music

Angles
The Strokes

Release Date: March 18, 2011
Total Songs: 10
Genre: Alternative
Price: $9.99
Copyright 2011 RCA Records, a unit of Sony Music Entertainment

A State of Trance 2011
Armin van Buuren

Release Date: March 18, 2011
Total Songs: 30
Genre: Dance
Price: $15.99
Copyright 2011 Napith Music LLC

James Blake
James Blake

Release Date: February 07, 2011
Total Songs: 12
Genre: Electronic
Price: $9.99
Copyright 2011 Polydor Ltd. (UK)

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Two Door Cinema Club are a Northern Irish group with a voracious alt-pop appetite, channeling emo, power pop, twinkling electronica and yearning adult contemporary into a tight, punchy package. The trio of schoolmates released its first singles with Paris' Kitsune label in 2009, and in 2010 they stayed with the label for their debut album, Tourist History, which they recorded in Paris with Cassius' Philippe Zdar. Like Phoenix, another group to record in Zdar's Motorbass studio, Two Door Cinema Club specialize in kinetic bass-and-drum grooves, spiky guitar lines and sing-along choruses; what sets the group apart is its nervous emo overdrive, a gleaming sweetness always on the verge of an ice-cream headache. - PSHERBURNE

Chicago native Ryan Raddon started out as a fan of British New Wave, listening to Tears For Fears, the Smiths and the Cult. However, after hanging around clubs with the great Frankie Knuckles behind the decks he began to develop a taste for house. By the time he attended school in Salt Lake City he was making a name for himself as a DJ and started releasing his own productions. One of them impressed OM Records so much, that they picked it up for distribution. Lured by the energetic house scene, he moved to San Francisco and joined OM in their Artist Relations department, and released his debut It's You, It's Me in 2003. The title track proved popular with the Lazy Dog club founders (Ben Watt and Jay Hannan), and repeated spins at their Sunday Socials led to Ryan making a name for himself as a deep house DJ. More credibility followed, with Roger Sanchez picking up two tracks for his Release Yourself 2003 mix, and Jay Hannan launching his Society Heights label with Raddon's "In This Life" (2003) release. His latest effort In The Moment (2004) offers more soulful laid-back deep house for the mellow faithful. - Nicholas Baker

San Francisco's Lorin Ashton describes his project Bassnectar as "omnitempo maximalism," which is as good a tag as any for his full-bore beats and brash electronic elements. A Burning Man favorite, the dreadlocked musician is certainly the heaviest artist ever signed to the Om Records label. Drawing from hip-hop, breakbeat, trance, hard rock and dubstep, his politically themed music is a world away from the suave house and downtempo of most of his labelmates. - PSHERBURNE

Sure, Deadmau5 wears a big red mouse head during his live shows, but that's not the only reason that the Toronto native is one of dance music's most popular producers, especially among DJs. It's his musical style that's truly attention-grabbing: Drawing tricks from electro-house, progressive and minimal, he composes big, burly tunes that absolutely own dancefloors. With his music, what you hear is what you get -- chugging rhythms, emotive synths and gnarly bass lines are his stock in trade, and any element that doesn't raise the heart rate gets left on the cutting room floor. But there is another level to Deadmau5 music. As talented an engineer as he is a composer, every sound in his music jumps out of the speakers and lodges itself deep inside you, with precision and ferocity. His bass lines are designed to rock stadiums, but you can feel their power right at home. - Philip Sherburne

While it's still too early to judge their staying power, few bands exemplified the evolving landscape of indie rock in the early '00s like Sleigh Bells. Whether or not they even make actual indie rock is up for debate; the duo's overdriven tunes, all with the volume knob glued to 11, have as much to do with hip-hop and R&B as they do punk and garage rock. Then again, their home on M.I.A.'s N.E.E.T. label underscores how thoroughly the lines between pop, hip-hop and indie culture have blurred. The Brooklyn-based duo came together in 2008 when Derek Miller, a former guitarist of hardcore band Poison the Well, met Alexis Krauss, formerly of the teen-pop group RubyBlue and a customer at the restaurant where Miller was working. (Miller's mother abetted in the matchmaking.) Sleigh Bells built a considerable following on the strength of their live show, but as their debut album, Treats, attests, they're no less skilled in the studio. The songwriting may be rudimentary, but they have an undeniable knack for recorded nuance, turning out guitar riffs and drum-machine beats that cut like knives, and using Krauss' '60s-inspired vocals as a soothing balm. - PSHERBURNE

