"The more you know, the less you think you know" is the cliché that comes to mind after spending some time with Sublime Frequencies' rapidly growing catalog of international music. Albums like the awesome Princess Nicotine: Folk and Pop Music of Myanmar (Burma) Vol. 1 are humbling reminders of how much great music is out there I've never heard, not to mention how drab most current-day rock is in comparison.

S.F.'s latest batch includes the two-CD Radio India: The Eternal Dream of Sound, another in a series of cut-and-paste radio collages that also includes installments from Morocco, Palestine, and Java; and the droning Broken-Hearted Dragonflies: Insect Electronica from Southeast Asia. Cambodian Cassette Archives: Khmer Folk and Pop Music Vol. 1 is my favorite, and certainly the most immediately gratifying, of the bunch. It was compiled by Bay Area dweller Mark Gergis, who's in Cambodia as this review goes to press, although he actually found all of this disc's songs in a discarded box at the Oakland Public Library.

Some folks are familiar with Cambodian pop thanks to revival/tribute bands such as Dengue Fever and Gergis's own Neung Phak, or from the cult-favorite Cambodian Rocks! CD, which was released a few years ago. Regardless, this disc offers new surprises, with songs ranging from the late '60s to the early '90s and veering from acid rock to mutant disco to synth-drenched '80s pop. The instrumentation consistently amazes: Sim Sisamouth's "Don't Let My Girlfriend Tickle Me," say, combines a heavy funk backbeat with violin, acid wa-wa guitar, and Farfisa organ and makes it all sound completely natural. Other songs do likewise with improbable mixes of marimbas, trumpets, primitive drum machines, and spacey synthesizers. The untitled track 15 even opens with distorted guitar riffing and cowbell percussion, offering an unexpected metal moment before the omnipresent reverb-doused vocals enter. Let's hope the Vol. 1 in the title means a second compilation is on the way, because surely there's a lot more where these songs came from – Cambodia, that is, not the Oakland Public Library. (Will York)

Slum Village
Detroit Deli (Capitol)

With each new album, it seems Detroit's Slum Village lose a member – producer Jay Dee left after their debut, Fantastic, Vol. 2 (Goodvibe), and rapper Baatin was fired after Trinity (Past, Present and Future) (Barak), Slum's 2002 breakthrough – but come closer to fulfilling the prophecies of early fans Q-Tip, the Roots, and D'Angelo. Now slimmed to rappers T3 and Elzhi, the once-heralded avatars of the Native Tongues aesthetic are a mere wisp of their former selves on their third album, Detroit Deli. But thanks to producers B.R. Gunna and Young R.J., it almost doesn't matter who's rapping. The two newcomers do a great job re-creating the tinny boom-bap and luscious arrangements of past Slum sides, especially on the flickering, stuttering ballad "Closer" and the excellent, hiccuping "Old Girl/Shining Star." Kanye West guests on the tinkling lead single, "Selfish," a sensitive, almost overearnest play for the ladies. Even Jay Dee temporarily rejoins the fray, first for the off-kilter G-funk of "Do You" and later for album closer "Reunion." "Thought we broke up but we was just reassemblin'," Jay spits over some creamy, spaced-out funk, prompting the question If they keep getting better through subtraction, can you imagine how good they'll be when they all leave? (Hua Hsu)

Truth Hurts
Ready Now (Pookie Entertainment)

Truth Hurts has been navigating a cutting edge between R&B and hip-hop since making her recording debut a decade back with producer Raphael Saadiq as Shug, the singing half of the short-lived Bay Area R&B-rap duo Shug and Dap. After a 2002 stint on Dr. Dre's Aftermath label that yielded the Bollywood-sampling DJ Quik-produced hit "Addictive," the St. Louis-born, SoCal-based vocalist has reentered the Saadiq orbit with Ready Now, a more musically mature showcase for her pliant mezzo pipes.

Saadiq, who runs the label Pookie Entertainment, produced only 4 of the disc's 11 tracks, but he pops up as a player on some of the others, and his alt-R&B vibe permeates the entire affair. Truth oozes sensuality on such midtempo workouts as "Whatchu Sayin'" (featuring rapper Loon) and "Phone Sex," both garnished with Arabic spices designed to heighten her exotic image. Slower selections, including "Lifetime" and the emotion-gripping "Catch 22," find her mining matters of the heart. Their tempos creep along as if trapped in slow motion, Saadiq's deliciously delayed bass patterns seemingly pulling against the steady one-two crunch of a drum machine, over which he layers strings, keyboards, slide guitar, and banjo lines. Such unorthodox sounds can be off-putting at first, but after repeated spins, they become downright addictive. Truth Hurts opens for Mr. Cheeks and Pete Rock Thurs/12, Independent, S.F. (415) 771-1470. (Lee Hildebrand)

DJ Rels
Theme for a Broken Soul (Stones Throw)

Ever had a night when you were too stoned and everything you said seemed absurdly funny? I'm starting to wonder if Madlib isn't on the same page whenever he records an album: in his mind, every track he makes is worth putting on a CD. The producer is undeniably a genius when it comes to making beats and setting moods, but boy does he need an editor. Or a longer attention span.

Theme for a Broken Soul finds Madlib, under yet another moniker, DJ Rels, wandering away from hip-hop (which he's made both under his own name and together with Jay Dee and MF Doom as Jaylib and Madvillian, respectively) and funk (as Yesterdays New Quintet) to test the waters of broken beat. No great surprise for listeners familiar with the myriad of flavors that get crammed into this pigeonhole. And Madlib's prodigious talents go to town on the stuttered beats and murky funk bass lines that are some of the genre's hallmarks. "Universal Peace" sports a beat that's as infectious as it is unpredictable, and the five-note bass line of "Diggin' in Brownswood" is elegantly efficient. "Diggin' in Brownswood" (originally released on a 12-inch last year) is one of the album's best tracks, because, unlike the majority of Theme for a Broken Soul, it actually goes somewhere. In fact, it goes deep into left-field pitch-bend insanity halfway through before snapping back to its initial jumpy framework, and the contrast between its vibrancy and the other tracks' inertia is marked. Madlib may have some brilliant ideas here, and I've heard two-minute snippets of some outstanding sounds in a DJ set, but the CD makes for a rather unsatisfying listen. Or maybe I'm just too uptight and need to burn another fatty so everything sounds dope. (Peter Nicholson)