Twelve songs. Nine cuts under two minutes. Twenty-six minutes total. It’ll be gone in a flash if you aren’t paying attention, and you should be, cause Tyvek’s Nothing Fits sounds like the punk album of the year. “Fits! Fits! Nothing fits!” shrieks frontman Kevin Boyer on the title track, with the kind of desperation that scared the crap out of the straight world back in ’77. This is trash-art at its finest: The grimy guitars that hack out the shape of “Outer Limits” could infect the whole Midwest with tetanus (er, in a good way), while Boyer spits pain and fury into the wound. The guitars that yank “Pricks in a Car” into existence are even rougher, and the tune that follows -- a call-and-response rip that’d put a smile on the face of any f’real punk -- is just as lethal. All this righteous fury is delivered with (don’t hold your nose) an element of artfulness that lets you know this is more than rote nihilism. AWESOME record, if that much wasn’t clear to you. (M.L. Thrope)

The last time Cee Lo Green released a solo album he was anything but a household name, and it was starting to look like leaving Southern-rap stars Goodie Mob might’ve been a mistake. In 2010, most of his many fans don’t even know who Goodie Mob were; thanks to his work as the voice of Gnarls Barkley, Cee Lo is a bona fide crossover star of the highest order, and his new record The Lady Killer is the rare album that looks like it could unite the indie kids with the mainstream (hello, OutKast). Swaggering, sexy and funny, Cee Lo made plenty of viral waves with the sickeningly catchy “Fuck You,” but this album is deep with could-be hits: “Bodies,” a funky, breathy come-on of a track; “Satisfied,” which demonstrates what he’s learned about pop music outside of rap and soul; “Cry Baby,” which draws on ’60s R&B templates to find its way to pop nirvana. There’s plenty here to party up and/or get down to, and it all comes sung in that massive, son-of-a-preacher-man’s voice of his. (M.L. Thrope)

Despite the fact that Not Music is purportedly the leftover stuff from their last album sessions, the baker’s-dozen tracks here range from that classic ’Lab sound -- creamy, groovy stuff like “Leleklato Sugar,” “Aelita” and “Delugeoise” -- to casually jaw-dropping quasi-dance-floor killers like the softly funky “Two Finger Symphony” and the ten-minute-plus “Silver Sands.” If you’ve been taking Stereolab for granted, now is a good time to stop: The way “So Is Cardboard Clouds” switches on from a kalimba-and-piano treat to a symphonized riff showcase is a reminder that even at their most conventional, this band always had something cool up its sleeve. Way more necessary than you might think. (M.L. Thrope)

Is it possible for Kompakt to spearhead a Kompakt revival? Techno’s most reliable label has almost gotten too reliable of late, but Jatoma harks back to the fresh, dubby, harder to pin down sound that characterized the Cologne imprint’s early years about a decade ago. In true fashion, Kompakt is even dropping hints that this anonymous trio includes a famous producer or two. But those hijinks matter not in the face of tracks like “Manipura,” which surrounds a firm but swinging 4/4 with twinkling filigree and burbling synths. “Paper Lights” similarly decorates its sublime thump with bright colors and an easy vibe: a funky summer-afternoon techno. For me, the more nocturnal sounds here -- such as the sci-fi playground of “Bou” and the submerged vibe of “Wood Face,” which is kinda like a Pole track with more ambition -- hit closer to home, but Jatoma’s full-length debut is creative and inventive throughout. (M.L. Thrope)

There is ambient music and then there is the sort of maximal sound that Jefre Cantu-Ledesma offers up on his new solo disc, Love Is a Stream. It’s ambient for sure -- there are no beats or song structures per se, but unlike lots of ambient music that wafts along prettily, each of these 12 pieces possesses a strong discernible logic. His textures are often rough-hewn; think of waves, sure, but these seas can be choppy. “Stained Glass Body” resembles the early work of Richard Youngs and Simon Wickham-Smith: within this drone is a world of motion, layers and strata sweeping and shifting, cresting and receding; it moves while remaining in place (if that makes sense). “Where You End & I Begin” is a sculpted squall, lit off with a line of guitar fire that ignites a sound field containing dozens, maybe hundreds of discrete flames, a cataclysm that gives off heat but never burns. Shorter pieces like the raging “Orbiting Love” and the appropriately soft “Womb Night” demonstrate that Cantu-Ledesma also recognizes a fragmentary idea, one that needs to be expressed but not dwelled upon. Highly recommended for ambient fans who like it rough as well as beautiful. (M.L. Thrope)

Jonathan Richman, the bard of eternal romance, is back! The original Modern Lover has 14 new arrows in his quiver, heartbreakingly simple tunes all delivered with Velvetsy guitar strum and that fearless, look-you-right-in-the-eye voice. He’s never needed much else. Few songwriters have his power to turn every coming and going, every sly glance a girl tosses your way, into memorable tunes (that you’ll dance to). As he’s been spinning this magic for a few decades now, we get not just the playful but also the self-aware (and wistful) Jonathan on O Moon, Queen of Night on Earth. For every immediate song like “If You Want to Leave Our Party Just Go” (he hides little in his song titles) and the sweetly fateful “I Was the One She Came For,” we have the older-dude wisdom of “These Bodies That Came to Cavort” and the haunting beauty of “The Sea Was Calling Me Home,” which appears in two versions (the reprise, with bowed guitar and viola, is devastatingly pretty). A genre unto himself, Jonathan Richman will make your life deeper, warmer and (yes) sexier. (M.L. Thrope)

Take two of the more significant German artists of the past 30 years and put them together -- and you have something that’s very, very German. In this case, it’s also stark and deeply affecting, summing the powers of Alva Noto (a.k.a. Carsten Nicolai) and Blixa Bargeld, frontman of Einsturzende Neubauten and longtime guitarist for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Noto’s stock in trade for years has been the minimal but potent marking of negative space, striking black soundfields with electronic events; Bargeld, in addition to his well-known work in rock and industrial forms, has long maintained an amorphous, extended interest in voice work and (seriously) storytelling in languages not his own. Working together for a few years now, the pair makes an awesome sound on Mimikry: Bargeld is an underrated vocalist, speaking and singing at odd angles and making every breath a study in tension; Noto is in top form, spurred into his most dramatic crypto-techno work in years. The long opener, “Fall,” displays every aspect of what’s great about this pairing, but you’ll enjoy also the poker-faced cover of “One” and the jarring extremes of “Berghain.” (M.L. Thrope)

New Jersey trio Screaming Females is one of those overnight sensations that was four years in the making. (As if to prove it, their self-released 2006 debut, Baby Teeth, just got reissued by Don Giovanni, the label behind this new disc.) For those who’ve yet to experience the band, Castle Talk backs up the blog buzz: Even on record Marisa Paternoster is a force, a sharp and bold vocal presence who tosses off wicked guitar lines, as on the simple and infectious “I Don’t Mind It.” Her piercing axe-work is one of the band’s defining traits, but she’s mastered a mature-beyond- her-years vocal delivery as well, sounding defiantly weary (though hardly defeated) on “Boss,” among others. “Normal” is the sort of song that suggests Screaming Females are more than just a flash in your blogspot, too; it brings to mind a harder-edged take on ’80s girl-pop, like the band the Runaways’ kid sisters formed after getting a big whiff of New Wave. (Bosco)