With the indie world going Swede-crazy in recent seasons, it was strange that Frida Hyvönen's utterly amazing debut album, Until Death Comes, didn't receive a more rapturous reception upon its American release in 2006. The statuesuque, Stockholm-based songstress carves savagely emotional, sexually-forthright songs out of handful of piano chords and a voice that carries the clarity and eloquence of a young Joni Mitchell, and her debut truly hailed the arrival of a fearsome new talent.

Following on from her gospel-tinged soundtrack Frida Hyvönen Gives You: Music From The Dance Performance Pudel —released last year, in Sweden, on The Concretes' great Licking Fingers label— Hyvönen will soon unveil her second LP proper, Silence is Wild, unto the world.

Coming replete with horse-themed artwork and promotional pics, the set revolves around a song called "Pony," on which Hyvönen lets loose the following vicious verse: "The stable is where you learn to be in charge and not take sh*t/ Dressed to the occasion: leather boots and a stiff black whip."

Recorded by longtime Concretes associate Jari Haapalainen, Hyvönen's whipsmart new gear swaps the musical/lyrical starkness of her debut for a sprawling orchestral grandeur. Secretly Canadian gives you the free taste of Silence is Wild via the legal acquisition of "The Enemy Within," in advance of the album's eagerly-awaited November 4 release.

Brooklyn's Gang Gang Dance have made some of the most beautifully-bizarre, ridiculously-good, totally-off-the-dial music of the past decade. All that's been missing is the classic album to cement that status. 2005's spiraling God's Money was close, but it may be the forthcoming Saint Dymphna that officially cements Gang Gang Dance's reputation.

Born from the same Brooklyn scene that gave the world Animal Collective and Black Dice —not to mention inspired 2008's crossover kings MGMT and Yeasayer— Gang Gang Dance bash out a fantastic mish-mash of distorted, half-crumbling synth sounds, ricocheting percussion, and the whooping and wailing voice of Lizzie Bougatsos. Liberally mixing all manner of different musics into one singular study in rhythm, Gang Gang Dance sound in thrall to superstitious primitivism and scientific revelation at once.

Due for release on October 21 (on New York's cult-ish The Social Registry in North America, and via iconic electro label Warp through Europe and Australasia), Saint Dymphna is loaded with dancefloor potential, promising a beautiful beat-orgy that may turn out to be one of 2008's most transcendent sets.

Saint Dymphna Track List:
1. "Holy Communion"
2. "Blue Nile"
3. "Vacuum"
4. "Princes"
5. "Inners Pace"
6. "Afoot"
7. "House Jam"
8. "Interlude (No Known Home)"
9. "Desert Storm"
10. "Dust"

Photo © [Josh Wildman]