And the award for strangest album of 2010 so far goes to… Tony Da Gatorra and Gruff Rhys. Long a proponent of experimentation in his pop music, both with Super Furry Animals and in his solo work, Rhys has outdone himself this time, digging up an unknown Brazilian protest singer/instrumentalist, who invented his own instrument, the “gatorra,” a combination of bizarre guitar and drum machine.

Pierre Bernard was many things: a yoga enthusiast who introduced the practice to the Western world, an entrepreneur extraordinaire, a healer, a liar, and an avid animal trainer.

The Midwest’s favorite fest, Lollapalooza, kicked off Friday in Chicago’s Grant Park and things really couldn’t have been better. Bright blue skies paired with an additional 35 acres of grounds, and show-goers found a little more walking room and an overall ‘larger’ feel to the 3-day music circus.

Quick: name your 5 favorite Polish bands. Name the top non-Polish bands ruling the charts and hearts of the country. Heck, name anything about their current pop culture scene. If you’re like me, you’re drawing a major blank. Poland is a country of over 38 million. That means somewhere out there, there’s a host of kids, becoming obsessed with their piano lessons, plugging their guitars into worn amps, and shaking garages with their ambitions. It’s also country filled with music fans—thrilling over pop, head banging to hardcore, dancing with reckless abandon. A culture that—until now—I knew nothing about. Then along came an invitation to attend Katowice’s Off Festival.

The first minute or so of “Invincible Hero,” the opening track of the first Versus album in 10 years, presses the question: Where has Versus been all this time? A decade has passed since their last album, Hurrah, and sometimes a break isn’t a bad idea, of course.

Spiritualized performed their seminal 1997 album Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall July 30.

After more or less lambasting writer J. Michael Straczynski’s first issue of Superman recently (and deservedly so), I can’t claim that I was especially looking forward to his special take on Wonder Woman, which started with this issue. Oh, but Mr. Don Kramer’s pencil-work can be an enticing force.

I’d fight the first man who’d claim there might be a better band to usher away the final hours of the NYC’s hottest July on record than Sonic Youth. Who more appropriate to put a fork in a month where temperatures frequently topped 100 degrees than a band whose seminal album, 1988’s Daydream Nation, dripping with sweaty feedback and featuring vocals that sound like they were recorded in a packed sauna, was laid to tape during another of the city’s notorious heat waves.

Coming off the high concept of their epochal 2004 debut LP Funeral, Arcade Fire lost the plot a tad on 2007’s Neon Bible. It meandered, and its bombast overwhelmed what at its core was a fine collection of songs. But on their third LP The Suburbs, they in a sense return to the form of Funeral, engendering a grand conceptual conceit.