Varathane's Last Wash starts with a swoosh and a gliding bleep; sounds made by washing machines and refrigerators when no human is around. Not as much a slice of warm butter melting on fresh bread as Overton's release, Last Wash is a half-hour collection of the sounds of machinery finding their groove--an underlying soundtrack to The Brave Little Toaster. With track titles like "High Plains Drifter," "Starry Night," and "A Girl and Her Dog" Varathane is welding these electrified soundtracks to living, breathing associations in our heads. It's a clever twist to the melding of the organic and inorganic that leaves a pleasing overtone on your head.  -Mark Teppo.

But when you come back to the city, you're going to be looking for a little noise to go with the traffic and hum of overpopulation, right? BSI answers right back with another 12-inch of illbient finery. DJ Spooky teams up with Sound Secretion to slap us with streetwise dub, filled with the sustain of cultures near and far. DJ Spooky's side is theme and variation on "Anodyne" (his main mix appears on the Docking Sequence compilation, reviewed last month), taking us through variations "core," "drift," and "peripheral." Haunting voices and Japanese flutes ring through the thunderous reverb that the 180-gram vinyl pressing captures. However, as much as Spooky likes to prance around and spout academic rhetoric, he's getting knocked around on the dub plates by folk who simply bypass the talk and head straight for the walk--a head-wreckin', ass-knockin' walk in Sound Secretion's case. The flip side of this picture disc says all you need to know as to why Josh Derry's Sound Secretion project is the MVP of BSI Records. Including a reprise of "4 AM" (from the first Sound Secretion 12-inch), these three tracks go from blissful ambient dub to the metallic clatter of the cast from Stomp doing a show in Kingston, Jamaica.  -Mark Teppo.

Disinter, The Beauty of Suffering (EP). Disinter whipped out this nifty shaped CD to tease grindheads for their next release, Welcome to Oblivion. I understand that Welcome to Oblivion is now out and I would thoroughly recommend anyone who likes spooky, sinister deathgrind to pick up this gem. The Beauty of Suffering is a limited shaped CD--I just can't resist those adorable things, especially when shaped like a bat over a cemetery. Oddly enough, their singer's distinct screech rather resembles a growly bat-like noise at times. He also includes a death gurgle that many black metal vocalists would gladly give up a nut to possess. Disinter start off slowly with the sinister, semi-acoustic melodic intro "The Beauty of Suffering." Then utilizing spooky samples, they launch into innovative deathgrind gems like "Welcome to Oblivion," the punnishly-titled "Field of Screams" and "With the Blood." The rather repetitive "Not to be Saved" closes this thriller of an EP. If you have a taste for sinister grind, you will appreciate The Beauty of Suffering; if it worms its way into your black little heart, you'd better just pick up the CD Welcome to Oblivion as well. Disinter is one of the more innovative and interesting grind bands today. Available on United Guttural Records.  -Sabrina Haines.

Blur, "Music Is My Radar." The boys from Blur must have a real "been there, done that" mentality. They began their career as a bunch of shoegazers, riding the coattails of that movement and then quickly shedding that identity like the first stage of a rocket. Then, plowing the same nationalistic soil the Kinks once did, the group prompted the Brit-pop renaissance of the mid-'90s with numbers about odd little English people and their odd little lives--all delivered in Damon Albarn's mock Cockney. After that, Blur nobly turned their backs on all of the UK hoopla (particularly the pseudo-class-war aberration that was Blur vs. Oasis) and took unlikely inspiration from American indie groups like Guided by Voices and Pavement for Blur. Finally, with 1999's 13, the group beat Radiohead to the punch and went all post-rock on us, releasing a much more convincingly experimental album than the Aphex Twin-inspired noodlings of Kid A (which has the safety net of a more accessible follow-up in the spring, Amnesiac). But all of this is no excuse for "Music Is My Radar." This single, a hipster slab of bland, tired, white funk that would be more at home as Madonna B-side, was recorded as an addition to Blur's best-of collection. The group likes to think of it as "voodoo jazz," but let's call it what it is: precious doggerel churned out reflexively by a group seemingly too bored to even participate in their own success. This is less a song than a half-formed idea. It sounds like an impromptu, between-song jam sweetened with just enough studio ambience to make it releasable. It's simply redundant and boring, both musically and lyrically. Even if the single is just something to herald the arrival of a retrospective, there's simply no excuse when a great band opts for style over substance.  -Erik Hage.

