Supermodel Agyness Deyn wants to show the world she's more than just a stunningly beautiful face by breaking into the music scene.

(Audible groans)

For her debut, she teamed up with New York's Five O'Clock Heroes.

Who

Gotta admit: She's better than Naomi Campbell.

I've just discovered a new recording artist named Britney Spears, and I'm dying to tell y'all about her. Spears' new song, “Freakshow,” displays a lot of promise. I predict very big things for her.

The production—by Timbaland protégé Danja—is off the hook: very sparse and bass-heavy, revealing the influence of that hot new London-centric electronic-music genre dubstep and Timbo's exotic/skeletal funk techniques. Brit's voice is a bit thin and rent-a-diva, but with enough marketing muscle, I think she could become a minor dance-pop star—nowhere near as big as M.I.A., understand, but she should sell a respectable amount of records, if her label believes strongly enough in her to pressure all the right media outlets.

Breaking new artists: it's all in a day's work here at OC Weekly.

The new 12-song album is set to come out....

January 29, 2008.

Sigh.

For those who have been anxiously waiting since 2006's Amputechture, this is going to be a looong 3 months.

But if you need an M.V. fix, here's a live performance of "Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)".

The new Britney Spears album wont drop until November 13, but 4 of her songs have been "accidentally" leaked into the internet.

It looks like a publicity stunt to arouse interest in the former pop queen's new work (come on, four songs got leaked???), but if the rest of the album is as bland as this, I honestly don't see a comeback in Britney's near future.

I mean, her stuff is OK, but it's gonna take a lot more than some mediocre dance music to make everybody forget about the whole head-shaving, rehab-dropping, snootch-flashing thing.

Listen for yourself.

Got Me High

For those who were seduced by the minimalist quiet whisperings on Iron And Wine’s early albums Our Endless Numbered Days and The Creek Drank The Cradle will find the new album The Shepherd’s Dog a venture into new territory.

This album crosses the border from timid (who can forget the sweetly sparse cover of Such Great Heights?) to bold, with mastermind Samuel Beam finally unlocking what we always knew he had lurking somewhere within the depths of his creativity.

This is the album any Iron And Wine fan has been waiting (ever so patiently) for, and will finally get to hear September 25. Beam takes The Shepherd’s Dog to a new level with full and flooding background symphonies cradling his poetic lyrics.

The album opens with “Pagan Angel And A Borrowed Car” displaying a twangy guitar sweeping into a fluid currant of organic harmony and hippie-loving melody, paired with a foot-tapping beat straight to the heart. Beam’s vocals are both as raspy and smooth as raw silk.

The entire album boasts Beam’s newfound confidence in the twisted and soft, a coherence of talent best found on “Lovesong Of A Buzzard”, pairing sleepy singing to upbeat and spirited Caribbean drums. Standing out is the line, “...a tattoo of a flower on a broken wrist.”

The track “Carousel” starts off as a digitally warped lullaby, but quickly transcends into a old southern back water hymn.

The album finishes with “Flightless Bird, American Mouth”, an achingly heartfelt tune sung with a pure, unadulterated innocence.

Beam has found his new chapter in song writing, and it seems to be sunshine folk mixed with just the right amount of introspection.

One Cell In The Sea, the latest from A Fine Frenzy starts out with a dainty chipperness that may lead you to believe the overall mood of the rest of the album may be continuously delightful.

But singer/songwriter Alison Sudol is a tricky girl.

By the third song "Whisper", she’s got you hooked and leads you down the rabbit hole into a storybook world of melancholy elegance and heartbreak. Alison’s delicate voice morphs between sweet coos and chirps against a soft piano, drums and the occasional digital bits.

Her bio mentions voices like Aretha Franklin and Ella Fitzgerald as main influences, but what Aretha is to strong, Alison is to delicate. She sings beautifully in her own right.

“I thought for a while that I’d become a big blues singer like Etta James or a soul singer like Aretha Franklin,” she told Interview magazine, “but I’m an itty-bitty little white girl.”

