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"Hex Takes Hold" shows what there is to love about Seattle (via the 'burbs) art-rock band Past Lives: Each member is way out on his own limb, running rock 'n' roll run through the wringer. And though the individual elements are baffling, they coalesce into a new musical logic, some kind of compacted, hyperdynamic fracture-funk.

Jordan Blilie howls rhythm, breaking all manner of bad news in his lyrics. Devin Welch's diminished surf-blues guitar is busy and flicky, but his solo is graceful stabs, and adds a whole extra level of melody to the track. Saxophones and whatever bass/guitar hybrid Morgan Henderson's playing chug to the beat, adding an odd cartoon crunch to Mark Gajadhar's punctuational snare drum workouts. It's some next-level stuff.

New Past Lives album "Tapestry of Webs" comes out Feb. 23, 2010 on local label Suicide Squeeze. Old Past Lives EP "Strange Symmetry" broken down and members interviewed here.

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From my review of Seattle's for-charity download-only scene-spanning local mixtape GIVE, released Tuesday, Nov. 17:

On "Victim of the Modern Age," Champagne Champagne's Thomas Gray and Pearl Dragon rhyme in a spaced-out talk-rap style about Basquiat kids having baby Basquiat kids. It's free-associative without being alienating. Tattooed ex-alcoholic singer-songwriter Chris Mansfield (Fences) handles the hook with a catch in his throat, convincingly emotional and sounding as if he's on the other end of an echo chamber. Mark Gajadhar (aka DJ Gajamagic) takes a break from samplers and drum machines and turns in an exhilarating, athletic performance behind a traditional drum kit, and for those that know Gajadhar's work in Past Lives and Blood Brothers, it's like finally. The man is a hurricane. "Victim of the Modern Age" hits on several levels, and as an exclusive track to "GIVE," is the album's clear standout.

Notice the drummer is the same on the Champagne Champagne song and the Past Lives song. See if you can hear a stylistic similarity.

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"Graze" is as good or better than anything off Baltimore band Animal Collective's "Merriweather Post Pavillion" album, the release sure to be most commonly listed in critics' best of 2009 lists. The synthesizer iridescence of that album is all over "Graze," but the song's clearly sung vocals cut through it with stand-out confidence, and a bizarre song-ending hoe-down breakdown sounds like 12 pipers piping a psychotic stomp. It's on "Fall Be Kind," which comes out Tuesday, Nov. 24.

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Boston's Edan is one of hiphop's best-kept secrets, an insanely creative pastiche maker, rap encyclopedia, and psychedelic aficionado. His new project "Echo Party" comes out Dec. '09 and is orderable now. It's a gorgeously packaged half-hour mix made with old-school rap records and Edan's own augmentations.The result is a patchwork creation with all types of created feedback, artsy splicings, rhythmic delay tricks, and synthesizer. Edan doesn't just "leave his mark" on other people's records; he eats them and vomits rainbows. The man's been hard to find since 2005 masterpiece "Beauty and the Beat." All hail the return of a true master.