Welcome to the first installment of "Great Expectorations," Buzznet's new uber-underground column by reputed rock critic David Cotner. Delve deep into the obscure as he touches on under-the-radar releases, quotes Journey lyrics and finds himself at odds with an album title called "Heartcore."

Most pop-culture critics — if you actually meet them in person — when asked point-blank to recommend some good music and explain why it's any good, look at you like you're beneath them. Christ forbid we actually try to qualify something as earth-shattering and mundane as pop music! I do understand that subjectivity is objective these days — you know, because there's no accounting for taste and they do in fact make trophies for last place now — but in this less-than-humble column, just pretend for one glorious, cataclysmic moment that my word is bond, that everything I recommend is sparkling, inspirational music and that not for the merest microsecond would I as a critic steer you wrong.

OK, stop pretending. But don't stop believing. Hold onto that feeling. Street lights, people, whoa. Oh. Oh. ...

Singers in smoky rooms: the various artists on the recent The Local Anesthetic CD compilation issued by Smooch form the basis of '80s punk rock in Denver. The names — Frantix, Your Funeral, White Trash, Young Weasels, Bum Kon, Gluons, Jeri Rossi, Rok Tots, Defex, Nails — might not be immediately familiar even if you'd lived in Colorado all your life.

Frantix moved to Seattle, changed their name to "The Fluid" and have re-formed for the Sub Pop 20th anniversary series of live actions later this year.

Nails had a hit with the song "88 Lines About 44 Women," and Gluons collaborated with poet Allen Ginsberg on two of the tracks here; the Allen Ginsberg Library sits on the campus of the Naropa University in Boulder, and Ginsburg often took part in what would be called the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the university.


            [The late poet Allen Ginsberg]

Greatly missed and not on this anthology for infinitely puzzling reasons: "Atonement" and "Perversion of a Refined Nature," tracks from Rectifier's 1981 7-inch. Rectifier were touted for a while as the American version of violent-sound merchants Whitehouse, which is by no means a bad thing, and the omission is glaring – for about 20 maniacs and autistics in the world who'd care, anyway. To put it in some amount of perspective, it's like a pizza without olives. You're allergic to olives?  What are you doing listening to pop music, then? Let me be more specific: What are you doing listening to this record? ...

Wildbirds & Peacedrums, the Swedish vocals/percussion duo of Mariam Wallentin and Andreas Werliin, offer their Heartcore CD (Leaf) as the latest entry in the new folk sweeps that seem to be giving encouragement to the unwashed masses — so to speak — but it's not entirely unfounded. While most of new folk and its adherents are merely a Bizarro World (also known as Htrae) version of mainstream alpha-male/female mating rituals — you know, all that hot garbage you thought you left behind you in 13th grade — it is in fact the music and the music alone that's even vaguely worth two sacks of sh--.

''Heartcore?'' Terrible title notwithstanding, the album is worth about eight sacks. Bluesy in the best of all possible ways and faintly reminiscent of Nina Simone, it brims with silences and the space between the notes; a space so often sadly filled up with unnecessary rack effects and compressed bass. The dynamics of space are easily spotted in the works of the best musicians — Joy Division, Van Halen, Kraftwerk, Sinatra — and perhaps illustrated best by the philosophical morsel "Less is more." Other instruments heard: glockenspiel, zither and various kinds of hand drums. ''Heartcore" is eminently worthwhile and definitely earns the Reuben Kincaid chin-stroke of approval. ...

Lest you think Africa is just all about ethnic cleansing, separatism and man-eating plants, Rough Guide comes along and saves the day yet again with another in its illuminating series of global triptychs into the heart of the goodness of the land: native music and how much more worthwhile it makes life because of it. The Rough Guide to African Street Party (Rough Guide), includes music from Mali, Mozambique, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Angola, Congo, Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria.

In case you've never been to Africa (yeah, me neither), this is a sampler of what you hear just walking down the street in various countries of the continent — the great part is that you don't have to wait for a concert, you can just do something and stand there (within reason, of course). Highlights: the "Mystic Orchestra," "Fatai Rolling Dollar" and the grunty stylings of "Dog Murras." Alternately jazzy, bluesy, rockish and Afrobeat, it's a great antidote to those stuffy world music CDs you may ordinarily hear and be turned off by due to their monochromatically over-ululating choons and dour picture sleeves. Joyous and unbridled, this energetic sampler is a necessary and bright light shining from a continent about which most Westerners know precious little, most of it bad.

 – David Cotner