The eMusic Dozen: K Records

Overlapping as many bands by now as Calvin, Phil Elvrum couldn't be a more different vocal presence, a reedy whisperer so nearly camouflaged by his music that he makes Iron and Wine sound like L.L. Cool J. Yet Elvrum surrounds himself with startlingly gorgeous sounds in the best tradition of "lo-fi" from Brian Eno to Smog. This masterful one-man-with-guests outing finds a universe of foreboding in an old piano, for starters, blending its clumpy chards of chording into wheezing feedback on "I Felt Your Shape" until everything else is as obscured as his voice.

There's no denying the sex appeal of Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn when she croons, in her little-girl voice, "Make it hot/Take me over and over and over." But if her wispy vocals are a collegiate pop cliché looking back to Edie Brickell and the Blake Babies, she puts her star power to creative good use sonically. With Phil Elvrum co-producing this 2002 album, the surprises keep coming: "The Garden" could be a lo-fi contemporary R&B hit, while "Light the Match" is zestful torch singing in a cabaret setting. If her ambitions seem tame beside K's finest rock, she's a sign that the label's ideas still have places to go, people to change.

The Popeye vocal stylings of one Arrington DeDionyso are the greatest Howlin' Wolf update since Beefheart himself — until they morph into something like Steve Martin catching fire. But tolerance for Old Time Relijun's excesses (and tape hiss) on their signature 2001 outing rewards the patient with the band's unusual affection for unhinged sounds, and mastery of perfect beats — the Microphones' Phil Elvrum playing funky drummer to DeDionyso's clarinet skronk. Finally, avant-garde types who hear the R&B groove behind everything noisy, and never let go until it's time to entirely let go.

Three distinct voices carry three independent melodies simultaneously on most Halo Benders recordings. The voices are the bottomed-out baritone of Calvin Johnson (Beat Happening, Dub Narcotic Sound System), the luminously nasal honk of Doug Martsch (Built to Spill), and Martsch's lead guitar — sometimes slide, otherwise fuzztone, often delayed and echoing. Backed by a great band on this 1998 album, the three elements appear at cross-purposes until suddenly, miraculously, they aren't — an aural magic trick that occurs on "Lonesome Sundown," then repeats itself until you wonder why you didn't hear it before.

They sound like Joy Division years before it became cool to sound like Joy Division, yet also sound like Devo, Minutemen, Erasure and Fugazi. In fact this 1997 sophomore disc is a bristling original, full of synthesizer keens and guitar screeches applied to funk and pop in equal measure. Matt Steinke's vocal effects (or is that just a bad mic?) harsh a good voice rather than cover for woodenness. This is the first thing to play for anyone who thinks there's a "K sound."

The natural bridge between Patti Smith and Corin Tucker, Jean Smith's vocal stridence has its detractors, and David Lester's guitar accompaniment lacks the Stax lyricism of Billy Bragg, to whom he's compared. Yet the Vancouver duo's visceral feminism possesses enduring power, and Mecca Normal still makes difficult music worth grappling with. Their 1995 collection of singles from between '87 and '93 captures the group's no-drums period at its confrontational peak, with "Strong White Male" rocking as righteously as anything it influenced.

Too easily dismissed as "not Fugazi, not bad" in 1994, this one-shot band from the backing guitar-bass combo of Beck's One Foot in the Grave stands up better than most alt-rock of its time. With an Afghan Whigs shimmy, sporadic harmony and Sam Jayne's ravaged lead vocals, the groove wears like an old sweater from the Clinton years. Call it emo if you want, but that only flatters emo.

Under the spell of Beat Happening, Washington, D.C., art student Mark Robinson stripped down his group's droning funk sound, then went into the studio with Calvin producing. The result was the classic 1990 single "Yes She Is My Skinhead Girl," and a new voice booming through the usual surf-drone echo chamber of so many K records — a kind of perverted choirboy imitating Sammy Davis, Jr. (Impressed, Courtney Love — the person, not the band — covered the tune live.) The 1993 compilation surrounding it is the only album with the single version of "Skinhead" (the one remixed to distorted perfection by Bongwater's Kramer). The rest includes K sides by winsome Canadian surf rockers Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, English garage avatars Thee Headcoats, Scottish shamble-poppers Teenage Fanclub, and more.

A selection of recordings from the 1991 festival of that name, this live disc opens with Scrawl's painfully felt slacker-motivational "Clock Song (Go Girl Go)," and never gets quite that good again. Yet the whole is worthwhile for hints of what the music can't quite capture — the dragon's inhale before mainstream grunge blazed over everything. Seemingly minutes after Fugazi unplugged their instruments, L7 ("Packin a Rod") had signed to a major, Negativland's Mark Hosler ("Customer Service Breakthrough") was sued by U2 and Courtney Love (the person) forced Courtney Love (the band — Lois singing a timeless "Motorcycle Boy" here) to stop using the name. Good times, great oldies.

Defense Exhibit A in the case for "twee," this 1992 album is as tentative and heartbreaking as your first crush object, capturing a London band in transition — after the addition of a second female singer on keyboards, before the sound hardened into something more conventional and pop-punk. (Heavenly include former members of Tallulah Gosh, and future members of Marine Research and Tender Trap.) Here, the keys chime, the girl-voices soar, and the guitars hum like patient motors, with Calvin barging in for "C is the Heavenly Option," the kind of collaboration K made a tradition of. Drummer and primary songwriter Mathew (Fletcher), the brother of singer Amelia (Fletcher), took his own life in 1996, leaving Heavenly frozen in time forever.

Stretching out their strum-and-drone into something like Unrest's trance rock was regarded as a bad gamble even by fans in 1992. Yet "Tiger Trap" and "Sleepy Head" outlive the memory of the bands that took (or lent) those names, and the rest of the music on this band finale is as willing to linger over notes, as ready to surprise with dissonant chord changes. The guitars (two of them now) sandpaper each other and become one. The toms become melodic. This is the music of peace from a trio that existed to jar.

The beat music that longs for the '60s before drugs, and love before wisdom, is nonetheless radical — for their amped-up second album, Beat Happening take the Replacements' line about music having too many notes literally. The absence of bass ingeniously emphasizes a powerful floor tom. The guitar distortion clears the head for straight talk and suggestive nonsense. Calvin's voice looms like a rockabilly ghoul, while Heather's skips rope. His "Indian Summer" became the oft-covered classic, but her "In Between" was the key song — a kind of bed-bouncing, punk rock house music for the subconscious. Only Public Enemy presented as great a challenge in 1988, or stands up so well.