Akufen My Way (Force Inc./Fusion III)
Local phenomenon Marc “Akufen” Leclair finally stops teasing techno fans with those delicious 12” hors d’oeuvres that have been garnering praise from the likes of Sven Väth and Craig Richards, and delivers a proper, full-length buffet of funky, clicky, melodic micro-house and chugging, laid-back grooves. Constructed almost entirely of radio recording snippets, Akufen’s style somehow finds the balance between playfulness, funk, and cutting-edge techno that is as interesting as it is infectiously groovy. I could blab on about post-modern-this and re-contextualizing-that, but in the end My Way just gets your ass moving. It’s the ideal soundtrack to those upcoming summer parties so please, do your ass a favour and grab it now (the CD, I mean). 9.5/10 (Raf Katigbak)

Wilco
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Nonesuch/Warner)
Wilco have always been critics’ darlings, but that didn’t mean squat when this record was shelved for two years by their previous label, due to “lack of commercial appeal.” But despite the slightly avant-garde mixing by Jim O’Rourke, this is an amazing collection of pop songs that are enjoying sunlight at last. Main guy Jeff Tweedy proves himself a modern-day Ray Davies by writing pearls like “I miss the innocence I’ve known playing Kiss covers” (“Heavy Metal Drummer”) and “I wonder why we listen to poets when no one gives a fuck” (“Ashes of American Flags”). Wilco take no easy outs and continue to challenge their own audience, the surefire mark of a great band. As good as Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is, it seems like Wilco are just scratching the surface of the brilliance that lays ahead. Not just for critics anymore. 9.5/10 (Johnson Cummins)

Moby 18 (V2/BMG)
After licensing every damn track off his last one, Play, it’s no surprise that irksome little fellow Moby should replicate so much of that album’s feel, if only to maintain his bony-fingered grasp on ubiquity. So yeah, expect more blues-bytes over swelling e-schmaltz, more introspective platitudes over rainy-day mood grooves. And don’t forget why Play blew up like it did—Moby can make such things work, as evidenced by the very effective “In This World,” “Extreme Ways” and “In My Heart.” True, matters slide all too easily into maudlin wuss-a-lalia and new-age drivel (“Fireworks,” “At Least We Tried”), but that’s the risk of being all poignant and emotional, right? Bottom line: a fairly original piece of self-imitation. 8/10 (Rupert Bottenberg)

Weezer Maladroit (Geffen/Universal)
Arguably the hardest working nerds in the rock business, Weezer are back exactly one year following what is fondly referred to as “the green album.” (Next disc: Feb., 2003.) The infectious lead single “Dope Nose” is a good indicator of Maladroit’s dominant form, namely clean, solid rock full of pop hooks and loving nods to ’80s penis music. Variety comes in the form of sombre sentiments (“Death and Destruction,” “Slob”), with Mr. Rivers’ vocals verging on Thom Yorke-level desperation, but these dark tangents are short-lived. Basically, this is a typical, if superior, Weezer album, yawns, gems and all. 7.5/10 (Lorraine Carpenter)

Trey Anastasio self-titled (Elektra/Warner)
Guitarist/singer Trey Anastasio sprouts off into his own direction away from jam gods Phish, who’ve been on “vacation in limbo” for the past two years. In that time Trey has busied himself with the quirky Oysterhead, teaming up with Les Claypool and Stewart Copeland. But this solo album doesn’t push boundaries or pique much interest, instead sounding more like a tepid Clapton soundtrack to some lame-ass, self-righteous Tom Hanks movie. Don’t get me wrong, the performances from Trey and company are tight, and it’s got “funky” tracks, ballads, horns, percussion, the token black back-up singers and the lot—but it ain’t movin’ me. I dare say, for Phish fans only. 5/10 (Lateef Martin)

Cato Salsa Experience
A Good Tip for a Good Time
(Emperor Norton/Outside)
The debut by “the most happening band in Norway” is very much in the too-cool retro rock spirit of fellow Scandinavians the Hives and International Noise Conspiracy, but this burst of garage rock and intense modbeat has a gritty urgency all its own. Relentless guitar riffs, cries of vintage keys, theremin psychedelia, eager handclaps, fleeting horns and funky breakdowns build a wall of serious rock action fit for singer Cato Thomassen’s unhinged vocals. The album’s rawk-over-pop make-up threatens to obscure the tunes in a din of late-’60s freneticism, but this is a minor quibble if there ever was one. Overall, it’s “Time to Freak Out!” 9/10 (Lorraine Carpenter)

Jérome Minière Petit cosmonaute
(La Tribu/Select)
After his quietly stunning, pseudonymous Herri Kopter project, relocated Frenchman Minière returns to his familiar, neo-chansonnier mode. Futurists, fear not, for our now-local “little astronaut” boldly goes where few acoustic-guitar-toting hairbags dare, formulating folk-2K en français. Solid, thoughtful lyrics and melodies are buoyed along a delicate stream of digi-dub-folk, decorated with crystalline bits of piano, xylophone and strings. The fragile, funereal ersatz-reggae of “Les yeux tout autour de la tête” and the tick-tock nocturnalism of “La jeunesse est vieille comme le monde” are just two illustrations of how Petit cosmonaute is at once as intimate as a whisper and as expansive as the night sky. 9/10 (Rupert Bottenberg)

