Patrick Wolf, “Together.” I can’t say I feel quite as enthusiastically as Slant’s Matthew Cole about Patrick Wolf’s new album, Lupercalia, out this week in the U.K. and coming to U.S. shores later this year. Wolf already explored the giddy heights of falling in love in 2007 on the superior The Magic Position. But there’s no shortage of gems on the new album, most notably the ecstatic penultimate track “Together,” the driving synth-pop strut, disco strings, and operatic vocals of which recall Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe’s finest, and finds Wolf branching out in a brand new sonic, if not thematic, direction. Sal Cinquemani
Brian Eno, “Bless This Space.” Brian Eno is known for his high-profile collaborations just as much as he is for his solo material, and his work with poet Rick Holland on Drums Between the Bells (out July 5th) proves once again that two heads are often better than one. Over the soothing ambient-jazz swing of “Bless This Space,” Holland’s commanding voice beckons Eno’s drums to rise and fall as he ruminates on spaces and relationships. If anyone can make poetic verse and careening guitar solos meld so seamlessly, it’s Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno. Michael Kilpatrick
Beastie Boys featuring Santigold, “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win (Major Lazer Remix).” The Beastie Boys’s “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win” gets the Major Lazer treatment, which means plenty of fuzzed-out, reggae-meets-house hijinks and a snappy new beat. There are essentially two stars here: first, a no-nonsense snare drum that sounds as if it’s sucking breath in and out with every flanging, measured snap, and second, the ever-dynamic Santigold, whose energetic and commanding performance is kept front and center by Diplo and Switch and who gets another feather in her cap to go along with her recent “GO” collab with Karen O. Kevin Liedel
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