The Juan MacLean
“Happy House”
(DFA)

The title’s not a joke: “You are… excellent” is the chorus, and
the Lite-Brite piano riff and ticklish bass line just sweeten the pot.
After the harder-nosed, overtly funky stuff of the Juan MacLean’s
debut, Less Than Human, this is a left turn, though given the
giddier, headier direction his label has been taking so far this year
(see Hercules and Love Affair), maybe that’s not so surprising. Each of
the three mixes is more impossibly perfect than the last: the
brilliantly sustained 12-minute original (“Is it going to crack?” I
kept wondering… nope) is followed by a consistently eventful
10-minute dub by Prince Douglas. “You are… excellent,” indeed. But
that chorus is almost nowhere to be heard on Lee Douglas’s six-minute
remix; instead, that version hinges on the line, “Launch me into
space,” to which Douglas responds with disco clavinets and vapor-trail
effects so big-room lush they make the other two sound like warm-ups.
Who dosed the punch over at DFA? And whoever it is, how can I get them
to swing by my next house party?

Big Boi, ft. Andre 3000
and Raekwon
“Royal Flush”
(MP3)

Big Boi begins this leak from his upcoming solo album in a
surprising voice—a high, keening drawl that sounds blocks away
from his usual calm, conversational, low tone. He sounds excellent,
boasting freely and cutting the president; Raekwon sounds less so; and
both kindly leave more than half the song to its real star (who now
also goes by the name 3 Stacks) to speak his piece. In a couple of
lines, Andre veers from a crack metaphor the Clipse will undoubtedly
sample on their next mixtape hook to a snap on street-tough
shortsightedness to, no shit, “The Hokey Pokey”—not to mention
the advice, “It’s easier to run the street than walk in the sand.”
Hurry up with the next OutKast album already.

Johnny Foreigner

“Our Bipolar Friends”/
“The Houseparty Scene Is Killing
You”
(Best Before)

My favorite rock album so far this year is the new Blood on the
Wall, and this trio from Birmingham, England, is in the same general
lineage of early ’90s spazz-pop indie squall. Only Johnny Foreigner’s
brisk tempos also put them in the vicinity of the Thermals, with male
and female co-lead singers Alexei and Kelly (I think—no last
names on their MySpace) juicing things hard once the A-side revs up.
The B is less combative and less memorable. Both are worth any indie
fan’s time.