Strange & True

Come now, step out of your safe place, and rub your soul down with the sound of the new. As a friend once said, it sometimes seems as if all the good notes have already been used. But no, there still remain combinations and sequences untried and sonic textures not yet worn threadbare.

Here are three acts whose output will challenge your expectations and then reward your patience.

TV ON THE RADIO are from Brooklyn and the critics’ current darlings. Rolling Stone, Spin and the Village Voice all chose their new album, DEAR SCIENCE, as the best of 2008.

Two of their members are also visual artists, and their politics are impeccable.

Their previous effort, Return to Cookie Mountain, was literate, inventive and all but unlistenable. With atmospherics piled thick as February motor oil, lyrics obtuse but intriguing, the record featured meandering melodies and clotted, spastic beats. Critics still loved it, of course, but one suspected it was the pressure of other peers and not the record itself.

Not so with Dear Science. The electronic backgrounds are still there, but there’s a new focus on vocals and blessed rhythmic straightforwardness – not to mention melodies that are catchy (after a few listens) and even the occasional horn and string flourish!

Still weird, mind you, but embraceable.

Two lead singers alternate between tough tenors and fearless falsettos, sometimes in the same line. The effect is exhilarating.

Standout cuts are the norm, but “Golden Age,” “Red Dress,” “Crying” and “DLZ” could actually get airplay. TV on the Radio may one day cross over to the near-normal.

That fate will never befall SIGUR ROS. Natives of Iceland (fashionably bankrupt ahead of everyone else), the band’s been around for a decade, pumping out other-worldly albums filled with soaring bombast and funereal dirges. Its new one, MED SUD I EYRUM VID SPILUM ENDALAUST, (With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly), is its most accessible, yet still very much on the other side of different.

Starting with the fact that they sing in their native tongue (how inconsiderate), Sigur Ros also inject their Nordic sensibility into song structure and melody. Does it translate? Yes, if your ears are open.

The term “mood music” is overused, but it definitely applies here. And that mood is uplifting, streaked with strains of sadness to create equilibrium. Having no idea what a singer is saying is liberating, as the listener is free to fill in meaning from the music alone, a collaboration rather than a passive exercise.

And there’s plenty of material to work with, too. The band favors layering of spare acoustic instruments (guitars and piano) with banks of horns and choirs of voices.

Songs begin quietly then build to crescendos; some then settle back down to tranquility while others go off on unexpected but logical directions. Traditional song structures (verse, verse chorus, verse, bridge, etc.) are missing but not missed.

There’s no point in cherry-picking individual songs for special mention, since they’re unpronounceable anyway. This is a record to take on its own terms, to savor as its charms come into focus.

Let’s now veer sharply away from the pretty and ethereal, and get down with the familiar (but still weird, mind you) sound of a nasty electric guitar. STEPHEN MALKMUS AND THE JICKS new record, REAL EMOTIONAL TRASH, is an homage to the instrument, but also much more.

Malkmus was the main man in the obscure-but-influential indie band, Pavement. His solo work since the band’s demise has been uneven and too casual, but this new record’s got real drive and shape. His vocals take some getting used to (they’re what I just called his other records), but his songs are sturdy and his guitar-love is wide and deep.

That love is manifested by riffs anchoring most tunes, and long solos that take their time to make their points. His playing is not built on conventional licks but rather inventive counterpoints and quirky detours. But there’s still a heavy overlay of rock tradition in the overall feel.

Having started this column with a theme (of strangeness), I now see that it has rounded back to the norm. And maybe that’s enough – the familiar taken to new places, or new twists on old forms.