THE DEAD C

Vain, Erudite, and Stupid: Selected Works: 1987–2005

(Ba Da Bing!)

1/2

The three liner-note contributors (Seymour Glass, Tom Lax, Nick Cain) to this two-disc retrospective of New Zealand power trio the Dead C speak of their indoctrination (or perhaps immersion is the better word into said C), so that it comes across as both alchemical rite and fraternal hazing. This anti-music initially conjures confusion, disgust, discombobulation in the band's future champions.

And why not? Even rising out of Flying Nun's tiny scene of scrappy lo-fi four-track practitioners, the Dead C were particularly cruddy, baleful, and ramshackle. Propelled along by ex-Verlaines drummer Robbie Yeats, guitarist Michael Morley and non-guitarist Bruce Russell were intent on crumbling even their already-tenuous hold on pop and rock from the start. By the 10 oppressive minutes of "Helen Said This," both guitar string and drum skin seem to be desiccating before your very ears, a trait the trio would embrace fully, improvising no-fidelity zombie noise inside of rock's skeletal form.

Somewhere in the middle of the stumble of "Highway" (see also "Constellation"; "World"; "Bitcher"), the band's sluggish, detuned dirge churns into a tornado, destroying all with its squalls and shrapnel. Sure, there was precedence for such squalor: Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray," Patti Smith Group's "Radio Ethiopia," but neither one of those bands could maintain the monolithic meltdown that started with 1992's double LP, Harsh 70s Reality and carried through 1995's White House. That the Dead C slithered even deeper into such bleak tarpits (see Vain's second disc) shows their monkish devotion to this exquisite fucking noise. ANDY BETA

PAPER RAD

Trash Talking DVD

(Load)

Paper Rad are to animation what Load Records darlings Lightning Bolt are to rock music. Both embrace the standards of their medium (metal riffs for Lightning Bolt; cheesy flash animation and cartoons like Garfield or Gumby for Paper Rad) only to subvert them for their own harsh psychedelic experiments.

Paper Rad are a group of low-art pranksters consisting of siblings Jacob and Jessica Ciocci and friend Ben Jones. Together they create comic zines, online art (via paperrad.org), video, MIDI files, paintings, and installations. Their work has a kind of bizarre nostalgia to it; détournements of '80s childhood icons such as the Muppet Babies and Super Mario clash with grotesque, neon stuffed animals, found video footage, and MIDI reversions of hits like "Puttin' on the Ritz" and "Don't Worry Be Happy."

This DVD alternates between absurd narrative cartoons and frenetic audio/video collage. Throughout, Paper Rad poke fun at pop culture, politics, technology, art, music, and themselves with sharp, unsparing wit (anyone who's lived communally with artists or punks will recognize the bitter humor in "Alfe"). The visuals appear primitively flat and pixelated, and the audio is frequently amateurish. But this is an intentional, and important, part of Paper Rad's aesthetic—the result of a DIY impulse shared with such peers as Lightning Bolt, Forcefield, and Cory Archangel. Paper Rad are pop-cultural scavengers, revealing and reveling in the garbage of our technological age and transforming that trash not into beauty, but into flashier trash. ERIC GRANDY

THE THERMALS

The Body, the Blood, the Machine

(Sub Pop)

In 2004, the Thermals recorded their last full-length, Fuckin A, in four days with Death Cab for Cutie guitarist/producer extraordinaire Chris Walla. Raw, gritty, and deceptively simple, the disc displayed unbridled creativity. It would have been simple for the Portland trio re-create that feel with their follow-up, but instead they've opted to transcend the lo-fi tag with The Body, the Blood, the Machine.

Religious imagery abounds on the band's latest disc (the cover features Jesus with his eyes blacked out), but the songs are anything but dogmatic. Opener "Here's Your Future" recounts a fictional conversation between God and Noah, while "I Hold the Sound" presents some pretty apocalyptic imagery for a quirky pop band (e.g., "The sun is cold/The world is over").

However, the subtleties are what make The Body such an amazing disc. The hummable guitar melody on "A Pillar of Salt" is unforgettable; "Returning to the Fold" features a chord progression that's been used a million times, but somehow still sounds fresh; and the 4/4 bounce of "An Ear for Baby" is guaranteed to get even the most cynical American Apparel–clad hipster on the dance floor.

Maybe more striking is the band's ability to take things down a notch on songs like "Test Pattern," wherein they turn down the distortion and slow the tempos without losing any of their effectiveness, proving that songwriting is truly the key to their success. JONAH BAYER

PAJO

1968

(Drag City)

From his dynamic and harmonic guitar fireworks in Slint to his early role in defining Palace Brothers' alt-country minimalism, to his crucial support gigs in Tortoise, Stereolab, and Zwan, David Pajo is one of the most important musicians 99 percent of the planet can't recognize. While he previously credited his low profile to acute shyness, in his solo work as M, Aerial M, Papa M, and now, simply PAJO, Pajo has at last cracked the door to his enigmatic inner world—and as indicated by 1968, his second album under the PAJO moniker, the dude seems to be inhabiting a haunted house.

