Spanning the globe, mashing the genres, from pop rock to funk schlock to tasty Europop, these acts have a future. These kids are going somewhere. These bold souls are contenders, let's face it, not bums from Palookaville  All it takes to experience these musical mind benders is an adventurous spirit and a fresh MP3 player with plenty of memory.

Dynasty Handbag?: The lovechild of Yoko Ono and Sandra Bernhardt is one Dynasty Handbag, and no, I have no idea what her real name is. Think Peaches with less body hair. Think PJ Harvey screaming over trashy electronic drums and loopy Arps. A scary looking French Canadian female who "sings" along with grisly electronic loops and double tracks her vocals to sound like a million flies pecking at your flesh; Dynasty Handbag represents the true state of US musical culture. She mocks Patti Smith in the wonderfully squalid "Open Up And Bleed," does a decent Belinda Carlisle in the carnival-esque "What's Going to Happen?" and revisits trashy Europop in "Life Would Be Easier If We Didn't Have Feelings." Dynasty Handbag is ugly as sin, she can't sing a lick, and she gets my vote for best new artist of the year.

Dynasty Handbag
"I'm Afraid" (mp3)
from "Foo Foo Yik Yik"
(Lovepump United)

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H is for Health: New York's cable channel 35 is the place to go for escort ads of every stripe. Chicks with utensils? They got it covered. Guys looking for weasels to rip their flesh? For sure, for sure. One ad showed a nubile young thing dancing in a pool of golden liquid cooing "The extra E is for extra pee." That site offered--well--you get the idea. What does that have to do with the price of green tea in China you ask? Well, today's theme is the alphabet and where that sweet young thang got all hot and bothered over the extra E, I get all sweaty over the letter H, particularly when it is attached to the music of LA noisenik combo, Health.

Creating a tremendous fist to the senses, Health combines acoustic industrial pounding with percussively generated arrangements. Health is all about the possibilities of rhythm, played on double drum sets, flagellating guitars, and old ribbon microphones pummeled senseless. Recorded at LA's The Smell, Health's self titled debut is punk rock with brains, noise music with melody, serene vocals riding atop a caterwauling cacophony that is sweet sustenance to the soul. This is tribal music for 21^st century club kids, music so riff heavy and real that its true humanity is naked to the ears, and as life affirming as a message from the African plain. Well, if that plain was located at Hollywood and Vine.

HEALTH
"Crimewave" (mp3)
from "HEALTH"
(Lovepump United)

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BündnerflAisch: Straight outta Switzerland,  BündnerflAisch incorporate a smorgasbord of styles, their album Ulässig a collision between Engelbert Humperdinck, Foo Fighters and Marc Antony. With little known about the band beyond the toothy grins of their press photo, BündnerflAisch are able programmers, heavy metal guitar slingers and sultry crooners able to remove your girflriend's frilly under things with little more than a sniff of their feral, boy band vocal harmonies. Passion and fervor plays a big part in the dance driven "Kumm Mit Miar," which features Musk flavored vocals and a shredding solo worthy of Steve Vai. "Was I Brucha" opts for a Queen styled intro ("Bohemian Rhapsody" for sure, for sure), and lyrics that sound like "I want my frog inside of you." That can't be right, can it? Here, BündnerflAisch again combine chest hair scented vocals with deep dance grooves and Rockstar II guitar flavors; it's like waiving your hands in the air like you just don't care. Ulässig is Europop of the highest order, relying on solid song craft, slick programming and world music ingredients. Too band the granny on the album cover probably doesn't have a clue...

BündnerflAisch
"Kumm mit miar" (mp3)
from "Ulässig"
(ullala.ch)

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BündnerflAisch
"Was i brucha" (mp3)
from "Ulässig"
(ullala.ch)

More On This Album