For Christmas my friend got me a Jamaican dancehall DVD filmed live at a club called Hot Thursday in Montego Bay, Jamaica. The most riveting moment of the footage – 50 up-close shots of grinding punani notwithstanding – is what happens when the DJ drops Elephant Man's "Blasé Blasé." It's not just an anthem – it's also a dance-instruction record leading you through choreography that includes stomping the ground, waving a fictitious towel around your head like a helicopter, brushing imaginary dirt off your shoulders, and then running like a chicken-headed fool to the back of the room and then to the front again. At Hot Thursday this so excites the crowd that the DJ rewinds and plays back the record 10 times, and people do the maneuvers in unison each time.

The DVD illustrates a Zen-like point about dancehall: truly enjoying it can involve throwing away everything you've learned about being cool and acting a fool. Through this process, one becomes cool. And Bobby Konders's new mix for dancehall label Greensleeves is a good place to start the dance. Konders is the founder of Brooklyn's Massive B sound system, a dancehall producer, and a DJ on New York City's famed hip-hop station Hot 97 – put simply, he knows what the crowds want to hear and how they want to hear it.

On his "Mad Sick Head Nah Good" mix, Konders rips through 66 tracks in one hour, sometimes dropping in as little as 30 seconds of one artist's verse just to add flavor. The disc is wisely organized by different rhythms, over which Jamaica's hottest – the bashy Elephant Man, the choppy Vybz Kartel, and the ruthless Bounty Killer – throw down insane prose about girls, fighting, and penis girth. Last year's hottest rhythms – the bubbly Mad Ants, the clap-happy Diwali, the sinuous Egyptian, and the haywire Nintendo beats of Clappas – all get ample play, meaning you have just enough time to learn how to "Fan Dem Off" before it's time to grind your refrigerator to the insistent pulse of T.O.K.'s "Galong Gal." (Vivian Host)

Pearls and Brass
Pearls and Brass (Doppelganger)

Pennsylvanian townies Pearls and Brass resurrect the arena-heavy manliness of a band I hate, Grand Funk Railroad, but they don't know they're doing it, so they get away with it. Cheapskate label owner Pete Larson of Bulb sent me this CD a couple weeks ago, and I ignored it, thanks to the Grand Funk reference he made. But when, in a later conversation, he mentioned that the band don't listen to Grand Funk either, I was intrigued. What we have is superbluesy Drunk Horse-style hard rock with the sort of lyrics my best friend in high school used to write, about "the highway" and "the blues." This is a slippery slope, to be sure, because it's easy to sound like you just bought Robert Johnson's King of the Delta Blues (Columbia/Legacy) two weeks ago, or like you were really into the Posies until all your friends started paying $250 on eBay for Def Leppard tour shirts.

Pearls and Brass sound like they don't even listen to Drunk Horse, let alone the Posies.

With a barrage of slithering guitar riffs that rivals the hyperactivity of the best Eyehategod stuff and a vocal style that sounds like a more sedate version of the guy who sang for Cactus, this self-titled album works when the songs simply rock. There's no other way to put it. It has nice, clean production too, so you can turn it up really loud. The songs that don't work aren't even that offensive, just kind of forgettable. Then there are all these acoustic tracks that break up the heaviness. They have the same feel as "Fluff," from Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, another good sign. But "Highway Sermon," "Bleeding Hands," and "Stone Leaves" are the songs you want to hear. Bulb is releasing the vinyl of Pearls and Brass sometime early this year, which is why I'm reviewing it, because I want a free copy. (Mike McGuirk)

Various artists
Nik Weston Presents Sakura Aural Bliss (Kriztal)

Japan has long existed as some kind of parallel musical universe, home to some of the world's most obsessive and knowledgeable collectors while its own artists' releases are exceedingly rare abroad. At the same time most electronic music gets released in Japan before it does in Europe or the United States, and the country is cited as a favorite place to play by a myriad of international performers and DJs. So big thanks to British DJ Nik Weston for flipping the script a bit and serving up Nik Weston Presents Sakura Aural Bliss, a mix of known and new talent from across the Pacific.

A few producers have had success outside Japan, so names like Yukihiro Fukutomi and United Future Organization might ring some bells for those predisposed to musical exploration, but the real strength of this wide-ranging compilation is its introduction to lesser-known producers like Shiba or Takuya. In fact, it's Takuya who turns in the true revelation of Sakura with "Summerjam," which begins with an innocuous yet tight groove that explodes into a stuttering burst of synths that will snap you out of any reverie the previous ambient and downtempo cuts may have induced. From there, Sakura gains momentum, peaking with "Sketch on Banana Paper," from Calm (who appears three times on the album), and Raw Deal's remix of Fukutomi's "Drifting," both smoothly rolling takes on jazz-inflected house.

Less an overview of Japanese electronic music than a sample of what one might hear during one of Weston's regular sets at the U.K.'s legendary Brighton Jazz Dance Rooms, the album works best played in its entirety. Despite a few slightly tired-sounding cuts, like Grooveman Spot's scratches 'n' samples acid jazz redux number, "Voyage the Sky," Sakura is an outstanding slice of sound from around the Pacific Rim, as well as an excellent reference for rooting around in your favorite import bin. (Peter Nicholson)

James Carter
Gardenias for Lady Day (Columbia)

Recording jazz has never been easy, because the music's best moments tend to be found during improvised exploration rather than during planned composition. When access to the studio was limited, this was especially a problem, because it didn't pay to roll tape until the magic happened. Saxophonist James Carter – once hailed as "jazz's first rock star" – is now 34. As a musician who came of age in the era of technological democracy, he's at home in the studio, and it shows; his eight albums – from 1993's JC on the Set to 1994's Jurassic Classics to his latest, Gardenias for Lady Day – have been uniformly strong. His strengths as a performer follow a more traditional path, if his local gigs are any indication. Early on, his playing was stiff and he seemed profoundly uncomfortable onstage; by contrast, his recent appearance at Yoshi's with David Murray was stunning.