In 2008, hip-hop was experiencing a bit of an identity crisis. The hyper-masculine bravado of the G-Unit era had run its course, and the genre's two top sellers, Lil' Wayne and Kanye West, decided that they didn't want to make hip-hop any longer. Wayne indulged his inner rawk star, channeling every half-baked rap-rock group you'd hoped the '90s swallowed hole, while West looked to Cleveland, where he found Kid Cudi, a producer/emcee who wore his hipster hip-hop pedigree on his sleeve. Cudi's breakthrough single, "Day 'n' Nite," tracks the travels of a "lonely stoner" over production that mixes 808 thump with whirring ambient atmospherics. His acclaimed 2008 mixtape, A Kid Named Cudi, meanwhile, samples Band of Horses, Ratatat and Nosaj Thing, among others. Throughout the mixtape, Cudi deals with themes of cultural disassociation and isolation, as well as heartbreak and emotional vulnerability. And while that may sound drab and serious, Cudi adds enough levity via his quirky gadget and gear obsession that the mix never feels emotionally indulgent. For many fans, Cudi is simply making honest music that resonates with his largely middle-class fan base. - Sam Chennault

Los Angeles' Shiny Toy Guns are part of a new wave of electropop acts, like Cut Copy and She Wants Revenge, updating classic '80s pop with touches of emo and modern rock. Founded in 2002 by keyboardist Jeremy Dawson and vocalist/guitarist Chad Petree -- former bandmates from the Shawnee, Okla., scene -- they rounded out the lineup in 2004 with drummer Mikey Martin and vocalist Carah Faye Charnow. An early MySpace success story, they toured the U.S. in 2005 in support of their debut album, We Are Pilots, initially released on Stormwest International. Perhaps the landing gear wasn't working, because later that year Shiny Toy Guns re-recorded the album, this time for SideCho Records. But listeners along for the ride didn't unbuckle their seatbelts until 2006, when the band once again redid the album for its major-label debut on Universal. Though it only climbed to No. 90 on the Billboard 200, the album earned them a Grammy nomination for Best Electronic/Dance Album and landed three songs -- including "Le Disko," a sassy blast of punk-spirited electro -- in the upper quarter of Billboard's Modern Rock charts. They followed up with Season of Poison in 2008 and Girls Le Disko, a remix collection, the year after. - Philip Sherburne

You could be forgiven for thinking that David Guetta is famous simply for being famous: that's the message, however ironic, of "F*** Me I'm Famous," the name of both his long-running Ibiza residency and his first mix CD. But the French DJ and producer has earned his acclaim, repurposing soulful deep house with a shiny French touch and adding radio-ready vocals for a package that's pure pop panache.

Guetta's career as a producer began in 1992, when he released "Up and Away" with the Chicago vocalist Robert Owens, but it wasn't until seven years later that he returned with "Just a Little More Love," a catchy tribal-house cut. The following year, his debut album proved that its title cut was no fluke: full of hooks and vocals, the record augmented charging house beats with touches of gospel and electro and even a jubilant remix of David Bowie's "Heroes." In 2004 Guetta returned with Guetta Blaster, featuring club hits like Depeche Mode-flavored "The World Is Mine" and "Love Don't Let Me Go Walking Away," his smash collaboration with U.K. festival favorites the Egg; it also includes a rare downtempo remix from Paul Oakenfold. In 2009 he set his eyes firmly on the pop charts with One Love, featuring guest vocals from Ne-Yo, Kid Cudi and Will.I.Am.

- Philip Sherburne

Ben Watt's versatile production techniques coupled with Tracey Thorn's dry yet emotionally resonant vocals continue to win critical acclaim for Everything But the Girl. They also enjoyed mainstream loyalty throughout dance music's evolution in the '90s. Collaborating with such heavy-hitters as Massive Attack and J Majik, they've brought sophisticated jazz leanings to alternative pop, Trip-Hop, Drum 'n' Bass, and House. Timelessly talented, EBTG prove their ability to both follow and rise above the trends of dance music. - MPIAZZA

