spotlight on the future.

In lieu of my now famous, well-received and highly demanded traditional Tuesday Spotlight, I'm aiming the spotlight to the near future. Will this light be falling on land unchartered, giving visibility to creatures man has never been in contact with until this very moment in history? No. Will said light be aimed at musicians that almost every single noteworthy AudioBlog has overlooked and failed miserably at introducing you, the helpless scavenger? Again, no. Am I any less excited about either (That's right. Two) bands? Hellznah. Nah-meen?

Here are our two very firm but not necessarily neighboring rocks on which all anticipation for the following albums should be based:
The Unicorns' Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?
Danger Doom's The Mouse And The Mask

The former is a representation that music can still take it's listener by surprise, grip them by the shoulders and shake them into amazement so bemusing that dancing is the only possible outcome. The Unicorns confidently played an albums worth of thoughtful, morbidly funny, melodic pop songs and if by some chance you still don't own and periodically remember, play and shake your head for neglecting this album, change that. Now.
The latter is another disc that I shouldn't be introducing anyone to. A collaboration between Danger Mouse - who, you will recall, combined Jay-Z's The Black Album and The Beatles The White Album to create perfection.) and MF Doom and the cast of several [adult swim] shows, this album boasts appearences by Ghostface, Talib Kweli, the Mooninites, and Cee-Lo. Obviously Cee-Lo wanted more...

Nick Diamonds (Nicholas Thorburn) and J'Aime Tambeur (Jamie Thompson) of The Unicorns have joined with several other players to create Islands. The direction is not the same, no one is arguing about the actual lyricist, but fans of one almost can't dislike the other. Return To The Sea is out one week from today and you should pick it up to fill in the gaps from the generous hunk I'm offering and have compiled from several just such blogs.

Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo couldn't get enough of each other and created a bizarre funk-pop album with soul. You heard it here last. They'll be turning every single head during Lollapalooza's stellar (and pricey) line-up, and they've already befriended sixteen thousand of you. They are Gnarls Barkley, and they are doing anything but being ignored right now. Join the party, won't you? St. Elsewhere drops some knowledge on ya in four weeks.



Islands' "Swans (Life After Death)"
"Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby"
& "Rough Gem"
from Return To The Sea
Matt's right. I got carried away. Three songs is still more than enough.

Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy"
"Smiley Faces"
& "Surreal Life"
from St. Elsewhere
Three each.

Let's watch Wonder Showzen!!