Paul McCartney's collaboration with producer and founding member of Killing Joke Youth began as an electronic experiment in the early '90s. Their first two releases, Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest (1993) and Rushes (1998) were largely instrumental experiments, unacknowledged by McCartney himself. This year's Electric Arguments is a different beast - coming on the heels of McCartney's departure from Starbucks' Hear Music label, as well as a brutal public divorce, the album is direct in ways that restores our faith in rock monoliths. The first Fireman album in ten years, its songs are punchy, rockin' and out, paying subtle homage to everyone from Tom Waits ("Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight") to Brian Eno ("Lovers In a Dream"). more ›

Whether it's love, death, or racing down the night highway in a blind panic, no musician can pull off the electro-melodrama like Anthony Gonzales, otherwise known as M83, the undisputed king of sensational, overwrought shoegaze. With 2005's Before the Dawn Heals Us, M83 veered a wild right away from its beginnings in otherwise humble ambience and synth-heavy noodling, catapulting over a dead-man's curve and emerging from the wreckage rejuvenated. From curb to coma, BTDHS was a thrilling experience. Unabashedly incorporating dramatic vocal samples and recursive opacity a la David Lynch's Mulholland Drive by way of the hard obsidian aesthetic of DePalma's Heat, the album went for broke on every track. It wasn't surprising to find one's self panting heavily after a listen-through. more ›