With ivory skin and fire-red hair, Alison has the beautiful-sad thing down pat. She probably even cries beautifully, mascara smearing just so.

For those of you who love a romantic tragedy, A Cell In The Sea will probably find a place amongst your “just broken up with” collection.

But beware of the song “Almost Lover.”

I might just be especially emotional today (listening to a lot of Otis Redding), but this track is sung so painfully that it brought actual tears to my eyes.

The rest of the album keeps with the hopeless/romantic theme, so if you choose to enjoy this fine piece of art, make sure there are tissues nearby.

All right, people. There will be absolutely no shit-talking in this blog. No matter how tempting. I just can’t do it.

Joe Tucky, an Orange County resident, has written a country song called “A Salute” dedicated to our soldiers, both active and veteran.

The inspiration?

It came to him in a dream.

“I woke up at 3 in the morning with the complete song in my head,” said Tucky. “I’m not a songwriter, but the entire song and lyrics came to me in a dream.”

Tucky claims his friends and family begged him to produce the song, after hearing the deeply moving lyrics, which have allegedly brought many people to tears (in a good way, I presume).

Lyrics like “I am a country singer, this is a country song. If you don’t want to listen, why don’t you move along.”

No, no, there are better ones.

“So when you see an American soldier, salute him and let him pass by. Remember that American soldier, for you he is willing to die.”

(You know, when my first-grade class sang “Proud to Be an American,” it made my mom cry. It just so happens that a song doesn’t have to be a masterpiece to inspire patriotism.)

Tucky recorded the song with the help of country singer Sam Morrison. Neither man has actually served in the military, but both want to “express respect and gratitude for our country’s armed servicemen and -women.”

Morrison and Tucky want as many soldiers and veterans as possible to hear their song.

Tucky wants you all to buy his CD (for just less than 6 bucks, from his independently owned production company) and either give it to a soldier or veteran you know — or don’t know (not important) — as a sign of respect for their service and sacrifice.

You know what would be an even greater sign of respect?

If Tucky donated all his proceeds to a charity like Soldiers Angels or Freedom Is Not Free.

Ever wonder what Beatles songs done in Metallica's heavy, hyper style would sound like? Me neither. But the clever buggers in Beatallica thought this would be a smashing concept; hence the forthcoming release of Sgt. Hetfield's Motorbreath Pub Band (out July 10 on Oglio Records). The group consist of Jaymz Lennfield, Grg Hammetson, Kliff McBurtney and Ringo Larz. They put the pun in punishment.

As is the case with most of these novelty projects that aren't Spinal Tap, the song titles are the most enjoyable aspects of Beatallica: “...And Justice for All My Loving,” “Leper Madonna,” “Blackened the U.S.S.R.,” “Hey Dude,” “Helvester of Skelter,” etc. Sgt. Hetfield's is essentially a comedy album, and therefore is worth perhaps one spin... unless you really like Metallica and the Beatles to an unhealthy degree. In which case you'll be happier than Paul McCartney perusing his bank statement.

Beatallica will be playing the San Diego County Fair June 22-24.

Every few days or so, I schlep over to Dave the Music Editor's desk to see if he's got any new musical gems to lend me. Today was one of those schlepping days, and he handed me The Comas latest album Spells. The cover caught my eye, first of all, with an illustration of little stuffed animals with scary button eyes and pointy claws running ritualistically around in a circle. I'm a sucker for cover art, and decided they got bonus points for an aesthetically haunting but fuzzy wuzzy visual.

The first song on the CD is called "Red Microphones." Hey! I know this one! I keep this ratty notebook to write down songs and bands I like, so I can look them up later (I never do, of course). Sure enough, "Red Microphones" by The Comas was in there. I don't even remember where I heard it, but it's got a catchy melody that's hard to forget. The kind of catchy melody I end up listening to over and over and over until I get sick of it. I've already listened to it 4 times today. Right now, I'm in the just-got-my-hands-on-a-copy stage of obsession, and it sparkles with thrilling newness, similar to a new crush.

