Austinist Music Preview: New Release Tuesday

August 8, 2006 has the following in store for your greedy obsession with physically owning your music:

Comets on Fire Avatar (Sub Pop)

The highly anticipated follow up to 2004's Blue Cathedral finds the band expanding their musical directions as songwriters and singers (!) with this multi-directional and ethereal release. "Dogwood Rust" is a gritty, 60's dirt-rock sounding tune featuring incredible drumming and guitar work, and the rest of the album is equally evocative, sometimes bluesy, sometimes progressive, always excellent.

Comets on Fire: Dogwood Rust

Matthew Friedberger Winter Women/Holy Ghost Language School (859 Recordings)

The first solo album from this half of the Fiery Furnaces is a double CD with 105 minutes of new sounds. Winter Women is a "summer album" full of pop melodies and infectious songs we're pretty sure will end up on plenty of your summer's end mix tapes. The second disc is more experimental, as Friedberger plays with the concept of Xenolalia, the act of spontaneously speaking foreign languages. The result is a complex and frenetic assembly of outbursts. Friedberger has arranged all of these songs himself, and plays all the instruments on both CDs, except when John McEntire (Tortoise) helps out on drums.

Matthew Friedberger: The Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company Resignation Letter
Matthew Friedberger: Do You Like Blondes?

Rick Ross Port of Miami (Def Jam)

Miami-based rapper Ross had a huge hit with "Hustlin'", a cocky and bragadocious track that has already seen several remixes, but the Def Jam crew is hoping the success of the single won't cloud his debut. The album promises to be a seedy look at the underbelly of Miami's scene, featuring the production help of Cool & Dre, The Runners and DJ Toomp.

Port of Miami on MTV2's "The Leak"