Ever had your mind blown by some thrilling, strange new sound and wondered, “Where on earth can I find more music like that!?” Look no further. The following Modern Classical Masters, all recorded for the flagship classical label Deutsche Grammophon, are some of the most influential musicians you may have never heard of; together, they have served as muse to the likes of Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Michael Stipe and Lou Reed and made explosively creative music that appeals to every palette.

Felt goosebumps on your arm from an eerie avant-garde film score? Meet Gyorgy Ligeti. Hugged a speaker at a rave? Get lost in the mazelike patterns of Steve Reich‘s Drumming or Philip Glass‘s hypnotic repetitions. Had your heart broken by South American gypsy songs? Get mesmerized by Osvaldo Golijov.

If “classical music” still means “powdered wigs and dinner parties” to you, than we’re jealous — you’re in for a wild ride, one that features 20 handpicked DG records, most of which are just $4.99 for the next two weeks!

Go to the Sale HERE.

It seems like just yesterday Chelsea Wolfe was releasing her stark solo debut, The Grime and the Glow, on the mysterious New York label Pendu. That title was no accident: the album was split between dense, overcast tracks that nestled Wolfe’s voice deep beneath strange waves of sound and tracks that purred and cooed slowly and only slightly ominously.

Well, if “Wasteland,” from her soon-to-be-released follow-up Apokalypsis, is any indication, the grime has won out. This is splendid, haunted house music: skin-crawling organ, distant ghostly clattering and Wolfe’s voice — pitch-bent and warped almost beyond recognition — mourning slowly and softly on top of it. It’s terrifically sinister, a fantastic omen of things to come.

Hear “Wasteland” here

“If you’re in a studio making an album you can easily say, “Fuck everyone, I’m making this music for me” … but if you are going to start standing up and inviting people to come and see you … You have to at least something that’s worth being there for.”

So says acclaimed electronic musician Amon Tobin, in his excellent and illuminating eMusic interview with Joe Muggs. The problem, for musicians whose primary instrument in the computer, is an old one; in the same interview, Tobin lamented the too-common sight of performers “hunched over their laptops” in front of a paying live audience. Tobin’s excellent new record, ISAM, is an even more challenging live proposition; it’s a clattering, chaotic patchwork of avant-garde experimental music — not exactly the sort of thing to that gets bodies moving in unison.

The mindblowing above video shows Tobin’s ingenious solution to the problem. For the live shows surrounding ISAM, he has stepped away from the traditional DJ set completely, and has commissioned a living, art-piece set design, one that will provide a large-scale live audio/visual experience to select cities around the world. The flashes of the set in the video are tantalizing: Q*Bert-like structures throbbing with an unearthly organic-green glow; images of pixels rippling across them like so much digital snow. It looks literally unbelievable, a synapse-fusing mind-meld of sound and sight that most visualizations of music fall well short of.

Download ISAM here, and check out our full interview with Tobin here.

[Tomorrow will see the release of one of the year's best records to date, the solo debut of former Gowns frontwoman Erika M. Anderson — who records under the name EMA. Stark, haunting and evocative, Past Life Martyred Saints is a portrait of a young woman in transition, grappling with adult uncertainty and emotional turbulence. It is an arresting work, its scuffed-up sonics and spare arrangements grounded in Anderson's rich voice. In advance of the record, we present this Who Is... profile to get you better acquainted with Anderson's distinct vision]

File Under: Fractured art-folk with warped melodies and haunting poetics
For Fans Of: Kim Gordon, Lydia Lunch, early Cat Power, Zola Jesus
Personae: Erika M. Anderson (songwriter, vocals, guitar), Nikki Angerson (drums), Leif Shackeford (violin, keys), Aaron Davis (bass)
From: Portland via California…via Sioux Falls, South Dakota

EMA’s Erika M. Anderson doesn’t fuck around. The Sioux Falls-born songwriter, and former frontwoman for the short-lived but cultishly-adored outfit Gowns, may have flirted with expulsion from her middle school for a prank involving a dissected frog, but when it comes to her artistic life, Anderson has always maintained a zen-level focus. “If I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it really well so that no one can fuck with me on it,” she says.

As one of the first female frontpersons in a band in Sioux Falls, she fought both vicious remarks from her peers and encroaching boredom with a dark sense of humor. She says her reputation was notorious, even before fronting high school performance art bands Man Hater and Swamp Pussy. She never let their mixed reception break her stride; in fact, she considers Gowns and EMA an extension of those high school pursuits, and her strong sense of self radiates throughout her solo debut, Past Life Martyred Saints.

eMusic’s Marissa G. Muller tapped into EMA’s past life in Sioux Falls, her travails living in L.A., and how she copes with her grandma Googling her.

