PEDRO

Pedro

(Mush)

I'm pleased to announce this is not a solo album from the diminutive nerd Pedro from the indie cult film Napoleon Dynamite. Pedro is, in fact, the nom de guerre of UK producer James Rutledge, who's been releasing work since 1999 on Manchester's Melodic Records. It's strange that this album has been available as an import for two years yet has only found a moderate audience, albeit a celebrity-enhanced one, with Radiohead's Thom Yorke and My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields among the fans.

LA's Mush label (home to Busdriver, Daedelus, and Her Space Holiday) saw fit to rectify this lack of, um, recognition by reissuing Pedro and adding a bonus disc of remixes.

Here's where the fun begins: Rutledge attempts to sew together his love for 20th-century classical composers like Steve Reich and Karlheinz Stockhausen with mangled hip-hop beats and fragmented electronic programming. Sounds like a mess, huh? Almost as geeky as that other Pedro: "Look out, here comes that UK po-mo glitch b-boy — come to rock you like Philip Glass!" But no, Rutledge manages to keep his sonic goulash tasty for most of the album's nine tracks.

That would be the end of the story here, except that the additional seven-song remix EP, Fear and Resilience, is an absolutely epic affair of its own. These guest producers poured every ounce of creative blood they could spare into making Rutledge's music manifest. Prefuse 73 deftly slices and dices, Cherrystones infuse spaghetti western hip-hop beats, Danger Mouse loops spiritual soul into the mix, and Four Tet freaks out à la John Coltrane. Talk about revenge of the nerds — this two-disc set should set the record straight about brainy electronic music. (Tomas Palermo)

JOSÉ GONZÁLEZ

Stay in the Shade

(Hidden Agenda)

Is there anything more irritating than rock artists recording slowed-down covers of mainstream pop hits? From the Flaming Lips' dirgelike take on Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You out of My Head" to Ben Gibbard's mournful take on Avril Lavigne's "Complicated," the trend condescendingly implies that by reframing glossy pop songs as stripped-down rock hymns they're somehow granted deeper meaning. That the offending acts seem so smug makes their drastically reworked versions that much more despicable.

Perhaps because he lives in Sweden, a country with a greater appreciation for unabashed pop than the US, José González mercifully breaks that tradition on his Stay in the Shade EP. Rather than turn Minogue's 1989 classic "Hand on Your Heart" into an exercise in rock arrogance, the Argentine singer-songwriter simply lets its lyrics, which are every bit as plaintive in the original as in this Nick Drake–esque meditation, speak for themselves. It's a testament to González's genuine appreciation for Minogue's dance-pop confection that his version, while practically impossible to recognize, is just as catchy.

The four other sparse, finger-picked lullabies on Shade don't top "Hand on Your Heart," but they come close. The title track should be familiar to those who've heard last fall's Veneer, as it's an extended version of that album's highlight. "Sensing Owls" and "Down the Hillside" prove González didn't put all his best songs on that debut. In fact, had he replaced its concluding instrumental with his hushed cover of the Knife's synth-rockin' "Heartbeats," off Veneer, Shade would be an even better version of the best EP ever released by a troubadour touted as the next Elliott Smith. (Jimmy Draper)

JOSÉ GONZÁLEZ

March 19, 8 p.m.

Swedish American Hall, 2174 Market, SF

$12–$14

www.cafedunord.com

SWEARING AT MOTORISTS

Last Night Becomes This Morning

(Secretly Canadian)

One can definitely relate to the road rage embedded in the name of Dave Doughman's project, Swearing at Motorists, living, driving, and attempting to jaywalk in the driving-slow-in-the-fast-lane, double-parking-frenzy, and tickets-for-everyone Bay. White-line fever infects us all. But Doughman's response is wildly different from the rest of those on the street: He has styled himself as a short-song, low-rent romantic — though rather than simply garret-sitting, opium-eating, and thumbing through stained Penguin Classics, he's slouching toward the interstate, busking in Berlin subway stations, name-checking Jackson Browne's Running on Empty, and picking up playlisted rock from passing stations.

On Last Night Becomes This Morning, Doughman hunkers down into a sound that feels like a modern-day Marc Bolin's, armed with a spare, often solitary guitar that deviates from the expected folk freak scene and lurches into crunchy, catchy riffery. His baritone is as loose, loopy, and louche as Bolin's, Phil Lynott's, Stephin Merritt's, or Julian Casablancas's or that of any other scarf-twirling madman, even layered and doubled up on itself like a heavy-sipper on a bender down on the sidewalk. He may not be there once the evening melts into morning, but on these brief numbers, he shows he can make it an entertaining, even sporadically emotional, journey, pulling off the fun, Velvetsy chug of "Still Life with Bottle Rockets" and the waiting-by-the-phone empathy of "This Is Not How Forever Begins." (Kimberly Chun)

SWEARING AT MOTORISTS

Thurs/23, 9 p.m.

Lobot Gallery, 1800 Campbell, Oakl.

$5–$10 sliding scale

(510) 282-2622