About the 4th listen, I started catching some of the lyrics, though. "Red Microphones from your eyes, they're everywhere...We grind the bones of liar giants and drink the blood of maidens swooning." What the hell?!

Seems my new crush has a kinky streak.

"Light The Pad" is another good one, it has an stoney quality combined with dreamy vocals that sing "transmission's down" repeatedly with a crawling slowness that's sorta creepy. At one point, I swear there's someone screaming in the background but you can barely hear it.

The Comas end Spells with a track titled "After the Afterglow." I love it when an album ends with a sad, sad love song (It's how I usually end my mix tapes). Soft guitar strumming goes sweetly with forlorn vocals singing the chorus "13 evil buzzards circling our love, 13 evil buzzards waiting up above." How romantic!

Come to think of it, the entire album blends the lines between weird and pretty. It's like The Comas have created an imaginary whimsical world, and they're letting you have a look.

And then sending you home with nightmares.

The mighty Forced Exposure distribution company is America's lifeline to the fertile global electronic-music underground—as well as many other arcane sonic delicacies. Whenever a package from FE arrives, I can be assured a bounty of excellent sounds from the planet's most forward-thinking sound sorcerers. Below is a survey of releases from the most recent batch of goodies. More treasures can be yours at the FE site or at your local hip record emporium, if you're indeed fortunate enough to have one in these catastrophic times for music retail.

Let's begin with Gudrun Gut's I Put a Record On (Monika Enterprise). Gut used to play in esteemed German avant-rock groups Malaria, Mania D., and Einstürzende Neubauten. Remarkably, this is her solo debut full-length. Frau Gut sings in distinguished, hushed tones over bubbly, warm electronic textures and introverted, laidback beats. Awesome eminent gris of techno Thomas Fehlmann (the Orb, Sun Electric) produces three tracks, all of which are typically sublime. This is a great album to play shortly after waking, to help you ease into your hectic day. It gently nudges you on your path to being presentable to the outside world while putting some feline stealth in your step and a pleasant chill down your spine.

Next up is Brazilian Gui Boratto with Chromophobia, his debut album for techno powerhaus Kompakt Records. Boratto is billed as Kompakt's fastest-rising star, and this disc provides 13 reasons why that statement carries weight. Boratto is a master of many styles (richly melodic ambient; gritty, microhouse; tense, propulsive minimal techno; bleepy, paranoiac Detroit techno; clattering IDM; sugary electro pop; etc.), and consequently Chromophobia is the rare techno album that can be consumed outside of club conditions without making your eyes and ears glaze over from repetition O.D. (not that there's anything wrong with that). He's also remixed a track on the City of God soundtrack, which is pretty cheeky of him. Update: Pitchfork reports that Boratto and Kompakt boss Michael Mayer will be touring North America, with a stop at L.A.'s Avalon May 26.

Suave Frenchman Electronicat (Fred Bigot, pictured above) checks in with his sixth outstanding album, Chez Toi (Disko B), but most folks still don't know him from Daft Punk's haberdasher. Electronicat updates that subterranean Suicide throb/pulse and laces it with exhilarating surf-guitar riffs and sooty layers of laxative bass tones. You might even catch some fat, Gary Glitter-esque shuffle in Fred's unbourgie electro-rock boogie, especially in "She's a Queen." Electronicat's music manages to be both as fun as jumping into a vat of cream cheese and as ominous as hearing an airport security agent intone, "Step this way, please."