Pitchshifter, "Dead Battery." This latest import-only single from our favorite techno punks is split between two CDs. "Dead Battery" CD1 contains the single, a version of Mudhoney's brilliant "Touch Me I'm Sick" and a remix of "Hidden Agenda (Kyo-jin Mix)" while CD2 contains the single, a remix of "Chump Change (Fat Controller Mix)" and an unreleased original, "Voted Least Likely to Succeed." Both the "Chump Change" and "Hidden Agenda" remixes offer some nice, fat beats with the low end keyboard drive of each replacing the bass and guitar lines the originals are centered around. Pitchshifter have always done a great job with who they choose to remix their songs and these two CD singles are no exception. The band gives shout-outs to one of their influences, grunge icons Mudhoney, with a version of their classic "Touch Me I'm Sick." Nice to hear the song get run through the PSI techno-chaos machine, but I'm still digging the original a bit more. After much anticipation, the band finally drop the very hip-hop-driven "Voted Least Likely to Succeed" into fans' laps--a track which finds frontman J.S. Clayden sharing vocal duties with rapper Nosaj. And, of course, the single itself and one of my favorites off Deviant: "Dead Battery." Shifter fans have long compared the track to "Microwaved"--from the band's previous release, www.pitchshifter.com--but I'm not quite making the connection here. Very much its own monster, "Dead Battery" sits nicely among the rest of the band's catalog with its thick guitars, breakneck breakbeats and scathing political commentary. Another keeper...but then again, what else would you expect from this fearsome fivesome?  -Craig Young.

The Peepshows, "Genius" b/w "Forgotten Boy" (7-inch single). Sweden's The Peepshows continue in the great guitar-oriented "Scandinavian Thing" tradition. This tradition encompasses dirty guitar-based rock 'n' roll, mixing in the likes of The Hellacopters, The Backyard Babies and a bit of Rocket from the Crypt. The Peepshows have their guitars a-blazing and pocket full of leads. They do a great job of outdueling their influences and perform a superior blend of great music. Available on Bad Afro Records.  -Steve Weatherholt.

The Chronics, "Fire Up!" (7-inch EP). The Chronics play a fired up brand of catchy three-chord garage rock. They put a fresh new danceable mix to their MC5, Sonics, and Stooges sound. This release on Bad Afro Records gives the listener hope that not all is lost in the garage rock scene. I can envision hoards of greasers with tattoos dancing the night away in some smoke-filled club. I doubt that The Chronics will ever make it to our shores, so I would go out and buy all their releases. Available on Bad Afro Records.  -Steve Weatherholt.

The Royal Beat Conspiracy, "Shake What You Have Got" (CD EP). The Royal Beat Conspiracy have a new CD EP out in which they continue to meld a soothing danceable mix of soul, horns, piano, organ and energetic rock 'n' roll into something that others have not tried to incorporate. With each song RBC have a different focal point, such as emphasis on a certain instrumental component or what. These guys are capable of writing anything they want with equal confidence and splendor. The RBC at first seem to sound familiar, but the way they combine elements of many styles leaves you scratching your head and trying to figure out how they did that. You can only come to the conclusion that The Royal Beat Conspiracy is on their own path. This release would be highly recommended for that retro '70s-thing crowd. Available on Bad Afro Records.  -Steve Weatherholt.

At the top of this style is Outkast. Two men who also are an impressive representation of all that has come to pass. They throw down lyrically with the best of them, at a meter that defies belief, and they can sing, harmonize, and just plain funk out like James Brown on a hit of Prince.

"Ms. Jackson" sums the sound up perfectly with it's simple brushed drum beat, funk organs and lyrical interplay between Dre and Big Boi, make it an R&B/hip-hop smash.  -Jeff Ashley.

Earpollution continues its love affair with DJ Krush as the first/last year of the millennium comes to an end. His new single, "Tragicomic," gives us just one track, but with three different approaches: the Eminem- and Dido-style vocal track, a remix, and an instrumental version. Is he veering back towards Milight or keeping on the Kakusei path? Only Krush knows and "Tragicomic" is just a slippery glimpse of a master at work.  -Mark Teppo.

And finally, a sampler record. deFocus has a great schedule of electronica lined up for your enjoyment. As a teaser, they've put out a sampler 12-inch--a cut and paste of five tracks from upcoming releases. Each song is just enticing enough that the ten spot you drop for this record is simply a down payment on each of the full-length records you'll soon be wishing you had. This is evil marketing. This is why I'm perpetually running low on cash. Lackluster's "Starcell UK" is good enough to eat, and since I can't afford to stock my shelves with anything but ramen noodles for the next six weeks, I'll be figuring out a nice cream sauce to go with this track. I blame Aphelion for the slightly techno prance that "Touched" gives me as I dance around the apartment to keep warm enough since I can't afford to turn on the heat this winter. And "Mystery One" by Mystery is just as friendly: the rhythms there will keep me warm enough that I don't have to sneak my water bottle into the restaurant across the street and steal hot water from the restroom. Plus One's "Mayday" is a deep swim through bubbling hot springs--a trip reminiscent of Senking's full releases on Karaoke Kalk. deFocus pulls out all the stops with the last track: CiM's "Commuter Love." Oh yeah, I might as well just write "pay to the order of Clair Focus" across the back of my next paycheck now.  -Mark Teppo.