Rack And Opinion: Release Date 3.21.06

This week is, as we say in the music blog business, a big week for new releases. If you took our advice and hit those AOL preview streams like we told you to yesterday, you should have a pretty good idea of where your money is going to go when you get to ye olde record shoppe this week. And we did a bit of editorializing when we posted those preview streams, so here we'll just highlight some other titles. We've heard two cuts from the Ms. John Soda joint and can safely say that the Morr Music label still connotes solid quality. People are going a little nutty in certain corners about the Sparks record. We'll have to ask our homey The Bster whether or not to believe the hype. We can say that if the electro is your thing, we downloaded some of the tracks from the Ghostly International comp from EMusic and it is pretty enjoyable. Not sure how we feel about the Junior Boys remix of Mobius Band's "The Loving Sounds Of Static," but maybe it will grow on us. Below are our picks for the week's most compelling new releases. Links go to related commercial opportunities with our former interior designers over at Insound.

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone -- Etiquette -- Tomlab
Editors -- The Back Room -- FADER/Kitchenware
Liars -- Drum's Not Dead -- Mute
Loose Fur -- Born Again In The U.S.A. -- Drag City/Caroline
Mates of State -- Bring It Back -- Barsuk
Ms. John Soda -- Notes and the Like -- Morr Music
Quasi -- When the Going Gets Dark -- Touch & Go
Josh Rouse -- Subtítulo -- Nettwerk
Royksopp -- Royksopp's Night Out EP -- Astralwerks
Sparks -- Hello Young Lovers -- In the Red
Various Artists -- Idol Tryouts 2 -- Ghostly International