David Grubbs, 'An Optimist Notes the Dusk' (Drag City)

Prof. Grubbs' class is cool and all, but the reading list is a bitch.

Is David Grubbs post-rock's godfather (as founder of Bastro and Gastr del Sol) or a stuffy professor moonlighting on guitar (he now teaches at Brooklyn College)?

David Vandervelde, 'Waiting for the Sunrise' (Secretly Canadian)

Savvy glam-pop up-and-comer drifts into a soft-rock sinkhole.

A teen metalcore guitarist turned studio engineer turned glammy multi-instrumentalist (2007's promising The Moonstation House Band), David Vandervelde has already had a whirlwind career by his late 20s.

Lindstrøm, 'Where You Go I Go Too' (Smalltown Supersound)

If Michael Mann had called him, Miami Vice could've sucked less.

After a string of heady singles and collaborations with fellow Norwegian Prins Thomas, Hans-Peter Lindstrøm is already a leading light of 21st-century (see '80s-worshipping) disco. But on his debut album, he shoots for the stratosphere and lavishly scores. A three-piece suite that conjures not just St.

Solomon Burke, 'Like a Fire' (Shout! Factory)

Soul-music royalty holds court with hard-won mellowness.

If Burke's voice now lacks the stirring richness of his early-'60s R&B hits like "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" and "Cry to Me," his dramatic skills haven't faded a bit. Shifting gears from 2006's countrified Nashville, he turns to laid-back pop and gospel-flavored tunes about hard times and spiritual crisis, written by fans such as Eric Clapton, Ben Harper, and Jesse Harris.

Animal Collective, 'Water Curses' (Domino)

Electronic pop naturalists create a sonic life aquatic.

Amid the globules of sound on "Cobwebs," Animal Collective's Avey Tare mumbles about being "organic like strawberry meat." But on this new four-song EP, that's as close as the Brooklyn group gets to the compacted Day-Glo noise pop of last year's Strawberry Jam.

Quiet Village, 'Silent Movie' (K7)

Dj/production partners give cocktail soundtrack a twist.

Named for Martin Denny's seminal exotica/lounge album, Quiet Village opt for a sketchy sunset -- rather than the more traditional nymph in a loincloth -- on the cover of their woozy, sampledelic debut.

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