Outkast, the Roots, Talib Kweli, Blackalicious and Mos Def will fill the hip-hop portion of the Audiotistic - The Future Sound Festival on April 13 in San Bernadino, California. Roni Size, DJ Q-Bert and Money Mark, DJ Swamp, Pete Rock, King Britt, DJ Dan, Donald Glaude and Jason Bentley are among the electronic music entertainment scheduled for the sixth annual event. ... David Bowie will release his new album, Heathen, on June 11 on Columbia Records via his own ISO label. The disc is Bowie's first studio venture in three years and reunites the Thin White Duke with producer Tony Visconti, who worked with Bowie on Young Americans, Low, Heroes and Scary Monsters. ...

The laws of space and time can't get more bent than with "Love Song" and "Dead or Anything," two tracks written in Scotland by Australian singer/songwriter Ben Lee and former Lemonhead Evan Dando and recorded in New York with help from 51-year-old Cheap Trick bassist Tom Petersson and 21-year-old Phantom Planet drummer Jason Schwartzman. The two-song single will become available April 1 through the Web site of Australian indie label Trifekta (www.trifekta.com.au). ... Portishead's performance with the 30-piece New York Philharmonic at New York's Roseland Ballroom in July 1997 will be released on DVD on April 30. "PNYC" will include the entire show, which featured favorites such as "Cowboys" and "Sour Times," along with an unreleased acoustic version of "Wandering Star," short films for "To Kill a Dead Man" and "Road Trip," a documentary on the performance and additional tour footage. ...

"Addicted to Love," "Simply Irresistible," "I Didn't Mean to Turn You On" and eight other Top 40 hits will be featured on Best of Both Worlds: The Robert Palmer Anthology (1974 - 2001). Due April 30, the 42-track collection will also include tracks from Palmer's stint with the Power Station and live cuts from last year's Live at the Apollo. ... Elvis Costello will promote his first album in six years, When I Was Cruel, due April 23, with a U.S. tour beginning May 18 in Portland, Oregon, and ending June 24 in Atlanta. The legendary crooner will also make in-store appearances at Tower Records in Philadelphia, Chicago and New York and perform at a free, radio-sponsored show on April 21 in Chicago. ... Meanwhile, Costello will join U2 singer Bono and Tom Waits on the board of advisors for DMZ Records, a new label founded by producer T-Bone Burnett and filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, the team behind the Grammy-winning "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack. ...

Former Wallflowers guitarist Michael Ward's new band, Ward, will open for Crystal Method, Cake and Stone Temple Pilots at Rock for the Roses in Austin on April 12. Ward left the Wallflowers last October to work on new music with former Cupcakes member Preston Graves. ... Lit will launch an upcoming tour with an April 7 radio show in Austin, Texas, and play 16 dates before ending May 8 in Boston. ... Pressure 4-5 will join Lit's tour on April 18 after wrapping their own headlining outing, which begins March 31 in Los Angeles. On May 7, they'll join the MTV2 Handpicked Tour with Lost Prophets and Apex Theory. ... India.Arie and Joe Henry will appear on Concrete Love, English singer-songwriter Julia Fordham's first album in five years, due June 18. ... Laptop-toting duo Plaid, who toured with Autechre last year, will release a new EP, P-Brane, on April 30. Now on a North American tour, they hit Brooklyn Thursday (March 28) and will continue down the East Coast before finishing up in Los Angeles on April 11. ...

03.27.02

Lil' Romeo and Silkk the Shocker have been added to the roster of celebrities, athletes and industry execs who will compete at the third annual T.J. Martell B-Ball Classic, taking place in New York City on April 25. Master P was previously announced as the event's Commissioner of Basketball, and Hot 97 DJ Miss Jones will sing the national anthem. ... Kelly Osbourne and ex-Smashing Pumpkins-heads Melissa Auf Der Maur and James Iha were among those taking in the Andrew W.K. show at New York's Bowery Ballroom on Tuesday. ...

Marilyn Manson's crotch-rubbing case in Clarkston, Michigan, progresses, as a pre-trial hearing date has been set for April 25, at which the rocker plans to plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges (assault and battery, disorderly persons). At a motions hearing on Wednesday (March 27), Judge Gerald E. McNally denied a request by the prosecution to recuse himself, leaving the prosecution with 21 days to appeal ... Actor Billy Bob Thornton will show off the crooner within when he launches a two-week tour to promote his debut album, Private Radio. The eight-city jaunt will start in Los Angeles on May 17, according to Reuters.

• OutKast
• Portishead
• David Bowie
• Mos Def
• Lit

Tom Jenkinson, a.k.a. Squarepusher
Photo: Warp Records

Two of the premier purveyors of intelligent dance music, Squarepusher and Plaid, will embark on a month-long, co-headlining tour of North America beginning August 7, according to their publicist. The Warp Records labelmates are using the Stateside jaunt to promote new albums. Squarepusher's Go Plastic, due Tuesday (June 26), is drum'n'bass mastermind Tom Jenkinson's fifth album and the follow-up to 1999's Selection Sixteen. When it hit stores in May, Double Figure by eclectic duo Plaid (a.k.a. Ed Handley and Andy Turner) demonstrated a shift from the tweaked hip-hop beats that punctuated their previous two albums, 1998's Not for Threes and 1999's Rest Proof Clockwork, toward a more ambient-techno sound.

