Miami Ice closes with "Crittin' Down to Babba's," a rap about an eatery where patrons sip lemonade, fries come with hot sauce, and "the music's always bumpin'." Sweet, spicy, and danceable -- that's the template for these fusion tracks created by Man Man and Bablicon members who make up Icy Demons.

Like Sunny Day Real Estate's Jeremy Enigk, Circa Survive singer Anthony Green is his band's most influential (and enigmatic) member, with a nation of emo kids finding solace in the stratospheric vocal lines and elliptical lyrics that mark his band's proggy epics.

The seeds of pop music's future were sown when African Americans cultivated early-'80s European synth pop and developed the DIY disco of hip-hop, house, and today's digitized R&B. Yet, bizarrely, there's never been a black Eurythmics. J*DaVeY fills that vacuum and then some.

Deerhunter's name implies aggression and brutality, but even at their loudest, the Atlanta band's music possesses a bewildered fragility that suggests they identify more closely with the innocent creature caught in the crosshairs. Lanky, waifish leader