Since debuting in the late '90s, few bands have embodied rampant paranoia quite like Lost Sounds. And judging by the Memphis, Tenn., quartet's excellent self-titled album, their most nerve-racking release to date, they're only getting more anxious. Throughout the dozen songs of chaotic, danceable post-punk, vocalists Jay Reatard and Alicja Trout – both of whom also play guitar and molest their synthesizers with wanton abandon – spazz out about such hysteria-inducing subjects as the apocalypse, blood-filled skies, and evil clones that must be killed. It's on the conspiracy-theory anthem "I Get Nervous," however, that the fear is most palpable. "Those things they put inside me," Reatard chants like a frantic X Files fanatic. "You! Know! They! Make! Me! Nervous!"

Of course, such lyrics wouldn't be remotely compelling if the band's music didn't inspire its own sort of claustrophobic dread. And indeed, like Bionic Parts-era Mocket or Atari Teenage Riot if they went dance pop, Lost Sounds' two- to three-minute blasts of eerie, dark-wave rock are ready-made for horror films and fallout shelters. From the tense "Your Looking Glass" – featuring Trout robotically shrieking, "Everything's so scary!" – to the full-on death disco of "And You Dance?" and "We're Just Living," the album is a relentlessly enjoyable explosion of surging synths and rambunctious, unbridled energy. In fact, by the time Lost Sounds ends with Trout and Reatard worrying that "all the walls are falling down," it's more than apparent these paranoiacs are responsible for one of recent memory's most glorious, post-punk freak-outs. (Jimmy Draper)

Michael Mayer
Touch (Kompakt)

Michael Mayer – who along with his friends runs Cologne's oft-praised Kompakt label – had an awfully good 2004. But taking over European dance floors with a shuffle-y take on techno and releasing Kompakt's 100th record have left little time for music making in the past few years. It's a common predicament for well-run artist-controlled labels, but it only loads releases like Mayer's debut, Touch, with that much more expectation.

Without keeping his cards close to his chest (he's released a steady stream of DJ chart-topping EPs), Mayer still lays down a number of happy surprises on Touch. By overlaying big-beat piano chords and filter swirls on acidy TB 303-generated buzzes, squelches, and melodies, the disc's tone-setting title track is as much a thinly veiled dig at trance and acid house as it is a sincere homage to the genres. But Mayer's version of trance is so faithful and confident that even techno purists will willingly follow him down this lane.

Where they end up, however, is a mishmash of the DJ-producer's various talents as he mines nearly all of electronic music's dancier strains and injects his own stylistic and structural production prowess. The slightly off-kilter backbeat and rhythmic guitar flecks on "Privat," an unusually sluggish number, provide an element of humanistic variance that's hard to fake on machines. And "Slowfood" – a filmic, 10-minute-plus potboiler (replete with the sounds of rainstorms and slap bass) that smoothly drifts into Touch's only vocal track – finds Mayer stretching far beyond the well-established minimal techno territory. There are still the familiar Kompakt touches here ("Funky Handicap" and "Amabile" are fine illustrations of the label's signature shaffel sound), but it's outposts like "Lovefood" and "Heiden" that prove Cologne will host techno's next revolution and indicate that '05 will be fruitful. (Ken Taylor)

R.A. the Rugged Man
Die, Rugged Man, Die (Nature Sounds)

A decade after R.A. the Rugged Man recorded tracks with the Notorious B.I.G., his debut, Die, Rugged Man, Die, has come out. The album he recorded 10 years ago, Night of the Bloody Apes, was shelved by Jive after a dispute, and it's never seen the light of day – R.A. doesn't even have a copy. The next chance for an R.A. album came with the supergroup White Mandingos – which featured Darryl Jennifer of Bad Brains on bass, ego trip magazine cofounder Sacha Jenkins on guitar, and R.A. on vocals – but they stopped playing. And while it hurt to see a promising band die, R.A.'s long-awaited album eases the pain.

Die, Rugged Man, Die is a 12-song banger that features R.A.'s booming voice over well-produced beats. The record opens with the single "Lessons," on which he rhymes about his time in the industry; brushes with bigwigs like Russell Simmons, the Neptunes, and Norah Jones; and personal highs and lows: "I seen EPMD break up, I seen my little brother Max fall asleep and he ain't never wake up." Wu Tang warriors Killah Priest and Masta Killah drop verses on "Chains," and R.A.'s rhymes wander from lighthearted to poignant to sad to tragic. "Casanova (Fly Guy)" features the old "oh-ee-oh" refrain from The Wizard of Oz during the chorus, and R.A. kills the song with "I'm a has-been known for boastin' and braggin' / Babblin' battle rappin' / Battle me imagine / Staggerin', batterin' the soul low-blow-beat your bladder in / Hammerin' your lips Mick Jaggerin' / Image ever lastin' like Jimmy Dean, Marilyn." The album is a must for hip-hop fans, and R.A. sums it up best: "I don't wanna be liked in the music biz, I don't want fans that don't know who G Rap is." (Nate Denver)

Menomena
I Am the Fun Blame Monster (Film Guerrero)

From an outpost deep in the Tulgey Woods, Menomena have arrived with the curiouser and curiouser I Am the Fun Blame Monster. Although vocalist and keyboardist Brent Knopf borrows from hip-hop production methods, the Portland, Ore., trio (rounded out by drummer Danny Seim and guitarist and bass player Justin Harris) are a primarily indie rock outfit, occasionally touching on a spectrum of genres as multihued as the rainbow text on their seizure-inducing Web site.

Knopf initially composed the songs on a homemade computer program, and the band later learned to play the tunes live, but the music retains a very human feel. Velvety, Doves-reminiscent pop ballad "Twenty Cell Revolt" catches Knopf harmonizing emo-style at the album's climax. Seim's high-energy percussion drives the entire disc but shines brightest on techno-trance freak-outs "Trigga Hiccups" and "Cough Coughing." The group even explore somnambulant psychedelia on "Oahu" and the hypnotic "Strongest Man in the World."

All the genre-hopping and technical wizardry come together seamlessly to create a stunning debut, but as might be expected of a band named after a Muppet Show song, Menomena manage not to take themselves too seriously. Management of the group is attributed to a necktie-sporting pug named Geddy Lee, and the CD comes packaged in a flip book depicting the combo at play and the album's title rearranging itself into the anagram "the first Menomena album." It sounds more like something you'd buy at Toys 'R' Us than at Amoeba Music, but wackiness aside, this little-band-that-could power through jazzy beats with a ferocity that drew praise from the few who heard the album after its extremely limited self-release last fall. All of which prompted Film Guerrero to rerelease it nationally for the rest of us this October – brought to you by the letter M and the number 1. (Leah Freeman)