British duo Groove Armada — Andy Cato and Tom Findlay — have added funk legend Nile Rodgers to the list of collaborators on their third album, which is nearing completion after seven months in the studio, according to a spokesperson for their U.S. label, Jive Electro. Although still untitled, the pair have nearly completed 18 tracks for the follow-up to their 2000 hit LP Vertigo, which is due this summer and will also feature appearances by rapper Jeru the Damaja and soul singer Me'Shell Ndegeocello. Groove Armada will play their first U.S. show of the year on March 24 at the Winter Music Conference in Miami Beach, on the roof of the Sony Building, and have plans for both a live-band and DJ tour following the new album's release. ...

DJ Keoki's first album in almost four years, Jealousy, will be released April 24 on Moonshine Music. The follow-up to his 1997 hit LP Ego Trip, Jealousy is just Keoki's second solo album, although he has released a number of mix-CDs, including 1998's Inevitable Alien Nation and last year's entry in the djmixed.com series. ...

The recently released triple-CD The Out Sound From Way In! collects four albums by early electronic-music pioneers Jean Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley, including the duo's 1966 landmark recording, The In Sound From Way Out! In addition to Perrey & Kingsley's 1967 album, Spotlight on the Moog (Kaleidoscopic Vibrations), Out Sound also features two of Perrey's solo albums, 1969's The Amazing New Electronic Pop Sound of Jean Jacques Perrey and 1970's Moog Indigo, as well as seven recent remixes of the artists' work, including two Fatboy Slim versions of their song "E.V.A." The pair's pop-oriented compositions using innovative instruments such as the Moog and the Jenny Ondioline — as well as their construction of audio tape loops to create collage-style recordings — helped to popularize the then new concept of electronic sound. ...

Virginia post-rock trio Labradford will release its sixth album, which was recorded with veteran producer Steve Albini, February 20 on Kranky Records. Titled Fixed::Content, the album marks the first time the trio — Mark Nelson, Carter Brown and Robert Donne — has collaborated with the normally heavy-rock-oriented Albini, who has also worked with Nirvana, PJ Harvey and the Breeders. Their molasses-slow ambient excursions still intact, and still played with organic instruments, Labradford use the four songs on Fixed::Content to trudge deep into heavy musical emotion, especially on the 18-minute epic "Twenty." ...

The Nor-tec Collective of Tijuana, Mexico, electronic-music producers will release a compilation of tracks by its artists February 20 on Palm Pictures. The Tijuana Sessions Vol. 1 features 14 songs by seven Nor-tec producers, including Bostich (born Ramon Amezcua), Plankton Man (born Ignacio Chavez Uranga) and Terrestre (born Fernando Corona). The compilation, which represents the audio arm of the collective's multimedia efforts, wanders through the worlds of deep house, minimal techno and experimental electronic music. ...

Paris' DJ Deep has mixed the third installment in the Respect is Burning series of house compilations, which is due March 6 on Astralwerks. Based on the fabled Paris club night Respect, Respect to DJ Deep is the first in the series to be continuously mixed, and features such tracks as "Little" Louie Vega Featuring Blaze's "Elements of Life," Kerri Chandler & Jerome Sydenham's "Winter Blessing" and Kimara Lovelace's house anthem "Misery." Previous Respect collections included tracks by Stardust (a.k.a. Daft Punk's Thomas Bangalter) and Dimitri From Paris. ...

French duo Air — Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel — have completed the long-awaited follow-up to their smash 1998 debut, Moon Safari, and have titled the album 10,000 Hz Legend, according to Astralwerks Records, their U.S. label. The album is due this spring, and features vocals by Beck and a member of Japanese rock band Buffalo Daughter. ...

Remixes of tracks from Berlin experimental-electronic producer Auch's (born Ekkehard Ehlers) 2000 album Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye by 11 of minimal techno's top artists, plus one by Ehlers himself, will appear on Remix Tomorrow Goodbye, which is due February 20. Among the producers included are techno veteran Gez Varley, German wunderkind Farben (born Jan Jelinek), California scenesters Jasper and Sutekh, and Irish digital-ambient newcomer Donnacha Costello. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye was among several albums out of Germany last year that deftly combined elements of dub, house and techno to form a new blend of electronic music that marks a progression for all three genres. ...

The next release on electronic-dub maestro Stefan Betke's (a.k.a. Pole) ~Scape Records will be an album by Berlin producer Jan Jelinek titled loop-finding-jazz-records, which is due in early February. Following esteemed abstract albums on the label by Berlin new-dub player Burnt Friedman and San Francisco experimentalist Kit Clayton, Jelinek's album uses a device called a loop-finding modulation wheel to reassemble samples of jazz records into a refined, poetic confluence of Pole and Oval-style digital-click static and subtle minimal techno. Attempts to sonically emulate the Moire style of optical illusions are another beguiling effect of his music. In addition to a recent EP, "Tendency," on ~Scape, Jelinek has previously released several EPs on the Frankfurt, Germany, techno imprint Klang Elektronik as well as an album under the name Gramm on Source Records. ...

— sonicnet.com staff report