Aterciopelados: Gozo Poderoso

Mention the Latin pop explosion to Aterciopelados, and you're likely to be met with a furrowed brow and a confused "¿Qué" For about 10 years, Aterciopelados has been one of Colombia's most popular bands, making music that comes from a punky background (its name means "The Velvety Ones") but incorporates traditional South American music for a cosmopolitan mix that makes the group's politics go down easy. Gozo Poderoso, its fifth album, not only sounds far more interesting than many of its popular American equivalents, but is frequently catchier, as well. Andrea Echeverry's voice glides like a great salsa singer's, albeit over the often foreign and inventive electronic rhythms provided by bassist and co-founder Héctor Buitrago. As with Mexico's Café Tacuba, Aterciopelados' use of electronica never proves distracting: It just keeps the listener slightly off balance while enhancing "Luz Azul," "Rompecabezas," "Chamánica," and "El Álbum" with deft hip-hop rhythms and spacey keyboards. Brush up on your Spanish, too, since Echeverry's lyrics tackle more issues than most pop acts. Brazilian legend Tom Zé is also no stranger to pop or politics. As one of the leaders of Brazil's late-'60s Tropicalia movement, Zé frequently got in trouble for pushing boundaries, but now, thanks to admirers such as Beck and Tortoise, his music has never been more popular or widely available in America. Since 1998's great Fabrication Defect, Zé has received the remix treatment, toured with Tortoise, and reissued several of his classic albums. Now he returns with the invigorating Jogos De Armar (Faça Você Mesmo), a two-disc set of wild pop songs and relentless weirdness. Zé deftly couples his love of playful instrumentation with smart sampling and ambitiously arranged female backing vocals: His is orchestral pop where the orchestra consists of found sounds and homemade instruments. The songs are all in Portuguese, but Zé's principal language is adventure.