Crazy lives produce brilliant music. Just check out Kismet by California's Jesca Hoop. Raised as a Mormon (nothing crazy there), and introduced to music by her vocalizing family who rhapsodized over church hymns and murder ballads, Hoop took music to heart. She'd take long wilderness hikes near her home, creating songs in her head to match the steady cadence of her footsteps. But her woodland walks influenced her in other, odder ways. Kismet has the glory strangeness of an acoustic song by early King Crimson, the absurd visual imagery of Kate Bush or Tori Amos, and the unusual chord progressions of Tom Waits or Laurie Anderson. Hoop would go on to homestead (we call it squatting in New York) across California, Wyoming and Arizona. She worked in a rehab center for troubled kids.  A few years later, after her return to civilization, Hoop became the nanny to Tom Waits' children. He passed her fledgling demos to the head honchos at Columbia, who promptly smashed all comers in a Hoop bidding war.

Kismet is original, melodically adventurous, and as delightfully weird as living high up in a forest tree or down below in the city subway tracks. Hoop has the courage to trust her considerable instincts, developing her songs through strange designs that lead to even stranger destinations. You know the going is enchanted in Kismet's first song, "Summertime." Beginning as typically as the Dixie Chicks with innocent, glowing harmonies, galloping beat and happy acoustic instrumentation, barely one minute in and suddenly the chords shift from light to dark, the song modulating downward as Hoop's voice turns macabre and murky. It's like staring at a beautiful image only to see it melt into something unholy, dangerous and threatening. Soon enough the shiny happy Hoop returns, setting up the dichotomy the informs much of Kismet. Is Hoop sweet or sour? Mad or merry? The journey to decide which is where the fun begins.  "Seed of Wonder" recalls Tricky at his most melodic, a jig-like wonder where a chorus of Hoop vocals imitate a band of children bent on revenge. Hoop sings like an eccentric granny in "Silverscreen," dons cabaret garb to challenge Ute Lemper in "Money," conjures Joni Mitchell on acid in the gorgeous "Love Is All We Have," and finally, soars in over a lush orchestra in "Love And Love Again" (the record's only misstep).

Jesca Hoop:"Love Is All We Have"  (MP3, 4:59)

Do you know what nemesis means?: I love all those phony British gangster movies. Layer Cake. Snatch. Five Thugs Doped on E and Guinness. The Brits seem to live in a perpetual dream state, whether reaching for past glories (musical or maritime) or pursuing technological advancement. They certainly have a deeper attachment to pop music, rock and roll attitude and the cinematic sensibilities and possibilities of both, from Portishead to the Kooks to Radiohead and beyond. UNKLE have mined similar territory for over ten years, James Lavelle and current working partners Richard File and Chris Goss (Queens Of The Stone Age, Masters Of Reality) diving deep into British atmospherics to create music that is disturbing, comforting and at times visionary. UNKLE has always created future urban vistas of the mind, a post war wasteland that hinted at apocalypse and dread. Once pure electronic boffins, UNKLE embrace rock bombast on War Stories, bending their trademark trip hop with guitar assaults, blitzkrieg beats: a generally ramped up modus operandi. Stars line up to sing and play along, Massive Attack's 3D, Ian Astbury, Twiggy Ramirez, Nada Surf's Matthew Caws, and Josh Homme (Queens Of The Stone Age). War Stories isn't as immediately memorable as landmark efforts Psyence Fiction and Never, Never, Land, due to either the boredom of the Lavelle braintrust or new members changing the UNKLE pedigree to an ill degree. Melding UNKLE's trademark sonics with raging rock energy, "Burn My Shadow" with Astbury is easily the album's best track.

Ghostly cries and urgent acoustic guitar strumming allude to something wicked in "Burn My Shadow," matched by a galvanic beat that rivals The Headless Horseman for implied dread. Astbury sings of "standing at the edge of the future while my dreams all fade away" over the rattle of prayer beads and white noise. Then the beat crashes back in and were spirited away. The repeated phrase "Burn my shadow away" implies something worse than death. It signals total obliteration, no memory of the past or dreams of the future. The song subsides briefly to an unrecognizable chant, perhaps something middle eastern in origin, before slamming your head to the floor for an, er, abrupt finish.