Blackalicious
Blazing Arrow
(Quannum/Universal)
Stop me if I’m reaching here, kids, but this could be my favourite Blackalicious LP to date, and maybe yours too. Gift of Gab and Chief Xcel have managed to keep their almost quirky reverence here, but the difference is a noticeable lean towards the “soul-side” of things, if you get my meaning. Guests include (ready?) Gil Scott-Heron, Ben Harper, Jurassic 5, Dilated Peoples, Saul Williams and Jaguar Wright, as well as production credits from ?uestlove and Hi-Tek. The result combines the crazy lyrical gymnastics of GOG and buddies Lateef and Lyrics Born with a warmer, ready-to-get-down groove. Who knows, maybe they’re just getting old. 9/10 (Scott C)

The Get Up Kids On a Wire (Vagrant)
The Get Up Kids have never made any bones about being middle-of-the-road emo, but this is more boring and predictable than an episode of Gilmore Girls. Like with all of the young ’uns from the emo era, this is another “mature” release with more emphasis on songwriting. Produced by bigwig Scott Litt (REM, Nirvana), the sounds are crisp but aimless. A lot of REM-ish strum rock here, played at its most beige, that even their old fans are going to question. Not all is lost here as the packaging at least impresses, but what is inside is just gut-twistingly bad—almost as bad as Dashboard Confessional, but not quite. File under Dawson Creek rock. 5/10 (Johnson
Cummins)

Rae & Christian Nocturnal Activity: Sleepwalking Remixed (K7/Fusion III)
Flanked by some knockout contributions from the Pharcyde, Tania Maria and Bobby Womack, Rae & Christian’s Sleepwalking album was an arresting mélange of modern electronic soul with trip hop inclinations. On Nocturnal Activity: Sleepwalking Remixed, they return to the scene of the crime with a splendid cache of overhauls care of folks like Tom & Joyce, Groove Armada and Faze Action. Bossa nova, deep house, R&B and dub are wonderfully embroidered into the songs that did not necessarily needed to be touched, thus showing R&C’s gumption to stretch musical contours. These two groove-o-nauts will be mega-pop producers too soon—catch their stuff before they make Eric Clapton’s next record. 8.5/10 (Peter Lightburn)

Jazzanova
In Between (Jazzanova Compost/Fusion III)
The expectations are appropriately high for the long, and I mean long, overdue debut album proper from Germany’s premier nü-jazz collective. And that’s just their own expectations—the loose sextet have been furrowing their brows, trying to get at a suitably “next” sound and squirm out of the tropicalektro pigeonhole. Not that their Brazilian-based downtempo/house efforts, both originals and remixes of others, didn’t raise the bar for couture grooves. In Between, though, expands the parameters, exploring entirely new configurations of hip hop, neo-soul (Vikter Duplaix and Ursula Rucker guest), Euro-dub and tastefully danceable (if not profoundly exploratory) jazz. Clinical but not dispassionate, remarkable but not brilliant. 8/10 (Rupert Bottenberg)

Carl Henry CH (CeSoul/CMC)
This five-song EP by Montreal’s own Carl Henry is a preview of his long-awaited debut disc RNB. Like fellow Canadians Remy Shand and Glen Lewis, it’s obvious that Henry’s studied his American counterparts well. This is R&B tailor-made for the FUBU generation: slick, sophisticated production, radio-ready for maximum exposure. But it’s Henry’s voice, supple and energetic, that makes for a strong entrance into an overcrowded genre. To be sure, tracks like “One Night Stand” and “Being With You” aren’t deep, but they’re fun, and a welcome introduction to an artist whose time is about to come. 8/10 (Gerard Dee)

Set Fire to Flames Sings Reign Rebuilder (Alien8/Fusion III)
Sometimes it’s indigestible, at other times indistinguishable from its parent projects (godspeed you black emperor!, Hanged Up, HRSTA, Exhaust, Fly Pan Am), but for the most part this quasi-conceptual, hodgepodge mega-album is quite brilliant. The strings are gorgeous, the rustic recording breathes depth and clarity into the hollow, reverberating guitars, and the sweaty, swelling tension of 13 musicians restraining themselves creates nice, claustrophobic atmospherics—though the best moments are the surprising, crunch-drone electronics. Although positively Mile-End in the end, Set Fire to Flames is less predictable and formulaic than some of its source groups, and the packaging is totally kick-ass too. 8/10 (Boss Sambosa) At FIMAV in Victoriaville (Cinéma Laurier), Fri., May 17, 8pm, $24

Guido Basso/Dave Turner
Dedications (Justin Time/Fusion III)
Eleven tracks, all but one from the pens of talented Montreal composers Richard Karmel and Steve Rosenbloom. Other than Baden Powell’s “Samba En Preludio,” these are all well-crafted dedications to people like Jimmy Heath, Cannonball, Bud Powell, Gerry Danovitch and Buddy Fasano among others. The band is first rate—Basso, Turner and guitarist Roddy Ellias are among Canada’s finest. They are joined by a trio of younger players (Eric Harding, Fraser Hollins and Claude Lavergne) in an outing most musical. Another feather in the hats of Karmel and Rosenbloom. Well worth a listen! 8.5/10 (Len Dobbin)