Spoek Mathambo, from South Africa, is willing to try just about anything. On first album for Sub Pop, Mathambo raps and sings; he dabbles in post-punk, dub, electro; there are township jive-style guitars and grime-style beat-bursts; there are protests against the blood-diamond trade ("Put Some Red On It") and laments about what a bummer it is to have to work for a living ("We Can Work"). It's an admirably energetic hodgepodge which, at its best — in the skittering "Venison Fingers" and the synth-smeared title track — manages to be both danceable and eerie. But Mathambo is at best a serviceable singer-rapper, and the record is so all over the place, so mercurial from song to song and even bar to bar, a listener never gets a chance to settle in and grab hold.

Related
• Photos: Random Notes

“Is It True”

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."