They may deal in similar themes (death, desolation, disintegration), share a love of curious nomenclature, and draw from blues and folk traditions, but PAJO and his labelmate (Smog) are tonal opposites: Even at his most desolate, (Smog)'s Bill Callahan emits a swaggering self-assuredness; Pajo, conversely, sounds almost paralyzed in front of a microphone, his voice a palsied murmur even when multitracked on all of 1968's songs. The contrast with his strong playing is initially off-putting; however, given the childlike simplicity of Pajo's vocal melodies, his singing ironically becomes the album's most endearing trait. Only once you're lured in do you realize the actual horrors in 1968's lyrics: Old Scratch's shadow in "Who's That Knocking"; impending doom in "Walk Through the Dark"; serial murder in "Wrong Turn" and "Cyclone Eye." With repeat listens, even the album's love songs (e.g., "Let It Be Me") start to reveal disturbing double entendres—which, given that Pajo lists his lyrical inspirations for the album as ecstatic poet Hafiz and Canadian death-metal loonies Gorguts, is probably not accidental. AARON BURGESS

OH NO

Exodus into Unheard Rhythms

(Stones Throw)

Composed exclusively with samples of composer Galt MacDermot's vast discography, Oh No's Exodus into Unheard Rhythms is a substantial improvement over his 2004 debut, The Disrupt. But unlike his movie-minded brother Madlib, Oh No uses MacDermot's material as a blueprint for swaggering underground hiphop.

Nearly two-dozen guests, from Buckshot ("Get Yours") to Vast Aire ("No Aire"), rap over Oh No's beats. Content with handling production, chopping and looping MacDermot's tracks, Oh No mostly stays silent save for a few of Exodus's 23 tracks. Meanwhile many of the MCs give voice to themes more profound than braggadocio and battle rhymes. On "Black," Poor Righteous Teachers' Wise Intelligent raps, "I'm young, black, gifted/And I long to know the truth/I look back, I'm often haunted by my youth/I see black bodies hanging from the poplar trees/Now it seems everybody's into copping a key." Aloe Blacc sings on "Second Chance" of being killed in a car accident, then praying to God to resurrect him. LMNO details a vivid description of a bank robbery on "Hank," as well as the guilt and self-doubt that eventually doom the robber. These cuts, scattered amid the expertly rendered but standard rhyme sessions, elevate Exodus into Unheard Rhythms from high-concept Hollywood flick to cinematic art. MOSI REEVES

BLOWOFF

Blowoff

(Full Frequency Music)

The busiest man in post-alt-rock, Bob Mould, returns with this new side project. Aside from his soundtrack work, pro wrestling scripting, and the solo stuff, Mould is a club DJ. And that's where he made pals with DJ/producer Richard Morel, known for his Deep Dish Records remixes of everyone from Mariah Carey to the Killers.

This collab strikes a good balance between Mould's layered guitar and harmony schemes and Morel's house shimmy. And while it's apparent that Mould wrote the majority of the songs, it's Morel's deft blending that makes Blowoff a major improvement over Mould's similar-aiming Body of Sound from last year.

Admittedly, they get the most Mould-y tunes out of the way in the first two anthemic bursts, as things get progressively dancier from there. But even on the most club-tastic "Saturday Night All the Time" and "Life with a View," it becomes clear that Mould's yearning melodies, even back to Hüsker Dü, were sometimes an odd kin to the soaring melodrama of classic disco.

The pristine, confident sheen of every song could use some of the teetering madness of Mould's heavier days. But then he effortlessly knocks off hooks that rival his best Sugar tunes ("Get Inside with Me") or tries a new twist like the organ-fed, future-flung mod pop of "Fallout." With Blowoff, Mould further proves himself to be one of the most consistently creative survivors of the alt-rock era. ERIC DAVIDSON

COMETS ON FIRE

Avatar

(Sub Pop)

1/2

For their elegantly frazzled fourth album, hirsute Californian psychedelicists Comets on Fire strike an electrifying balance between sophistication and their wilder, more primordial gifts. Even a noise neophyte could trace the evolution from the Neanderthal gonzo-thrash of Comets' eponymous first to the exultant freeform improv, ecstatic riffage, and neon noise of 2002's Field Recordings from the Sun to the 2004 Sub Pop debut Blue Cathedral (where the Hawkwind-esque freak-outs rubbed fringed shoulders with tranquil instrumental excursions), but Avatar affirms this growing lucidity doesn't come at the cost of their brain-scrambling crunch.

"Dogwood Rust" opens the set with a slick jazz-fusion lick that wouldn't shame the Dark Magus himself, before running aground on an utterly primitive, exultant swamp of sludge-fuzz that sounds like the caveman construction unit assembling Stonehenge. Similarly impressive are "Jaybird," a slithering serpent of a riff luring listeners to another climactic, phosphorescent freak-out, and "The Swallow's Eye," which switches from dreamy waltz to head-snapping Deep Purple–esque mosh with a roller-coaster-ride tension.

It's Avatar's two "ballads" that are most remarkable, though. With a moving, bluesy melancholy that wouldn't sound out of place on the first Rod Stewart album, "Lucifer's Memory" and the elegiac "Hatched Upon the Age," essay classic rock with sincerity, grace, and passion. They're detail-rich and ersatz-perfect, but much deeper than mere genre exercise. The swooning squalls and hauntingly eloquent piano of "Hatched" are the highlight, capturing a band chipping away the extraneous din and finding something potent and profound at the center. STEVIE CHICK

Comets on Fire play Sat Aug 19 at Neumo's, 9 pm, $10 adv, 21+