The extended Burnlab family gets not one, but three salutations from the Metro Times in their music issue this week:


Best blog that combines Detroit attitude with whack electronics and space-goth fashion

toybreaker.net/blog

If you want to find out about the fabulous party you missed last weekend, or listen to samples of toy instruments played by Bethany Shorb of God and his Bitches, you should cruise here often. Highlights: a picture of her screaming pussy - actually a Smartronics Animal Quartet piano - and a teaser link to Cyberoptix, which Shorb describes as a "baroque ornamental burnout" custom clothing line ready to launch in 2006.


Best-suited electro new wave

Dorkwave

Team Dorkwave's monthly parties are a blur of warm Jager, Georgio Moroder, Saran Wrap hot pants and atrocious dance moves. "Stop the madness!" Corktown Tavern said, and tried to burn itself down. But Dorkwave endured, and continues to endear. They're as cool as Rupert "Stiles" Stylinksi surfing on a van.


Best label-creating genre-bending music that'll never sell north of M-59

Ghostly/Spectral Sound

Sam Valenti IV's empire, made up of gifted misfits like Dykehouse, Skeletons and the Girl-Faced Boys and Todd Osborn (not to mention international snootlegs Matthew Dear and Tadd Mullinix), is the best thing to happen to regional sonic-pop art since the blistering acid tech-house/abandoned factory scene captured the world's imagination in the 1990s. Stylistically different, but as significant.


p.s.: big thanks to Rob Theakston for a most entertaining Dorkwave Radio studio session last night, and Bethany and I apologize in advance for your hangover.