Last but most, there's From Here We Go Sublime by the Field (German producer Axel Willner). Willner is my favorite new-ish addition to Kompakt's abundantly talented roster due to his deft incorporation of shoegaze-guitar textures into techno's somewhat rigid rhythmic grid, his adventurous use of sampled vocals (including cascading, MBV-esque coos that induce Pavlovian waves of bliss in your correspondent), and his wicked way with a Four Tops sample (hear the "Things Keep Falling Down" 12" for proof). The Field's debut album abounds with buoyant beats and the kind of understatedly uplifting tunes you can hum in front of others and still respect yourself in the morning. Willner's gauzy, enwombing auras and wistful melodies are manna for those still pining over the dissolution of My Bloody Valentine and Seefeel. I can even see From Here We Go Sublime snagging a lot of Pitchfork-reading indie-rock fans; it's destined to be a potential gateway drug into techno for people who ordinarily run screaming from canned beats and synth arpeggios. Willner aspires to a celestial lushness and melodic grandeur that could've disastrously tumbled into trance's cloying fluffiness. But From Here We Go Sublime lives up to its rather immodest title and is as lightly intoxicating a techno record as you're likely to hear in 2007.

It's no secret that I love Harry Nilsson a lot. A lot a lot. And so it is that I hear traces of him in just about everything, from Madman Moon to Kelley Stoltz (if you look beyond the obvious Brian Wilson presence) to, now, Richard Swift. Swift's latest, Dressed Up for the Letdown (out February 20 on Secretly Canadian) brims with wistful mediatations on love and death--notably on how the former helps us all cope with the latter. It's heavy stuff, with Swift's sometimes happy/often sad piano melodies anchoring each song in a robust '70s throwback sound. And that's Nilsson '70s, not Jackson Browne '70s (sorry, Josh Rouse), the kind of stuff that plays in the musical theater quadrant of your mind's eye. Bonus points for asking too-good-for-this-one-SUV-town Frank Lenz to sit in on bass. For a better idea, hit Swift's MySpace page and listen to "Songs of National Freedom." Dude's touring Europe at the moment, but stay tuned for local shows to be announced. Also, check the Nov. 30 Dec. 7 issue of the Weekly for a full review of the CD.

OTHER RECENT ARRIVALS: All Black Cinema (formerly John Wilkes Kissing Booth), It's Like Stars Hitting Ice. Groovy stuff from former JWKB frontman Derrick Brown, once again begging the question: Why is this man starving in Nashville? Review to come in a few weeks Nov. 30.

KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR: The awesome boys and gal in Lightmusic, who are finally laying down some of their spectacular tunes in the studio as we type. I may just have to pull a Rob from High Fidelity and start a record label so I can sign these kids before anyone else does. Obligatory full disclosure: drummer Kevin is so rad, we hired him as an intern.

BONUS FUN OF THE MUSICAL VARIETY: Visit lovely LA dudes Division Day's MySpace to watch top notch video for their song "Hurricane." Totally Police, totally rad.

Abstract Workshop's flagship rapper Jud Nester debuts magic track "U Shoulda Seen Her On Myspace" at #4 (!) on this week's Billboard Hot R&B/Hip Hop Singles Sales chart way above other new singles by Young Jeezy (#17) and Eminem/50 Cent/Lloyd Banks/Cashis (#26) and Fat Joe (#36)! Plus Jud comes in at #15 on Hot 100 Singles between the Arctic Monkeys and Diddy and at #84 on Hot R&B Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks. Lots of congratulations to Jud and Abstract for pulling this off. When I talked to Jud for the cover story on Abstract Workshop in March this is what he said:

"I don't want to come out typical OC style, like get a couple million behind it and look like I'm a rock star already—though I am a rock star; I've spent more time in the studio than any rock star I've ever known. I'm a moment capturer. That's it. I don't want to have a finished product coming out. I want it to be from the bedroom, glitchy, with the grit; I want them to listen to the bullshit to get to the point! I wanna put the baby pictures out. I don't consider us huge talents. I consider us capable of capturing inspiration. And that's beyond talent!"

And now you can see what he meant at #4 on the charts. Listen or get a copy for yourself at www.judnester.com or Abstract Workshop or www.myspace.com/judnester. And see Jud live at next weekend's Abstract Workshop at Detroit with excellent support from Freestyle Fellowship's Myka Nyne and Trek Life.

