Downloads

Surfing the Web for new music, video and MP3 downloads can be a serious time investment. Picks from Times staff and contributors will help take the drag out of click-and-drag music choices. Some downloads may contain explicit lyrics. All are free, except as noted.

“A-Trak mixing it up”

A-Trak

www.youtube.com/watchvyMMktwJRegw

A-Trak is a precocious 24-year-old French Canadian on a fast track. He’s Kanye West’s DJ mixer and has won five world championships for DJing. It’s no surprise: He spins the turntables so deftly that his moves have a virtuosic, elegant precision. Bleeps and wobbles and an audibly enthused crowd make this video compulsively watchable. Soon to make an appearance in Los Angeles at the El Rey Theatre.

“Friend of the Night”

Mogwai

mr.beastmap.com/

And thus did the four horsemen of the apocalypse descend upon our cowering hordes! The first video from the Glaswegians’ current album, “Mr. Beast,” is, like much of the album, elegiac and fragile, thundering and sinister. The camera tracks a string of beads and baubles over a toy landscape of mannequins and statues in near-darkness, moving from the inanimate to the animate in the video’s final moments. Mogwai is perhaps the Loudest Band Alive, at times ferociously so, but a large part of what overwhelms the listener is the intense, lachrymose Scottish fatalism. Perhaps mercifully, the decibel level is comparatively subdued in this track. The page will take some time to load and the video can be found in the video section.

“3 Freaks”

DJ Shadow, featuring Keak Da Sneak and Turf Talk

www.scissorkick.com/blog/music/DJshadow_3Freaks.mp3

DJ Shadow, who recently secured a deal with Universal Records and whose third album release is imminent, shuffles and cuts elaborate mixes that employ exotic samples and raid old techno beats as well as devising new ones. In this hyperkinetic rap, with Keak Da Sneak and Turf Talk dishing it out like Kentucky auctioneers, a sample of an African talking drum pokes its head through and enough variable pitch oscillation is used to transform the entire scene into the “Star Wars” bar on a helium jag.

“Be Less Rude”

Frightened Rabbit

www.frightenedrabbit.co.uk/

Frightened Rabbit is a trio made up of brothers, Scott and Grant, and their friend Billy, all hailing from the ever-fertile Glasgow scene. They have no one else in the band because “we don’t have any other friends who are awesome.” Scott and Grant’s mum think they sound quite good. This particular track sounds like a sped-up Byrdsian “Bells of Rhymney” recorded on a cassette deck left to bake in the Mojave Desert for 10 years. The vocals are indecipherable. That may just be this mp3, because their MySpace site (www.myspace.com/frightenedrabbit) provides better sonic quality in downloads. Their debut album, “Sing the Greys,” will be released in a couple of weeks.

“Get ‘Em”

.40 Glocc, featuring Gayle Gotti

download.yousendit.com/03ED8EBD70667A1F

.40 Glocc made a name for himself as a member of the Zoo Crew, and his raps have mucho aggro in them. He helps to define contemporary gangsta rap. But he’s matched ideally on this track by Gayle Gotti, a member of the extended family of Infamous. This is serious stuff, with a police whistle punctuating the proceedings. The raps are spat out over a menacingly loping beat and the whole effect is as pleasant as brass knuckles for breakfast. Gotti and Glocc will be bringing it to you as part of the Mobb Deep tour arriving at the House of Blues in late May.

“Flight 180”

Bishop Allen

www.bishopallen.com/

This young, unsigned band from Brooklyn has ambitiously taken it upon itself to release a new EP online each month of 2006. Pressure is a wonderful thing because Bishop Allen has a poetic insight that is worthy of comparison to Bright Eyes. “Flight 180” steps apart from the precedent of their “normal” pop sound by adding a piano, a violin, a banjo and the magnificent moaning feedback of an electric guitar.

“Dirty & Deep”

Debbie Harry

www.blondie.net/blondie_deborah_harry.shtml

Debbie Harry does a tribute to imprisoned rapper Lil’ Kim by impersonating her over a decidedly ‘80s-sounding synth track. Harry raps, “...we are all dying to hear your dirty rap again.” It’s the aural equivalent of a lap dance, a secret pleasure that most would not confess to enjoying. But the chorus lingers long after the provocatively insinuating vocals cease.