Leading experimental-techno duo Autechre — Sheffield, England's Rob Brown and Sean Booth — will release their second Peel Sessions EP in January on Warp Records. The four tracks were recorded September 8, 1999, on John Peel's legendary BBC Radio 1 program. The songs, whose titles were supplied by listeners to the show who called in, are: "Gelk," "Bilfil," "Gaekwad" and "19 Headaches." Autechre have also just finished work on their seventh album, which is due in the spring, according to a spokesperson for Warp's recently opened U.S. office. ...

West London UK Garage star MJ Cole will finally release his debut album, Sincere, in the U.S. on March 13. Touted as possessing the most musical chops in Britain's white-hot two-step scene, Cole (born Matthew Coleman) took his reputation as a top studio engineer — he's worked with junglists Ed Rush and Trace as well as Soul II Soul and London hip-hopper Roots Manuva — and translated it into a successful production career. Several of his UK hits, including the title track (RealAudio excerpt), "Crazy Love" and "You're Mine," are included on Sincere, which came out in Britain on Gilles Peterson's Talkin' Loud Records. ...

Minneapolis techno artist Jake Mandell will release his third album, Love Songs for Machines, January 30 on the indie electronic-music label Carpark. A step away from the experimental minimal grooves and tones of his first two LPs, 1998's Parallel Processes and this year's Quondam Current, the new album breaks new ground in emotional expression through electronic music. Tapping into machine grooves influenced by '80s New Wave and early techno, Love Songs is vulnerable but also funky. As Mandell writes in the liner notes: "I realized that in order for my music to have the emotional and physical impact that I was hearing in my head, I would have to learn to let my love for machines escape its tempestuous confinement." ...

Vincent Gallo, the actor and director, has signed to the renowned U.K. techno label Warp Records and will release an album in the spring, according to a spokesperson for the label. Details on the album are not yet available. Best known for writing, directing and starring in the critically acclaimed 1998 film "Buffalo 66," as well as his roles in "The Funeral," "Palookaville" and "Arizona Dream," Gallo is also a former Calvin Klein model. In addition to a painting career in the 1980s, Gallo released an album with the band Bohack in 1983. He also recorded eight songs for the soundtrack to "Buffalo 66" and formed a band called Bunny with actor Lukas Haas ("Witness," "Mars Attacks"), which never released any material commercially. ...

Scottish post-rock duo Arab Strap — Aidan Moffett and Malcolm Middleton — will release their fourth album, The Red Thread, on February 27. The record will be licensed from the band's Glasgow label, Chemikal Underground, in the U.S. by Matador Records. Following fairly closely on the heels of their third album, Elephant Shoe, which came out this summer, and a recent live album, Mad for Sadness, The Red Thread ventures deeper into the territory where ambient-electronic production and sparse, morose pop overlap. ...

Los Angeles breakbeat duo the Crystal Method will perform at a New Year's Eve celebration at Seattle's Experience Music Project museum of popular music. The duo of Scott Kirkland and Ken Jordan have been at work on the follow-up to their acclaimed 1997 debut, Vegas, which is expected to be released in 2001. The New Year's show, which will take place in the museum's Sky Church and under the city's Space Needle, launches EMP's All Ages concert series, which will feature emerging artists and be directed at fans under 21. ...

The next releases from the experimental Miami techno label Schematic will be debut albums by Richard Devine and Delarosa and Asora, both of which are due January 16. Devine, who is based in Atlanta, mixes broken breakbeats with noises in his abstract compositions. Agony, the debut full-length by Atlanta producer Scott Herren's Delarosa and Asora project (he released the LP Folk Songs for Trains: Trees and Honey in March under the name Savath + Savalas), adds elements of warm ambient music to ethereal pop-song constructions. ...

A double-disc collection of tracks by the influential and innovative London electronic-fusion outfit Renegade Soundwave is due January 16 on Mute Records. Titled RSW: 1987-1995, which was originally released in Britain in 1996, the compilation contains 28 songs that span the career of the band, from the success of their 1989 debut, Soundclash (with its hit singles "Biting My Nails" [RealAudio excerpt] and "Probably a Robbery" [RealAudio excerpt]), and 1990 double album In Dub, which featured reworked versions of earlier tracks plus new songs, to the experimentation of 1994's Howyoudoin'? and their finale, '95's The Next Chapter of Dub. Underappreciated pioneers in the realms of electronic dub and punk-influenced industrial techno, the group formed in 1987 as the trio of Gary Asquith, Danny Briottet and Karl Bonnie, eventually evolving into just the former duo before disbanding in 1995. ...

John Hughes, the son of the well-known film director who also records under the alias Slicker, has produced the score and original music for "Scarlet Diva," a new film starring and directed by Italian beauty Asia Argento. The soundtrack's 16 tracks of short abstract ambient-electronic and pop textures include 11 collaborations with trombonist Phil Ranelin, cofounder of the 1970s Detroit soul-jazz label Tribe Records, as well as assistance from Tortoise's John McEntire. Daughter of the idiosyncratic horror-film director Dario Argento, Asia made her acting debut at the age of nine and starred in several of her father's films, including his version of "Phantom of the Opera." ...

Experimental composer, visual artist and experimental turntablist Christian Marclay is presenting an intriguing art installation and musical program of Christmas music at New York's New Museum for Contemporary Art that began December 14. For "The Sounds of Christmas," which also took place last year, Marclay collected and archived more than 1,000 Christmas records, then catalogued them for public access on a computer database that also includes the records' covers. In addition, at four free performances this month, DJs will spin sets at the museum using only the records in the collection. The lineup for the remaining events, which begin at 6 p.m., is as follows: Sat., Dec. 23, DJ Olive, Marina Rosenfeld, Chris Sattinger); Sat., Dec. 30, turntablist DJ crew the Fifth Platoon's Roli Rho, Kuttin Kandi, Daddy Dog and Neil Armstrong. ...

— sonicnet.com staff report