On how getting into trouble in school shaped her sense of performance:

I was always running around creating havoc. We were supposed to dissect a frog in biology and I was into these Christ albums and Christ movies, so I put this frog on these two pencils stuck together and carried it around going, “Christ the dissection!”

I look back and see it as being this kind of performance thing, but at the time I was just like, “Eh, whatever. I’m having fun.” I think I was just really bored because all of the work was very easy for me. I could put a small amount of effort into things and do totally fine.

I’ve finally found with doing music or art that I can put so much energy into it because it’s difficult and I want to do the best that I can. It’s not like a test or a job, where you perform on a certain level and things are fine — ‘cause I just won’t do that. I’ll do easy things and I get bored or I cause trouble. With something like music or art, it’s a lot easier for me to be internally motivated.

On the overlap between her music and her work as a video artist:

I was doing that for a while, and that’s how I learned how to run ProTools and how to do music stuff. The reason I ended up choosing music [over video] is because when I was in L.A. there was such a vital scene going on with [storied punk club] the Smell, and it just felt like I could reach more people. Whereas, if you do this really awesome video piece it’s kind of like, “Well, how do people get it? Who talks about it? Who sees it?” versus if you make a record, it just seems a lot easier to get your message across. I feel like I could be doing performance and writing — I like doing all of those things, but, to me, music has the widest distribution model.

On the music scene in Sioux Falls:

It was kind of weird; there was actually a decent music scene ‘cause we were along the I-90 — which is like, if you’re going across the country, you have very few places you can stop and Sioux Falls was one of them. So I saw a lot of stuff: Gauze, Marilyn Manson, Cannibal Corpse.

When I started playing, the scene was almost entirely [made up of] these hardcore emo boys. One of the boys actually tried to start a riot girrrl band called Man Hater, but we didn’t really know what riot girrrl was. We liked Bikini Kill and Julie Ruin, but no one could play. So, I was drafted into playing guitar and I kind of took over that band, because all these boys in high school already called me a dyke and shoved me up against lockers because I had a shaved head.

On Man Hater and Swamp Pussy’s reception:

There had actually never been a female-fronted band in Sioux Falls, pretty much ever, and I don’t know if there’s even really been one since. So, we were doing this thing that was kind of like almost performance arty, but we had no concept of that at the time. It was just kind of instinctual.

I didn’t really want to be in a band called Man Hater, but when I look back it’s like, “We’re just gonna take what anyone would call me anyway and kind of own it.” Some people liked it; some people were like, “What the fuck is this?” I look back and think, “If we were playing at the Smell, this would have been perfect. People would have dug it.” But some people were into it and some were confused. I was a little notorious in the town, so I think people were more open to me doing it then maybe, like, other girls or something.

On making music out West:

In L.A. it was easier, but I still was defensive by nature a little bit, because I was used to people saying either, “Girls can’t play” or, “You’re a freak,” and constantly having to prove myself. L.A. people are really laid back, but it took me a while to realize that I wasn’t going to get fucked with.

On her parents and grandma’s reception to her music:

My parents say they’re proud but, with something like Man Hater, I tried to keep that from them completely. My mom snuck in to Man Hater and Swamp Pussy shows with a hoodie and a video camera to videotape us; she thought some of it was weird, but at the same time she’d crash our shows if we were playing anywhere.

I know they’re going to hear EMA, but I’m terrified of it. My grandma’s the one who Googles me. My parents aren’t that Internet savvy, so I feel like they find me in some places, but my grandma is always trying to friend me on Facebook, and I tried to block her. They’re the people that I’m terrified of hearing any of it. It’s almost like, I don’t want to tell them about any of the interviews or anything because I’m just like, “How are you going to take this?” There’s just sort of things I don’t really want to explain to them.

I think my grandma just kind of filters some stuff out. They’re Republican and she had [Gowns’] Red State — which is a lot of drugs and politics — and I think she’s just like, “Oh well, you can’t understand what she’s saying half the time, anyway.” That’s her way of being like, “I’m going to purposefully pretend that I’m not hearing things that I might not be okay with.”

On what EMA will be like live:

EMA has actually been a little less performative, and maybe that’s just been because we haven’t had a lot of time to work stuff out, but when I look at, like, Gowns or something, I was basically doing an extension of what I had been doing as a teenager. And, also to an extent with EMA, doing something like “California” which is almost like a rap ballad and spoken word kind of thing that’s kind of performative. I feel like I’ve always had this aesthetic which is kind of convocational, kind of weird, half-funny, but also really emotional.

We’re just starting. I have my little sister on drums and singing harmonies, and I bet it’s cool for people to see us playing together. And then we have keyboard and strings and the bass player toured with us. But it’s more somber, and hopefully things won’t break as often or go haywire — which is what made people like Gowns. To me, it was incredibly painful to be on edge all the time like, “What’s going to break?” I think people liked seeing that. The adversity of that, not knowing how to get through a set, made me a front person who had to rely on energy to kind of get through things. Growing up in a small town and having this adversity makes you have to deal with things and makes you stronger.

