Hustle Beach is the third album from Baby Teeth, Chicago’s reigning champions of brainy pop. The album is the fruit of a songwriting blog, “52 Teeth,” maintained by bandleader Abraham Levitan, on which he posted a new song each week for one year. Inspired by Philip Roth’s American Pastoral, he began writing about the dark side of suburban utopia, generating the lyrical heart of the album—songs like “Big Schools,” “The Swede,” and “Hustle Beach.” The production, live and lean, captures the intensity of Baby Teeth’s performances. Recommended for fans of Spoon, The Hold Steady, Harry Nilsson, and E.L.O.

Hungary has made some notable contributions to the world over the years—goulash, the Rubik’s Cube, and Zsa Zsa Gabor among them—but rock music certainly doesn’t come to mind … until now! The Moog blends glam, ’60s garage punk, and goth with catchy pop-rock on their second album, Razzmatazz Orfeum. Led by baritone-voiced singer Tonyo Szabó, The Moog is Hungary’s biggest and most popular alternative band. Their highly anticipated sophomore album was recorded in Seattle with producer Geoff Ott (Pearl Jam, Mark Lanegan) and offers the listener something quite uncommon in this day and age: immersion in a total album experience. The disc is crammed full of immediately catchy songs inspired by a variety of influences—Bowie, Bauhaus, Blur, Blondie, Bach—and the result is an album that stands way out from the overcrowded alt rock pack.

In late 2008, Adrienne Hart contacted Peter Broderick about scoring her new work, set in a psychiatric hospital and centered around one man’s struggle to retain his identity in the most extreme of circumstances. Broderick, excited by the thought of scoring a dance, camped out in his father’s barn with some minimal recording equipment, a violin and viola, and an old broken piano. Most of the sections have a small core that is composed, and the rest is improvised.

ASPECTS OF PHYSICS
MARGINALIZED INFORMATION FORMS 3: OTHER
ITR-Imputor? Records
Allegro Price: $11.18

The final album in a three-part series by San Diego’s enigmatic Aspects of Physics—spanning five years, seven members, and countless pieces of individual audio bits and bytes painstakingly pieced together to form the cohesive Marginalized Information Forms series. Whereas part one represented the marriage of electronic and rock sensibilities and part two focused more on electronic leanings, part three shifts towards the more organic live rock band side of the equation. MIF3 returns these children of the post-rock age back to their roots of amp stacks, drum kits, and crowded rock clubs. Taken as a whole, the MIF series runs the gamut from the bleeps and bloops of synths and computers to the distortion and dynamics of guitars and the human condition. Recommended for fans of Battles, Tortoise, Slint, Physics, Fridge, Four Tet, Stockhausen, and Kraftwerk.

Part two of the Joe Morris/AUM Fidelity 2009 triptych, this release features Morris’ new collective group concept with Peter Cancura on tenor & alto sax and Luther Gray on drums. Fully improvised, the recording resulted in a warm and inviting glow with four distinct takeoffs and landings. Guitarist, bassist, and composer Morris has been hitting a whole new stride of unfettered creativity in the past year. Wildlife is as uncompromising as ever, yet fully inviting and accessible.

Public Record’s second release finds the band in full-on collaboration mode as they join forces with 11 artists of differing musical backgrounds to remix and rethink five songs from the band’s 2008 self-titled debut album. Echolocation boasts an original mixture of artists that should surprise those listeners expecting a typical brand of remix album. Individuals like Guy Picciottto (Fugazi, Rites of Spring), Alasdair MacLean (The Clientele), Mac McCaughan (Superchunk, Portastatic), and Quentin Stoltzfus (Mazarin) are here, remixing for the first time alongside famed indie rock producer/remixer Mark Robinson (Unrest, Air Miami). Also featured are remixes by some promising new and underground acts like A Sunny Day In Glasgow, Collette Columbirch, and Arc In Round. The inclusion of Malcolm Ross (Josef K, Orange Juice) should also excite—especially for those fans of Scottish postcard pop & ’80s post-punk!