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Nils Petter Molvær
"ER"
(Thirsty Ear)

On the spookiest of Thirsty Ear's three Molvær albums, Molvær's Miles-sans-mute sound -- smooth the way strawberry sherbet is smooth -- floats through buzzes and washes, squiggles and treated voices, bodied up by bass parts often his own. Not that he's a loner -- most tracks feature four to six samplers, programmers, drummers and such. Here's hoping the woman who sings (and wrote) "Only These Things Count" is another respected fellow professional, rather than his girlfriend. Miles reserved his girlfriends for cover shots.

Nils Petter Molvær
"Streamer"
(Thirsty Ear)

Recorded at a Jan. 1, 2002, Finnish concert where some audience members surely dozed briefly unless the heat was on the fritz, this is pretty lulling for a live album -- assuming the ground of your being isn't threatened by guitar blats, jungle beats and noises that poke out of the flow like tree branches and old car parts. It includes five compositions that had just then surfaced on "NP3," only here they're gauzier. Due to the spoken-word snatches the trumpeter strews on top, they're also eerier. But not, I promise, scarier.

Nas
"Hip Hop Is Dead"
(Def Jam)

I wouldn't take him at his word -- especially when he says he's not going back to a street life there's no evidence he ever had knocked in the first place -- and I doubt he knows as much as claimed about the perks of his Escobar hustle: "watchin' fly bitches with grey eyes wrestle in a tub of KY," escaping a shoot-out with his milkshake wife, etc. The fun comes easier when he fools around with the title conceit, and even sometimes when he thinks about it. Rhyming "orange" with "showin'" and "pawn it," rapping in fake Bogie, playing the "black militant" to his former adversary and current sponsor's "black Republican," naming so many lost rappers I needed a hankie (Special Ed! Tim Dog! Fu-Schnickens! Shante!), he wants us to know he's an old-school MF who can afford efficiently state-of-the-art beats. Big worry: "Can't sound smart 'cause you'll run away." What to do, what to do?

7L & Esoteric
"A New Dope"
(Babygrande)

In which the Boston duo, known insofar as they're known at all for Premier-they-wish beats and metaphor-is-murder battle rhymes, lightens up on a basically satirical CD. "Get Dumb" sets the intellectually hyphy tone: "Billie Holiday he's the best/That cool band Beck is touring out West," or, "Bin Laden he's only bluffin'/She's on the pill so I won't catch nothin'." Esoteric treats himself to lists, similes and sexual contretemps. 7L injects scratches and drum breaks into Middle Eastern flutes, porn loops and suspense-movie music. Indie-rap lives.

The Thermals
"The Body, the Blood, the Machine"
(Sub Pop)

As narrative and prophecy, a less coherent response to Christofascism than you might want, but one alt needs, held together and moved ahead by its forthright hooks and beats. On timbre alone, Hutch Harris might almost be some emo boy bewailing his romantic ignominy. Instead he attacks the Bush-Cheney axis, naming said villains in the public prints. And though I dread his promised devolution album, I admire him for knowing that the couple he chronicles can run and even hide but can't actually escape.

Tom Waits
"Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards"
(Anti-)

Having creamed for these 56 songs old, new and nobody's talking, I returned with trepidation. Sure enough, the first time through, too many had faded on me. Soon, however, even ones I'd given up on were bum-rushing my earhole, like "Lucinda," with its steel-driving beat and gallows gloom. One reason, close attention to 1988's "Sea of Love" suggests, is that his groan has grown more distinct. And though it would be mere rhetoric to claim the six spoken-word pieces on Disc 3 are really music -- they're yarns, jokes, theater, that's the point -- they do really sound good. I said sound.

Tom Zé
"Danc-Eh-Sa"
(Irara)

Showing a purity of purpose generally lacking in operettas, here are seven tracks lasting barely half an hour, every one insanely and sometimes gratingly catchy, with choruses femme and otherwise singing, whistling, moaning, jeering, barking and meowing the tunes — as well as embellishing rhythms dominated by electronic whatsits of every description except techno. Since it's beats and sonics that draw non-Lusophones to Zé's oddball tropicalia, world-music honchos will soon be speed-dialing his cellie. Psych.

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