There are two ways of looking at Dominique Leone: as an electronic artist obsessed with pop music, or a pop musician with a serious tech fetish. What makes him so appealing is that it matches both descriptions. Leone mixes crafty melody with digital wizardry so smoothly, it's hard to say where one side of his musical personality ends and the other begins. A frequent rock critic (primarily for Pitchfork), Leone has wide range in both taste and background (his press kit calls him "classically trained"). But Dominique Leone doesn't sound like a collection of influences, a sampling of references, or a compendium of ideas. It's impressively organic, with detailed compositions that neither hide artifice nor flaunt it. Leone seems to have eyes in the back of his head, watching pop history while pushing it forward. What Battles has done for math rock, Leone is doing for prog-pop: giving it a kitsch-free futuristic thrust that sets the standard for 21st-century practitioners of the genre.

www.dominiqueleone.com

When his henchman (Cosmic Neman) is not around beating on the drums for the band-beyond-the-grave, Zombie Zombie, Etienne Jaumet takes control of a spacecraft that only he can manage, cruising outer space on a quest for a deeper sound. As a solo performer, he delves into a dressing box of inspirations drawn from horror movie soundtracks, vintage italo, kosmische, library music and psychedelia, concocting a sound that is sensuous, intoxicating and more than a little foreboding. Breathtaking in its imagination and cinematic scope, Jaumet's live show which takes in saxophone and a vast array of vintage keyboards and synthesizers is essential viewing.

www.myspace.com/etiennejaumet


After years of recording in relative seclusion in the hills of los angeles, ariel pink makes his official debut with "the doldrums". Originally a handmade cd-r release a couple years back, "the doldrums" by ariel pink's haunted graffiti was discovered by the animal collective during one of their west coast tours and became an immediate favorite. Recording at home with a guitar, bass, keyboard, and 8-track (the drum sounds are all unbelievably created with his mouth), Ariel Pink blends Lite FM and warped lo-fi pop into something beautiful and confusing, yet highly involving. Since he first got his break in 2004, Ariel Pink has been hard at work assembling a collective of veteran musicians and attempting to recreate the avant-garde compositions found on his records. Fans will be able to judge the success of the operation on the latest date of his worldwide tour held in Toulouse. 


www.myspace.com/arielpink