Pitchfork

Sharing passing similarities with two of modern indie hip-hop's top producers, Madlib and the late J Dilla, Flying Lotus has constructed an album of static, texture, and rhythm that, at its most stirring moments, can be soothingly meditative, an accomplished blend of debris and warmth, b-boy head-nod and laptopper experimentalism. If Prefuse hadn't fallen off after One Word Extinguisher and continued to push the envelope with each record since, he might sound close to this in 2008.

The latest from Norwegian electronic producer Hans-Peter Lindstrøm finds the missing link between the modern classical works of Steve Reich and Tangerine Dream's cheesy grandeur, resulting in a fist-pumping, hyper-cosmic space-disco epic that conjures both the retro-futurism of Logan's Run and Manuel Göttsching's influential 1981 electro-prog mammoth  E2-E4. Stretching three tracks over 55 minutes and wandering well away from the dancefloor at times, Where You Go I Go Too has the hallmarks of a masterpiece from a reclusive auteur.

While imbuing the anxious sounds of 1990s D.C. post-punk with a twist of pop savvy, this New York-based quartet take a broader, more aloof view in terms of lyrics, regarding their lives as blips in a vast, chaotic system.

Hailing from the same traditional/electric Kinshasa music scene as the better-known Konono No. 1, Kasai Allstars also build their songs around amplified likembes (thumb pianos), thudding percussion, circular rhythms, and vocal chants, but they also add electric guitar and much more, with as many as 20 musicians participating on any given track.

P.O.S. and the rest of this Twin Cities collective make for great left-wing politics, but even those voting McCain might find it hard not to get caught up in the group's enthusiasm and golden-era sounds.