Winning Formulas

BANDS WITH ASIAN LEAD SINGER LADIES

• Blonde Redhead (NYC via Japan and Italy)
  
• The 5.6.7.8's (Japan)
• Thao & the Get Down Stay Down (San Francisco and Virginia)
• Deerhoof (San Francisco and Japan)
• Dengue Fever (Cambodia and L.A.)
  

At a recent show in the Echo Park neighborhood here, the male members were downright goofy, but Chhom, singing mostly in Khmer and dressed in shimmering Cambodian silk garments she designs herself, looked like old-school royalty, a queen before the hipoisie. No wonder she seemed to roll her eyes from time to time onstage. But after the set, when she lighted a candle onstage to honor those killed by the Khmer Rouge, her voice broke and tears ran down her face.

"I think we balance each other out," Holtzman said in a recent interview. "She'll bring the whole place to a hush, and that would be a long night if it was just that. And then we smash the place up."

"Seeing Hands"

MONTERREY, MEXICO

• Control Machete
  
• Celso Piña
  
• Quiero Club
  
• Plastilina Mosh
  
• Kinky

Because only a "norteño" rock band could figure out how to amalgamate a cowboy bassist, an accordion, and the indie rockstar hair swoop. I was going to post the actual music video here, until I found some dear YouTube user who put this up, her only video to date, a clip from this Kinky concert we went to last week. And the grainy live camera phone video makes the professional one seem dull. I was probably about 16 inches away from this person, although not one of the ones screaming the words ... because I have more of a head voice and this was really in the throat range. But I do dance.

"A Donde Van los Muertos," Kinky @ Palmares, Jan. 22:

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND

• Franz Ferdinand
• Belle & Sebastian
• Jesus & Mary Chain
• Mogwai
  
• Camera Obscura

One day, I will have my white Dodge Dart convertible and drive across the country listening to this album, Let's Get Out of This Country. Here's "Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken":

EARLIER TIMES, FARTHER-OFF PLACES

• Les Yper-Sound (60s France)
• Agentenmusik (60s Germany)
• The Plastic record label (60s Italy)
• 70s Nigeria Rock Special
  
• The Pulse Series (80s Russia)

These albums make arguably the best case for downloading albums. The Nigeria series aside (a disc I bought in the flesh in an actual records store, haters), these are not albums you could find in any music store, physical or virtual, nor are they anything I would have ever known to look for. Whole galaxies of genres and time warps that only open up more expanses than you knew even existed.