by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

New York City's CMJ Music Marathon, connected to the College Music Journal magazine, ran from Oct. 13 to 16 this year and boasted the usual hundreds and hundreds of bands, DJs and performers at some 60-odd venues around Manhattan and Brooklyn. Performances numbered in the thousands, among which were a few exceptional acts to catch - here's the skinny on them.

IQU: This Seattle duo manages to make fine use of just about every element of indie pop-tronix that I hold dear. Kento Oiwa not only shifts from capable scratching to beat-tweaking to guitar raunch with ease, he uses the Theremin - that otherworldly, hands-off wow-box familiar to vintage sci-fi buffs everywhere - with remarkable skill. The Theremin has become quite common in recent years, maybe since Jon Spencer first dragged one out, but largely as a noisy decoration. Oiwa understands that it's an actual musical instrument, and treated kindly, a very effective one. Michiko Swiggs, meanwhile, assumes the duties on synths, cranky key-tar and the talkbox, that crazy discount vocoder deal with the plastic tube stuck in the mouth. The collective results are commendable, as you might see when the pair open for …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead at Café Campus this Friday, Oct. 22. By the way, it's pronounced "ee-koo," not "eye-cue-you."

MorningWood: A lot of folks have their eye on this NYC band, and you should too. The set I caught in Brooklyn was their last before they depart for England for three months to record their debut album - no disc yet, and they've already optioned their signature track "Take Your Clothes Off" for a TV ad. As you might guess from the band name and song title (an inspiration to at least one audience member per show), this is some seriously sexed-up stuff. Singer Chantal Claret, a frenzied, gleeful sex-bomb, can barely keep her hands off the audience - or herself - and is full of pithy, prurient remarks. Decked out in dollar-store cop gear, she ran the operation like a ringmaster, while her band delivered the goods behind her. They clearly grasp that, musically at least, discretion is the better part of valour, and dished out some rough, tough, sparse grooves that rocked like the dickens.

The Perceptionists: Following a good set by the massive (I mean, physically) Rob Sonic, this Def Jux hip hop act his the stage running, and their urgent energy didn't flag for an instant through their whole set. Over DJ Fakts One's stadium-scale deck thunder, MCs Akrobatik and Mr. Lif (the latter with the biggest, chunkiest uni-dreadlock I've seen since Bad Brains' HR) spat ferocious rhymes with unadulterated political bite. Suffice it to say, Dubya wasn't getting much love in the room that night. The Perceptionists certainly were, and with good reason. Watch for their new album early in '05.

Fischerspooner: This wasn't a proper concert, it was an "excellent workshop," as they called it, in the electroclash titans' Williamsburg warehouse studio/rehearsal space/craft shop. Amid the velvet curtains, giant mirrors and rainbow beanbag chairs, the hipsters, paparazzi, techs, indie brats and pirouetting nymphs in attendance were treated to an exploded view of the FS creative process, sample tunes off their next disc (a little less urgent than the early material) and a short dance performance. Appropriate, considering that a certain see-thru postmodernism - where behind-the-scenes is stage centre - is integral to the FS aesthetic. If Fischerspooner were previously an ironic, cut-rate, electro-punk Vegas floorshow, they're now all that with added neo-classical romanticism, Greek mythology and fancy Napoleonic miltary garb.

Chromelodeon: Hailing from Philadelphia, this crazed collective fuses together metallic guitar action, howling synths, grinding accordion and circular motifs to fashion a bold, catchy, proggy instrumental mélange that I think can best be described as "spaceship rock." Genuinely impressive - they had my attention from "hello" to "goodnight."

Evolution Control Committee: Taking up the torch from Negativland, the ECC do socio-political sample jams that invite dancing, laffs and lawsuits a-plenty. Or rather, "does" - the only Committee member present was tradeMark Gunderson in his white jumpsuit and original "thimbletronics," wired-up, thimble-capped gloves that trigger the samples. Technical problems plagued a set that, to his credit, Gunderson was able to keep entertaining throughout (the sign of a good performer). We were, however, treated to not only the hilarious Dan Rather-AC/DC reconfiguration "Rocked by Rape" but a Men Without Hats karaoke snarkily transformed into "The NAFTA Dance."

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