Via excellent WFMU and others: Faust was one of the definitive Krautrock bands (up with Kraftwerk/Can/Neu/Harmonia) even though they started a little late (early '70s instead of late '60s like much of this stuff) and if you haven't heard their actual songs at the smarter bars you frequent, then you've heard their weird after-effects. I always thought Pixies should have covered "Sad Skinhead" (from Faust IV), and if you have space between Velvet Underground and Eno to push in a few more records, Faust would fit in well.

Anyway, they'd signed to Richard Branson's Virgin but there was a disconnect between what Richard Branson expected from a band and what Faust wanted to do as a band so eventually... the expensive studio sessions collapse and Faust decides to save their tapes, but a car chase and a little jail time later, they're out and down in southern Germany eating dog food and drinking schnapps, per this. Further quotes from member Jean-Herve Peron from WFMU:

Who is to pay this huge bill? Panic. Faxes to Virgin -- because we were, in a way, still under contract. They should be pleased that we offer them a master tape of our genial music. But no, Richard didn't even want to listen to our genial music. More panic. Kurt had already discretely left. So, let's rescue the equipment and the tapes at least. We sneaked the equipment and tapes out into the BRS and Ruud and Günther hopped in and... go... run for freedom... speeding gangster-wise through the Arabella grounds, knocking down the closing gates of the parking lot and -- yes, hurrah, they were through!

Like captains in a sinking ship, Joachim, Rudolf and I (where the hell is Zappi?) stayed back to do battle. We were arrested, humiliated (how could anyone not realize the importance of these recordings? Pah!) and no, we none of us had one single pfennig, neither in our pockets nor in the bank, so hang us, torture us, sell our bones to our fans, do what you want with us, but -- please, we're hungry and can't we just talk about this over a nice bottle?

The non-funny, non-heroic end of this story was that Joachim's and Rudolf's mamas bailed us our and paid the bills to save their cherished progeniture. Thank you Mrs. Irmler, thank you Mrs. Sosna.

So thanks to understanding German moms and to the Internet hive mind too: now the tapes have resurfaced -- sourced from a promotional cassette Virgin sent out before relations deteriorated. It's the Faust album no one but the band and a few sympathetic media people ever heard. Read more and scout MP3s at WFMU here.

Out in three mos. on Mute: Nick Cave plus Warren Ellis (Dirty Three) and Martyn Casey (from the Triffids, one of my favorite Australian bands besides X) and Jim Sclavunos (Bad Seeds plus Panther Burns and 8 Eyed Spy and more) are Grinderman and this is pretty great very best shit. Press release says:

Grinderman - Debut Album Out 5th March 2007

Foul-mouthed, noisy, hairy, and damn well old enough to know better, Grinderman are Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunos.

Born of babbling lyrics hatched from Bosch eggshells in the Hyde-bound apocalyptic margins of the Cave brain, the Grinderman sound is an instinctual yawlp that also resurrects the demons of each musician's past: the trashcan proselytising of Birthday Party-era Nick; Sclavunos' late 70s New York no-wave noise wisdom; Martyn Casey's ominous Triffids bass reverb; plus Ellis' avant-garde soundtrack work and his teenage love of Black Sabbath. Destination: Out!

Warren: "It was meant to be really open liberating thing, push those elements where we'd normally say 'I don't know about that' and push on, relentless."
Nick: "We're just searching for a bit of freedom"
Jim: "Ceaselessly banging away." Warren: "Having Nick on the guitar changed the whole dynamic of the thing and threw us into a much more rudimentary ballpark."

Nick Cave - Vocals, Electric Guitar, Electric Organ, Piano
Warren Ellis - Electric Bouzouki, Fendocastor, Viola, Violin, Acoustic Guitar, Hohner Guitaret, Backing Vocals
Martyn P Casey - Bass, Acoustic Guitar, Backing Vocals
Jim Sclavunos - Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals

Grinderman sound different from everyone, including themselves. As Memphis Slim put it back in 1941, "While everything is quiet and easy/ Mr. Grinder can have his way." It's a new day. God help you all.

Can't beat cave brain. "No Pussy Blues" waits for you here.