On the surface, this debut by RJD2, producer for New York City rap veterans MHz, is reminiscent of DJ Shadow's well-chronicled work. "Smoke and Mirrors" 's melancholic waltz and plaintive vocals ("Midnight in a Perfect World," anyone?) certainly fits that bill. But Shadow's sound is so synonymous with instrumental hip-hop that the comparison seems unfair.

For better or worse, Deadringer is best appreciated for its variety of elements. "2 More Dead" has a familiar, late-'60s psychedelic rock vibe; Jakki of MHz's rhyme on "F.H.H." ("What the fuck is your definition of underground? / Depressing beats and bleak cats who love the sound?") will resonate with anyone who's struggled through a Def Jux album. On the funky, piano-inflected "Let the Good Times Roll Pt. 2," RJD2 lifts a soul singer's voice so completely that one wonders how he was able to avoid crediting him in the album's liner notes. "Cut Out to FL" and "Silver Fox" are relatively unadorned breakbeats that go nowhere in particular, while "June" is a mournful homage by MHz's Copywrite to his late mother.

Unafraid of producing songs both ecstatic and joyful ("Let the Good Times Roll Pt. 2") and intensely introverted ("The Proxy"), RJD2 rarely sticks to one vibe. But as on Shadow's recent The Private Press, many of the tracks come off as dazzling sampling exercises instead of fully formed compositions, leading to the gnawing feeling that there's something missing from this album that could make it whole. Still, there's enough substance ("Chicken Bone Circuit," "The Horror") to recommend taking Deadringer home and absorbing it – maybe sweating it out your pores will help reveal its elusive essence. (Mosi Reeves)

Charles Wright
Music for the Times We Live In (Million Dollars Worth of Memories)

That cynicism of yours? Tired. The facetious wit? Done. All that feigned indifference? Kick it to the curb. Because you know you're exhausted with all your fake-ass, arched-brow apathy, and hell, now you got this new Charles Wright album to set you on the straight and narrow, to guide you toward the gleam of sanguine light at the end of the tunnel that's illuminating the road to recovery.

Apologies for the cliché barrage, but somehow it seems appropriate for an album titled Music for the Times We Live In, funkateer Wright's personal brand of remedy for our current state of affairs. With an infectiously hopeless optimism, Wright – the frontperson for the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band and the fella behind "Express Yourself" (one of the most sampled songs on the planet, I believe) – assembles a collection of tracks that beg us to sing along, almost dittylike numbers fueled by just enough funky undercurrent to keep 'em from kitsch. It all comes together in Wright's singing voice, an amazing instrument that swoops from gravel to falsetto, skimming his melodies' corners but always somehow managing to be right on.

With a host of gospel-infused R&B tunes, a reworking of "Express Yourself," and some of the best material from his 1997 outing, Going to the Party, such as "Happy Song" (indeed, the happiest song ever) and "Unseen Dirt," Wright reminds us that funk is funky because sometimes shit sucks and you got no choice but to turn it around and deal with it on your own terms. Though it'd be silly to say that someone who's been around the block as many times as Wright has believes music can save the day, Music certainly reassures us it can help us along through the dark ones. (Sylvia W. Chan)

Robin Holcomb
The Big Time (Nonesuch)

It's one thing to occupy a unique musical niche where genre-defining walls first meet, then crumble into fine powdery dust. But on The Big Time (her fourth album for Nonesuch and sixth since 1989's mostly instrumental Larks, They Crazy), Robin Holcomb also seduces the listener into feeling right at home – a place where she juggles her gifts as a Georgia-born, UC Santa Cruz-educated modern classical pianist and composer with her affinity for old American folk music, Randy Newman, the Band, Stephen Foster, Indonesian gamelan, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. She weds poetic images (shadows flying away, voices drifting in from the edge of the world) and intriguing directives ("Pretend you remember more than you do"; "You'll crave confusion more than you know") to short, low-flying melodies and invites you to experience her world of emotional self-examination as your own.

Although Holcomb's superficially fragile and quavering voice seems like it could dry up and blow away in the slightest wind of change, it ultimately reveals the same wise resilience that informs her eccentric, original love songs and her covers of the A.P. Carter ballads "A Lazy Farmer Boy" and "Engine 143." Zony Mash (organist Wayne Horvitz, guitarist Timothy Young, bassist Keith Lowe, and drummer Andy Roth) provide the core accompaniment, with guitarist Bill Frisell contributing some of his edgiest recent playing. A host of guests (including Kate and Anna McGarrigle) adds textures that restore meaning to exhausted adjectives such as "mysterious" and "dreamlike," to the point where you might consider Holcomb as Joni Mitchell's postmodern Appalachian jazz-pop Wiccan twin. (Derk Richardson)

Sadistik Exekution
Fukk (Osmose)

The liner notes for Fukk feature pictures of self-mutilated forearms, a black pit bull with a pentagram necklace, and a machine gun-toting lady wearing thigh-high leather boots and a bullet belt. The lengthy bio/essay inside mentions how two of the band's former members had to leave the band because of mental illness. Listening to their music, however, the question becomes, Exactly how mentally ill would you have to be to get kicked out of this band? It's like getting kicked out of Bread for being too sensitive.

Sadistik Exekution describe their music as "ultra fast, violent heavy metal noise"; it's sometimes played at speeds approaching 400 beats per minute but also veers into contrasting dirge sections and even some punked-out rock 'n' roll moments. Like certain other insane fringe-metal bands from around the world, such as Vondur, Absu, Impaled Nazarene, and (early) Anal Cunt, Sadistik Exekution are so completely over-the-top that at times my natural instinct is to laugh. But I don't think they're a joke – in fact, they have my utmost respect for their commitment to this type of all-out mayhem, especially at 15-plus years into their career.