Arena rock built byte-by-byte: Ratatat has sonic ambitions way beyond their two-dude-in-a-bedroom setup. Brooklynites Evan Mast and Mike Stroud got their break in 2002 when their first single, "17 Years," released on Mast's own Audiodregs label, gained attention from DJs across the U.S. With Mast on beat production and bass and Stroud -- a sought-after guitarist who also plays in Dashboard Confessional's touring lineup -- ripping up various looped six-strings, Ratatat released its self-titled debut in 2003 and opened for a slew of major indie acts. Their stripped down, amped up sound appealed to rockers and rappers enough that they self-released a CD of their own compositions backing a cappella tracks by Jay-Z, Missy Elliot, Raekwon and more. Their official sophomore album, 2006's Classics, was mostly recorded in upstate New York and substantially broadened their style. Ask 'em and Ratatat will try to convince you that small is the new big. - JZWICKEL

Crystal Castles are an electropop duo from Toronto. Members include multi-instrumentalist Ethan Kath and vocalist Alice Glass, who mix 8-bit electro with punk and new wave. Their first single, "Alice Practice," was the result of an accidental recording made during a microphone test and then released on the band's MySpace page. The single was then picked up by Parisian tastemaker label Kitsune for its Kitsune Maison Compilation 4. The Canadians have since become hot commodities on the international club circuit and toured with Australian electronic group the Presets. They have also done popular remixes for Bloc Party, Klaxons and Uffie. In 2008, they released a self-titled debut, a messy collision of electronic noise and dance-rock, which some have labeled as "new rave". - DSHUMATE

Cut Copy began in 2001 as a one-man studio project of Australian DJ and producer Dan Whitford, who makes dance pop using elements of synth-based electronic music and indie rock. Whitford released an EP and single on his own in 2001, before adding guitarist Tim Hoey and drummer Mitchell Scott to a live lineup in 2003. Whitford played all the instruments on Cut Copy's 2004 debut LP, Bright Like Neon Love, but teamed up with French producer Philippe Zdar (Cassius, Motorbass and MC Solaar), and the album helped spawn a worldwide electro-house movement. On their second album, In Ghost Colours, Zdar was replaced by DFA Records co-founder Tim Goldsworthy and would take the group in a more indie rock and synth pop direction. - NCAVALIERI

Most aspiring musicians would do anything for just one shot at the big time. Robyn's had at least four. The Swedish singer got her first break in 1995 when she was still a teenager, landing a record contract and debut album that topped the charts in her native country when she was just 16. By 1996, she could add international smash single to her credits after the dance-pop tune "Do You Know (What It Takes)" made the Top 10 in the U.S. When the relationship with her American label turned sour, she regrouped with the Swedish-only release Don't Stop the Music in 2002. More label disputes ensued, so Robyn took yet another tack, collaborating with Swedish experimental synth-pop outfit the Knife. Guess what? Her label didn't like that either. Still, the cat-like Robyn bounced back with life number four, forming her own label (Konichiwa) in 2005 and releasing her self-titled fourth album. With Robyn, the dedicated pop star finally got her due, a decade after she started, in the form of multiple Swedish Grammies, several international hit singles and the respect of the U.S. music press (even before the album was released stateside in 2008). - RDEVITT

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Armin Van Buuren spent many a young year at home in Holland glued to the radio listening to the likes of Jean Michel Jarre and Ben Librand before he was legally allowed to enter a club. Those quiet evenings alone with his mother's computer and a set of decks soon paid off: at the tender age of 19, he released "Blue Fear" and went on to become a global trance sensation. Early fame led to the typically hectic schedule of remixes, productions and performances, but Van Buuren still managed to finish his law degree just to have something in case the music career didn't pan out. This no doubt helped once he decided to set up his own record company, Armada, in 2003.

Love it or hate it, "Blue Fear" is classic Euro trance -- lush layering of chords with a seductive bassline and big euphoric breakdowns. Van Buuren is quick to differentiate his style from the more clichéd end of the trance spectrum: "Trance for me as a genre refers to the old Oakenfold sound, the warm melodic driving music, not the euphoric cheese with vocals, predictable breaks and drum rolls -- I was playing trance before it became diluted and commercialized, before it became a dirty word," he explains at www.arminvanbuuren.com. Keen to promote his version of the genre, Van Buuren plays all over the world and has a weekly radio show, "A State of Trance," on ID&T in Holland. Regularly nominated as one of the most popular DJs in the world, he is usually to be found sharing the top three slots with Paul Van Dyk and Tiesto. His debut album, 76, was nominated for a Dancestar Award in 2004, in the Best New Artist Album category, and he is currently working on a second release for 2005. "It's not love for music, it's a passion, and it goes beyond liking, and beyond a hobby, it's about a way of living. Music is essential for my life," he says. - Nicholas Baker