I’M THE INVISIBLE JEFFREY MORGAN’S MEDIA BLACKOUT #308!

Grace Slick – Welcome To The Wrecking Ball (Grunt) :: Best album title ever!

Bruce Springsteen – Wrecking Ball (Columbia) :: Best album title ever!

Tara Angel – Come Down (Rykodisc) :: Great, just what we need: a debut disc by a dour dame whose role models are downer divas like Courtney Love, Patti Smith, and Alanis Morrisette. “When you find me, I won’t be waiting,” she petulantly pouts in a wasted Marianne Faithful monotone death drone. Toots, don’t give yourself that much credit because not only were we not searching for you, we never even noticed you were here in the first place, let alone gone.

Deerhoof – Milk Man (Kill Rock Stars) :: You name it: whether it’s by Diamanda Galás; Sparks; Julie Cruise; Tony Conrad; Angelo Badalamenti; Eno; Kraftwerk; Basil Kirchin; Lady June; or the Sadistic Mika Band, I’ve never met an oddball album that I didn’t like. But in all my years of playing wonky records to break leases and evict unwanted house guests, I’ve never heard anything quite like what’s waiting for you inside this one. Sparse English lyrics are ethereally hissed with an inscrutable Oriental lilt. Organs bloop and blorp. Rhythm guitars jingle jangle jingle. Wave signals fade in and out. Lead guitars snake around with languid ease. Bass and drums pound. Pianos tinkle hauntingly. If you’re an art rock connoisseur who truly appreciates the oblique and the obscure, then this one is most definitely for you.

Trevor Lissauer – Transit Plaza (Happy Frown) :: It seems that the big knock on Lissauer, aside from the fact that he used to act on shows like Felicity and Sabrina The Teenage Witch, is that he apes George Harrison too much. Well, I happen hear a bit of Bryan Ferry here as well, but so what? I mean, it’s not as if Harrison’s going to be stepping into a studio anytime soon, right? And as for Ferry, did you manage to stay awake all the way through his latest slice of sonic snoozak? At least Lissauer can sing, play, and write songs with more personality than a lot of other records I’ve heard recently—and I’ve been listening to enough ill-conceived dreck these days to know the difference.

SIZZLING PLATTER OF THE WEEK: Nash The Slash – The Simultaneous Man (Cut-Throat) :: Wuxtry! Wuxtry! Read all about it! Slasher strikes again! That’s right, the legendary bandaged one has surfaced from his underground recording studio in an abandoned subway station with yet another influential album of clever aural devastation. From the meta-industrialized Thrash to the electro-orchestral Nosferatu to the sci-fi art rocker Lost In Space, Nash is hitting a sinister stride not seen since he was first disfigured beyond recognition decades ago—but don’t let that be a deterrent. I dare you to dig deep and listen to his extensive back catalogue and see what decades of electronic sonic exotica and arcane experimental reconstructive surgery gone horribly wrong can do for you!

Be seeing you!