The empire is striking back in the U.K., thanks to a new generation of Anglo-Asian nightclubbers. On Untouchable Outcaste Beats Volume I, a compilation from the trailblazing all-Asian indie label Outcaste, and Rafi's Revenge, the second time bomb from punky East London jungle squad Asian Dub Foundation, we witness some of the best examples of how this Easternization of Western pop – a sort of musical colonization in reverse – has taken hold.

Untouchable is both a label showcase of new talent – bringing together the jazz-wrapped drones of Nitin Sawhney, the polished tabla and bass of Shri and the rushing sitar junglism of Badmarsh – and a highly selective survey of Asian-Brit club favorites that digs all the way back to U.S. jazzman Dave Pike's funky 1969 sitar shuffle, "Mathar." Because of all this range, Untouchable often feels like one big indiscriminate sitar party, drawing no lines between the electro noodlings of Dance Music Federation, the sitar psychedelia of Ananda Shankar and the slinky Eurokitsch of the Wolfgang Dauner Quintet's "Take Off Your Clothes to Feel the Setting Sun."

Sitars are harder to find on Asian Dub Foundation's Rafi's Revenge. Instead it bristles with post-colonial anger and anti-imperialist polemics, referencing a Bengali peasant revolt, a Punjabi political assassin and Satpal Ram (a Birmingham man imprisoned for self-defense against racist attackers). ADF's often redundant drum-and-bass programming might not win them any golden-sequencer awards, and frontman Deeder's breathless rants about "the digital underclass" aren't always on point. But ADF make music for a mental uprising: Noisy, hook-sprinkled gems like "Buzzin'," dubby racial-unity stomps such as "Black White" and big-beat Indo-metal rallies like "Free Satpal Ram" are so charged with pent-up vigor and social rage that they make it impossible not to get swept up in the rush. (RS 801)

JOSH KUN