**** Steak Tartare
*** Shelow Kebab
** Chicken Fried Steak
* Sloppy Joe


SEÑOR COCONUT Y SU COJUNTO
El Baile Alemàn
(Emperor Norton)
***

Señor Coconut's 1997 debut, El Gran Baile, points to a brilliant career. The Señor, a marimba-shaking techno aficionado hailing from Santiago de Chile, manages the unique feat of transmuting the base rhythms and elements of traditional Latin music into a dizzy conceit of breakbeats, loops, and pulses. It's hard not to feel lighthearted at the prospect of a 120 beats-per-minute Cha-Cha, such as "El Coco Baile," or a cavernous virtual samba like "Musica Moderna." Thus, it was with great anticipation that I unwrapped the Señor's second album, El Baile Aleman, and listened to the Señor's lucid introduction, in which he explains--in broken English and smooth Spanish--his debt to the music of Kraftwerk. The album itself is a tribute to Kraftwerk comprised of a series of rearrangements of their best-known work for typical Latin insrumentation. El Baile Aleman is flawlessly executed. "Trans Europe Express" gets a classic Cumbia treatment; "Homecomputer" is restyled for an energetic merengue beat. Only the pulsing breaks of the Señor's "Tour De France" give the lie to this brilliant Chilean techno expert's true life story as the Frankfurt-based Uwe Schmidt. JAMIE HOOK

BURNT FRIEDMAN
Plays Love Songs
(Nonplace)
*** 1/2

Burnt Friedman is intent on putting humanity in his machine music. He is also intent on doing crazy shit. Like using creepy samples of a sexually frustrated teenager recalling his story of getting thrown off of a building. Or like using short vocal snippets in place of drum samples. More than anything else, Plays Love Songs is Friedman’s tirade against quantized electronic music. Whereas most producers have been resting on the laurels of the innovators of over a decade ago, using a few loops and a small tonal palette in typical 4/4 fashion, this album blends a huge library of sounds into off-kilter compositions that recall everything from blues to epic Hollywood soundtracks. Triumphing over another shortfall of modern-day electronic music, this album is exactly that: a contiguous piece of work, which Friedman has melded into a true musical narrative. ELLIOTT ADAMS

ADEN
Hey 19
(Teen Beat)
** 1/2

Aden is pleasant and not much more. The band treads the same ground as better bands like Belle and Sebastian, but Aden doesn't keep pace, with its soft, let's-hold-hands songs, filled with sweet lyrics that even your mom would like. Musically, all the pieces fit nicely--so nicely that, at times, it's downright boring. This is more for the avid fan of pretty, sweet, boy pop than for the occasional listener. If you've got enough Belle and Sebastian already, and still want more, try Aden. If you haven't tried much in the genre, this might not be the place to start. MARK DUSTON