She was still singing but had this crazy look in her eyes. She nodded to say she was OK, and then blood started pouring down her face. Alexis is a tough woman, though, and someone threw a towel onstage and she held it against her head and finished singing “Rill Rill.” I was proud of her.

Sounds like something that might’ve happened in your former life [as a member of hardcore band Poison the Well].

Playing in hardcore so long, there’s a lot of energy and I could never stand in one spot. I much prefer to run around like an idiot. Because we’re not a band, half our job is to hype the crowd. I’ve got no problems with bands — I just don’t want to play in one.

With Poison the Well, you were part of a mostly local hardcore scene. But Sleigh Bells is in that broad spectrum of Internet-era bands where you might not even know who’s listening to your record.

It’s a good thing, from where I’m standing. It means we have a diverse audience that expects different things from us at different times. Whereas with hardcore, everyone is thinking the same thing and everyone expects the same thing from you over and over again. It’s suffocating in every way, shape and form. That’s why I quit. I was 22 and I knew I wanted to keep making records but that I was being inhibited by what was expected of me from the hardcore scene. That’s why I started looking for a female vocalist, too, because I’d just spent six years on tour with seven other guys and playing mostly to male audiences that beat their chests and beat each other up.

Do you still listen to hardcore?

I don’t listen to quite as much metal or hardcore as I used to, but there’s something I get from it that I don’t get from Top 40 or pop or club music. Sleigh Bells is such a natural marriage. We’re so rapidly approaching a time where genre is completely irrelevant. Some of the best pop music being made right now is such a strange hybrid, and I think that’s a beautiful thing.

I wonder whether that’s a function of the music world shrinking or something like a residual effect of mashups.

Sometimes that can be novel, but more and more, the results are legitimate. It’s not a clever idea, mixing oil and water, it makes sense. And the records are really good.

Was there really a Beyoncé collaboration in the works?

Yeah, but the way it was spun was inaccurate. She was working with Switch and Diplo on “Girls Who Run the World,” and one of them played our record for her. She really liked the second track, “Kids.” [Diplo] called me for the stems and said they were gonna fuck with the track, and that was the extent of it. I was never in the studio with her — I just sent an email. I have no clue what happened with it.

Is it still the case that you write all the songs, or was there more collaboration with Alexis on Reign of Terror?

This one was a little more collaborative. That’s definitely the big difference. I wrote everything on tour, where we’re together 24/7 and I’m constantly bouncing ideas off her. With Treats, we were both working right up until the time we went into the studio so we didn’t get to spend time together. When we were on tour we finally got the chance to become friends and get a lot closer. She’s had a much bigger hand in this album. The last song we finished, “Comeback Kid,” was our first true collaboration where I just gave her the instrumental and lyrics and she came back with the melody. That was our first true two-name collaboration, like Miller/Krauss.

I wanted to talk about “You Lost Me.” I haven’t worked out all the lyrics yet, but from what I can tell, there’s at least one dead body behind the Circle K.

Oh yeah. [Laughs] That song is kind of different. Because of the production and treatment and the arpeggiated guitars I was kind of worried people would think it was pastiche because there’s a heavy Def Leppard influence on that song. But it’s totally un-ironic and deadly serious to me. And then, you know, it’s actually kind of strange because DJ Mehdi passed away a couple months ago. I didn’t know the guy, but I’ve always admired Ed Banger and how close they are. They’re such a family. The way he died was so tragic. It was such a horrible waking nightmare. I remember specifically working on “You Lost Me” after hearing about it. It really affected me; my stomach just turned.

I’m not familiar with the details of DJ Mehdi’s death — what were the circumstances again?

Again, I didn’t know the guy, but from what I read he was having a birthday party at his flat in Pariswith a bunch of friends. They were on a rooftop with a plexiglass section. They were dancing on it, and it broke. They fell through. A couple people fell and were hurt but [DJ Mehdi] fell to his death. I just can’t imagine. All your friends are there, you’re having a birthday party, and something so horrible… it’s just really sad. My family went through some really difficult stuff right before I started making Treats, which had a lot to do with the record.

“You Lost Me” made me think that Reign Of Terror might have some very evil undertones.

It’s not a concept record. But it is a darker record. I didn’t decide to call it Reign Of Terror because I thought it sounded evil or tough. I can’t go into it, but my family went through a really difficult period for a couple years. I didn’t deal with it on Treats. I used Treats as a distraction. I just buried myself in it and ignored the reality of the situation. Which is a great coping mechanism because when you’re in shock, you’re not ready to deal with anything. So we finished Treats and went on tour. And really, 99 percent of the time on tour you’re traveling, staring out a fucking window and there’s really nothing to do but think. You can’t hide from anything. Whatever is in your head will start eating you up. This record was definitely my way of dealing with that.

Last question: How many pairs of Ray-Bans do you own?

Two. I got my first pair in 2005 and I wore those for years. When we were on tour for the last record, we went to the Ray-Ban showroom in Los Angeles and they gave me a pair of these really dope matte wayfarers. So there’s zero gloss. I don’t really lose shit, or sit on my glasses or break things. I used to get a lot of shit for the glasses thing. I started wearing them habitually because I’d be hungover for a photo shoot or something, and it’s nobody’s business other than mine what happened the night before. I don’t wear them indoors or anything. But definitely for press photos. You know, I hate looking at photos of myself. I’m not a self-loathing guy or anything, but I can’t stand it.

You like to think at some point, even in the music business, it ceases to matter.

I remember when we were working on Treats, I didn’t want to take any pictures or have anything out there except the record. Then that’s almost a little obnoxious. I don’t like that super-cryptic, anonymous band vibe.

Like a man-behind-the-curtain thing.

That’s almost more pretentious. I just put my glasses on, ignore the camera and get on with it.