On the origin of “California,” and her beat-down lyrics:

In “California” there’s a Stephen Foster lyric which is “I bet my money on the bob-tail nag/ Somebody bet on the bay.” He’s considered the first great American songwriter, and he totally died penniless at 37 at a shitty hotel or something. And I’m like, “Okay, seems accurate. Not much has changed.”

[There’s also] a Bo Diddley lyric, from “Who Do You Love?” — and I think it’s just a really great lyric because I think when you are 22 you’re kind of like, “Yeah, I’m 22, I don’t mind dying.” You don’t know what’s going on. It’s an old lyric but I think it’s still apt for today.

Most of the lyrics come from a place that I’m trying to almost exorcise or trying to get out of me. Sometimes it’s the confident part of me, and sometimes it’s the place where I let myself say certain things. ‘Cause growing up Midwest and Scandinavian, it’s like, you keep a lot of things in. People have to be, in some ways, reserved and solemn and then there’s that classic Viking thing where it’s like you can go berserk or whatever. And I think that’s what comes out in performance, the more berserk side.

Some of the songs on the EMA record are old. I wrote “Butterfly Knife” and “Marked” when I was 22 and at the time I was like, “I can’t release this. I can’t say this because it’s too extreme.” None of those songs got rewritten but I was just too scared of them to come out.

On now making music independently, versus with a band:

I think in some ways, it’s something that I could have done a lot earlier. And even though I do have a fairly healthy amount of confidence — you could say ‘swagger’ — when I started in L.A. and wanted to do something bizarre, I almost needed someone else to vouch for me or tell me it was okay. I’d like to say, “I knew it was cool from the beginning,” but it took a second to actually say the things that I wanted to say.

I am in my late-20s now. What I did when I was a teenager was kind of instinctual, but I feel like the same person that I’ve always been, still liking what I’ve always liked and just doing what I’ve always done. I don’t know how, but I feel like I’ve always had a strong sense of self.

April was a phenomenal month for new releases here, and of course when the influx is so great many fantastic albums end up falling through the cracks.  Here are a few of the most criminally overlooked albums of April, please to be sharing your lists as well!

Yikes! – London Elektricity -  This album was not tagged properly until this week, so I didn’t even notice it come in at first.  One of Hospital Records  brightest returns with an album of moody, transcendent drum n bass I would emphatically recommend to fans of any electronic genre.  From the smokey lounge jungle of  “Elektricity Will Keep Me Warm” to the  euphoria of “The Plan That Cannot Fail”; and accompanied more often than not by vocalist Elsa Esmeralda, this album is a constant joy.  I was curious to see what he would do after his fantastic collaboration with Underworld on last years “Scribble“, and he certainly did not disappoint.

Son Lux – We Are Rising – Sophomore full length by avant-indie-tronic Anticon artist (say that 10 times fast).  This one doesn’t seem to be as sparse as his brilliant debut “At War With Walls And Mazes“, and the songwriting seems a tad more conventional but the arrangements are as inventive as ever.  He deftly blends horn sections, choral arrangements, synths and his own pained warble into complexly syncopated pseudo pop songs.

The New Regime – Speak Through The White Noise – The New Regime is just one dude, Ilan Rubin.  Coulda fooled me!  This record sounds massive, like a less falsetto Muse or earlier Radiohead.  Razor precise production and stadium sized hooks served up with more competence and conviction than one would expect of a single 22 year old.  This album is majestic, and it deserves a lot more attention than it has received.  Oh, and he was the drummer on the final Nine Inch Nails tour, which is always extra points in my book.

On May 3, the venerable Thrill Jockey label will release Aesthetica, the second album from the Brooklyn band Liturgy. Over the course of the last few years, Liturgy has grown increasingly difficult to pin down. Their early outings scanned as a kind of American scholar version of black metal (and, if I’m being honest here, I was initially suspicious of them), but Aesthetica has moved them into entirely different terrain. There’s something about the cascading sheets of guitar that almost recalls ambient music, and the whiplash tempos and ecstatic, pre-verbal vocals take on an almost spiritual significance. You can judge for yourself with a listen to “Generation,” below.

Download Liturgy “Generation.”

So this is pretty much all you need to know for the next 10 years, right here in this video. This is the secrets of the universe. I’ve been pretty obsessed with this record for the last few weeks (as evidenced by my staff picks selections) and now, clearly, I need to see them live. Basically, Swedish avant-gardists Skull Defekts recruited Daniel Higgs from Lungfish for their latest record. This is what happened. Prepare your head for collapsing. Fans of Wilderness hungry for a new groove: thank me later. Above video appears to be pretty much the entirety of a recent show in Baltimore. After the jump, one from Chapel Hill that has random audience members dancing onstage.

