Jón Þór Birgisson, the helium-voiced frontman of Sigur Rós, has announced his first solo album, Go, will be be unleashed unto the world in 2010. Issued under the name Jónsi, the LP is due out on March 23, on XL Recordings.

Birgisson's solo debut follows this year's unveiling of Riceboy Sleeps, the side-project he shares with boyfriend Alex Somers. Riceboy Sleeps first offered a song on the monstrous Dark Was the Night double-disc in January, then fronted with their debut album come July.

But, where Riceboy Sleeps was an album of heavily-processed sounds floating in a sonic soup of ghostly ambience, Go is a largely acoustic LP, with suitably epic, obtuse orchestrations from our old pal Nico Muhly (whose CV, already Antony, Björk, The National, and Grizzly Bear deep, continues growing more impressive by the day).

Fans of Sigur Rós will find much to love in the grandiose crescendos and reach-for-the-stars ambition of Go, but there is, we caution, one change. For those used to hearing Jónsi warbling in incomprehensible 'Hopelandic' whale-calls, it may be a shock hearing the vocalist clearly enunciating actual English words.

• Listen: Jónsi, "Boy Lilikoi"

Go Track List:
1. "Go Do"
2. "Animal Arithmetic"
3. "Tornado"
4. "Boy Lilikoi"
5. "Sinking Friendships"
6. "Kolnidur"
7. "Grow Till Tall"
8. "Around Us"
9. "Hengilas"

Photo © Lilja Birgisdottir

In 2007, perhaps the most surprising album of the year was the debut disc for She & Him. A set of songs by Hollywood rom-com foil Zooey Deschanel, it turned out not to be some actor celebrity vanity project, but a collaboration of bonafide artistic credentials with mumblin' songsmith M. Ward. Volume One, their first-ever disc, was a glorious platter of sparkling jukebox pop matching Deschanel's country croon to Ward's Phil Spector-inspired production.

Now, She & Him have announced the existence of their forthcoming second album, titled, of course, Volume Two. Ward —who, since last time out, has issued both a solo album and that Monsters of Folk thing— again produced, and the LP features a collaboration with tapdancing Nebraskan indie kids Tilly and the Wall on "In the Sun." Merge will release Volume Two on March 23.

In unrelated-but-yet-kind-of-related news, Deschanel was recently named, once again, Stereogum's Indie Rock Crush of the year, somehow beating out Bat for Lashes for the ladies belt (Panda Bear was the winner for the chaps, though, for me, Grizzly Bear's Ed Droste is waaayyyy dreamy). Deschanel's crowned 'crushworthy' status suggests that plenty out there will be anticipating Volume Two's arrival, for reasons entirely musical or not.

Volume Two Track List:
1. "Thieves"
2. "In the Sun"
3. "Don't Look Back"
4. "Ridin' in My Car"
5. "Lingering Still"
6. "Me and You"
7. "Gonna Get Along Without You Now"
8. "Home"
9. "I'm Gonna Make It Better"
10. "Sing"
11. "Over It Over Again"
12. "Brand New Shoes"
13. "If You Can't Sleep"

Name: BLK JKS
From: Johannesburg, South Africa
Story: The South African TV on the Radio?
Sound: Stadium-sized neo-prog

Those who've dared to call BLK JKS the "South African TV on the Radio" have walked a dangerous line, daring to show themselves as someone who categorizes rock and/or roll by skin color. But, if we're to take the oft-repeated claim seriously, there is some musical merit.

The South African outfit make determinedly 'big' rock music, too; not in terms of grandiose anthem-for-a-generation lyricism or pompous kitchen-sink orchestral additions, but at essence. Drawing influence from psychedelia, prog-rock, metal, dub, and various African guitar musics, the crew have genuine chops, and play very large, and very loud.

There may only be four folk in BLK JKS (whose name, if you're like over 40 and thus unsure, is pronounced 'Black Jacks'), but they sound huge: massed vocals, busy percussion, solo-prone guitars overdriven with effects until they scream out stadium-sized. On their debut LP, After Robots, producer Brandon Curtis (of noisy New York rockers the Secret Machines) adds to the grandiosity, dowsing everything in waves of delay, and dotting the record with bursts of horns, torrents of noise, and random snatches of incidental sound.

Vocalist Lindani Buthelezi's voice ranges from a sweet croon to a ragged scream, and sings songs in English, Zulu and Xhosa; unafraid of switching languages in the one song. In the band's homeland, BLK JKS are an anomaly: black musicians not dealing in drum'n'bass, kwaito, or hip-hop, but playing something associated with the white imperialists: rock'n'roll. In that way, they stand as an interesting representative of modern South Africa, even if their audience is far more likely, now, to be overseas, not on home shores.

• Listen: BLK JKS, "Molalatladi"
• Listen: BLK JKS, "Lakeside"

Photo © Jason Nocito

The Year: 1993
The Album: Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville
Who It Influenced: Alanis Morrissette, unfortunately

To listen to Exile in Guyville, now, at the end of the decade after the one in helped define, is to hear an album that sounds dated. A cluttered indie-rock album in which the lede —Phair's voice, tenderly airing lyrical dirty laundry, undergarments and all— is often buried in the mix. It was 1993, and that's how it was done: even singer-songwriters wanted their guitar to sound like Sonic Youth; even confessionalists pushed the vocal slider down.

Of course, implying Phair hid her light under a bushel is a gross misrepresentation. Her debut album introduced her as a star-in-waiting, and even if, in the 16 years since, such stardom never truly burned bright, the hardly dims the electric presence she casts on Exile's 18 songs.

It was, according to Phair, a song-by-song response to the Rolling Stones' Classic Rock classic Exile on Main St.. Even if it wasn't, hearing Phair stand up, in 1993, and sing a bunch of songs about sex, about using her sexuality, about the emotional immaturity and sexual failings of men, and then turn around and claim they were her, just one Chicago girl, returning fire at the ultimate rock'n'roll institution? It was ballsy then, and is still ballsy now.

Phair's tales of blowjobs and one night stands —and, more notably, the salty sailor-talk with which she delivered them— sound anything but shocking now, circa 2010. But that's hardly dimmed them; hardly dented the feminist intent; hardly canceled out the fact that, at the time, songs like that just weren't sung by the dames. Phair was a crusade unto herself, and, fighting back against rock orthodox, Exile in Guyville was one almighty opening salvo.

• Full review: Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville

Photo © Robert Mansella