| First stop – 1967. Once upon a time there was a band called The Free Design whose crystal clear pop stylings were showcased on the album Kites Are Fun (now being reissued by Light in the Attic records). If the new edition of the album didn’t come with extensive liner notes and vintage photos it would be easy to mistake this trio as a Mighty Wind-style send-up. Most of the material sounds like a cross between Simon and Garfunkel and a musical interlude on Sesame Street, but the real punchline here is that The Free Design are credited as the inspiration for bands such as Belle & Sebastian. As a result, Light in the Attic is also releasing a series of remix albums entitled Redesigned. It not only features work by Madlib, but Chris Geddes of (you guessed it) Belle & Sebastian.
For those that like a little less irony with their singer-songwriters there is Another Country 2 (Agenda). The second instalment in the series features artists not necessarily known for their ties to Nashville, but who update and modify the definition of country music. The result is a collection of sad but beautiful tunes by Damien Jurado (the eerie "Abeline" ), Iron and Wine, Songs:Ohia (the minor-key epic "Steve Albini's Blues"), Okerville River, Giant Sand (the lush lap-steel drive of "Shiver"), Mark Kozalek (the cowpokey "What's Next to the Moon") and Hope Sandoval.
Also filed under Various Artists is Electrorock (Wagram), a collection of artists that sounds exactly like you’d think it would – beats and guitars. Opening up with the DFA remix of "Deceptacon" by the riot-grrl-gone-synth of Le Tigre, Electrorock fulfills the promise of a dance floor filled with backpacks and ironic horn-rimmed glasses. While at times it sounds remarkably like ’80s techno-pop, it’s hard to argue with LCD Soundsystem and Tricky doing what they do.
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