Polly Harvey looked like a ghost on stage at New York’s Terminal 5 Tuesday night, her tiny body lost inside a billowing white gown, shock of black hair sprouting a host of haphazardly-arranged raven’s feathers, her hands, when they weren’t cradling an autoharp, positioned stiffly at her sides. At times, she sounded like one, too: drawing predominately from her masterful recent record Let England Shake Harvey, supported by a spare band that included longtime sidemen John Parish and Warren Ellis, sang of murdered soldiers and deformed children and wronged lovers lying ice-cold and face-up in the water. It felt more like a séance than a rock concert.

Sustained eeriness suits Harvey. She spent the early part of her career famously lashing out at enemies both internal and external in songs that, at times, seemed written from the edge of sanity. On England, she directs that ire toward both her homeland and the world at large, calculating the cost of war with a deadly, controlled coldness. It’s not for nothing that when a well-intentioned but slightly misguided audience member yelled out “End the occupation of Afghanistan!” early in the show, another one yelled back at him “Lick my legs,” a line from Harvey’s “Rid of Me.” Both conflicts spring from the same uneasy source.

Tuesday’s show may have been quiet, but it was potent and unnerving. Harvey’s voice, when pushed far into the upper register, takes on an unnatural and unsettling timbre, icy and jabbing on show opener “Let England Shake,” sinister and desperate on “The Pocket Knife,” and on “Written on the Forehead” spiraling as if dizzy and disoriented. Throughout, the songs remained spectral and spooky, Harvey’s voice winding its weird way through the band’s lean, mercilessly tense arrangements.

But what the show underscored more than anything else was the conceptual nature of Harvey’s work. At times, it felt as controlled and scripted as a theater piece: Harvey spoke not a word to the audience, and the band moved from song to song so purposefully and effortlessly that the show could have been just one night in a six-month engagement. That dedication to method is in keeping with Harvey’s history. It’s worth noting that, for her first few records, PJ Harvey was not only her own name, but also the name of her band — a trick that slyly undermined the notion that her songs were in any way personal. The milieu in which she was working — brittle, blues-derived punk rock centering on Harvey’s searing voice — was chosen because it suited her subject matter. As time passed, she became restless, tearing down PJ Harvey whole cloth and rebuilding with each new record and working within a specific and limited roster of elements. The handful of older songs she played on Tuesday seemed deliberately tailored — both sonically and lyrically — to suit her latest construct. All of them were written from the perspective of people who were weak or vulnerable or wronged — the aggrieved single mother of “C’mon Billy,” the heartsick protagonists of “Down By the Water,” and “Angelene” — and who may or may not have met with violent ends. They’re not very different from the slain soldiers limping up the center of Let England Shake, they’re just victims of different wars. For all of them, the promise of release is elusive. “I’ve heard there’s joy untold,” Harvey sang near the end of “Angelene,” “lays open like a road in front of me.” In Harvey’s current narrative, paradise is just a rumor, whispered down the lane. All that is real is disturbing.

California’s Not Not Fun label follows its own weird muse into dark, enchanted forests — and if that prose strikes you as too purple, you probably haven’t spent enough time digging through their stacks. Spanning everything from harsh, confrontational noise to Umberto‘s straight-up Goblin hat-tips, NNF is the place to begin if you’re looking to escape the ordinary. Dylan Ettiger, whose 2010 head trip New Age Outlaws is the kind of creepfest a serial killer plays in his forest shack when he’s ready to go to sleep, is fast emerging as one of the label’s more intriguing acts. He’s got a new physical 7″ out today, which you can order for the unbelievably low price of $4. But you should use the video above to familiarize yourself with Ettiger’s singularly unsettling approach: vast, murky synth landscapes designed to raise gooseflesh.

I’ve got to be the only person in the known universe who’s not completely put-off by the term “chillwave.” You guys know we used to have a genre called “cuddlecore,” right? Like, let’s reserve some of that ire for shit that actually matters. Genre tags are idiotic but necessary, so let’s all figure out ways to cope. I say this as a preamble to posting this “Seance” mix of Matthew Dear‘s “Slowdance” by [ahem] chillwave/ghost&b artist How to Dress Well. I’ve always gravitated toward both the ghostly and the Ghostly, so this is fully working for me: graveyard synths, eerie falsetto crooning, strange spectral ambiance. This is the kind of music to keep you up at night, in a cold sweat, clutching the covers. It’s more HTDW than Dear, to be honest — the Dear original just provides the foundation for Nathaniel Bartholomew Dresser (How to Dress Well’s real name) to do his thing on top of. Check it out.