The 24-city trek will begin in Vancouver, British Columbia, and cover the Pacific Northwest and northern California before heading east for a pair of shows in New York and gigs in Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. They'll then head south through Florida and into Texas to wrap up September 2 at Austin's Mercury Lounge. Squarepusher/Plaid tour dates, according to Warp Records:

• 8/7 - Vancouver, BC @ Sonar
• 8/8 - Seattle, WA @ Showbox
• 8/9 - Portland, OR @ B Complex
• 8/10 - Oakland, CA @ Club Indigo
• 8/11 - San Francisco, CA @ Bimbo's 365 Club
• 8/12 - Los Angeles, CA @ El Rey Theatre
• 8/14 - Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater
• 8/15 - Lawrence, KS @ Granada Theatre
• 8/16 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
• 8/17 - Chicago, IL @ Metro
• 8/18 - Detroit, MI @ St. Andrews Hall
• 8/20 - Columbus, OH @ Wexner Center
• 8/21 - Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Concert Theatre
• 8/22 - Montreal, QC @ Club Soda
• 8/23-24 - New York, NY @ Irving Plaza
• 8/25 - Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
• 8/27 - Philadelphia, PA @ The Trocadero
• 8/28 - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
• 8/29 - Atlanta, GA @ Echo Lounge
• 8/30 - Orlando, FL @ Sapphire Supper Club
• 8/31 - Miami, FL @ Knights of Columbus
• 9/1 - Dallas, TX @ Trees
• 9/2 - Austin, TX @ Mercury Lounge

• Squarepusher
• Plaid

Alison Goldfrapp
Photo: Mute Records

NEW YORK — If her U.S. live debut Wednesday at Bowery Ballroom is any indication, Alison Goldfrapp's got all kinds of vocal tricks up her sleeve, and she's not in the least bit afraid to use them. With the aid of her Goldfrapp bandmate Will Gregory and more than a few new-age gadgets at her beck and call, Goldfrapp's performance was at once retro and futuristic, otherworldly and rooted in American jazz. In all, the duo — whose 2000 album, Felt Mountain, has garnered favorable comparisons to trip-hoppers Portishead and Massive Attack — managed to make a cohesive whole out of some very disparate parts. Following a set by knob-twiddlers Plaid ("They're not really entertainers," remarked one attendee), the capacity crowd patiently waited for Goldfrapp to take the stage. Posters bearing the frontwoman's millennial flapper-girl visage stared in from every corner. Laid back, ethereal beats bumped from the house speakers while Moby chatted up his manager atop the VIP balcony and chin-scratching critics milled about the floor. Goldfrapp made her grand entrance following a noir instrumental courtesy of Gregory and their touring band. Outfitted in of-the-moment military chic, the former vocal muse for Tricky and Orbital stood her ground in red stilettos, firmly planted. When the frontwoman began singing through one of three awaiting microphones, her vocals evoked another time and place. Equal parts Billie Holiday, Björk, Shirley Bassey, Saint Etienne's Sarah Cracknell and a classically trained opera singer, Goldfrapp's small frame served as a medium for multiple, multifarious voices.

After the moody, calliope-infused "Paper Bag," Goldfrapp belted out the slow-burn diatribe of Felt Mountain's latest single, "Human." "Are you human/ Or a dud?" she snarled at the responsive and equally vocal audience. Punctuated with dissonant scratches and Bond-movie symphonics, the song worked the crowd into a hot, swirling frenzy.

For the next two numbers ("Felt Mountain," "Lovely Head") the singer bounced from one effects-processed mic to the next, sounding like a vocal theremin one moment, a golden-throated, modern Madame Butterfly the next. Retreating into a more demure landscape for "Deer Stop," Goldfrapp revealed yet another face as the frontwoman crooned her way through the sad, Sarah Vaughan-esque song in a hushed, almost shy voice.

The surprise of the night came in the band's encore, a Casio-driven take on Olivia Newton-John's "Physical." As if to prove Goldfrapp's not all about gloom and doom and lost love, the band showed its sense of humor with a trip-hopped take on the early-'80s hit. At the end of the brief, emotional roller coaster ride — the set lasted less than an hour — the band showcased an as-yet-untitled new song. Whether or not Goldfrapp will be taking the piece into the studio remains to be seen, according to a spokesperson for their label. Though they will only be making a handful of Stateside stops this time around (see "Goldfrapp Come Down Felt Mountain For Tour"), Goldfrapp are planning another U.S. tour for the fall, their spokesperson said.

• Goldfrapp
• Plaid