Stylus has asked some of our favorite writers to talk about their favorite songs each week. Today, we present Derek Walmsley’s favorite three songs of the moment.

Derek Walmsley bides his time in a second hand record shop in Notting Hill, London, where he got sucked into the worlds of kraut-rock, jazz and the avant garde. He writes for The Wire and The Wanderer, and his band Southall Riot are making a habit of getting blown off stage by the likes of Acid Mother’s Temple and Circle.

Sim Sisamouth (sung by) – Don’t Let My Girlfriend Tickle Me [Cambodian Cassette Archives: Khmer Folk & Pop Music Vol. 1]

Archive ethno-pop with a tangled genealogy—the music here comes from 70s and 80s Cambodian pop cassettes found in an Oakland public library, but they are themselves versions of even older songs from the homeland, made by Cambodian ex-pats while in exile during the Pol Pot years. This was music created in limbo, in waiting, and musical influences overlap in a manner totally alien to Western music-logic. Pop-psychedlia, folk tunes, bubblegum, reggae, heavy metal, hi NRG—each tune is a mad but thrilling patchwork. Although some of Sublime Frequencies’ ethnic releases have caused controversy over their confused origins and allegedly misleading liner notes, confusion is a virtue of this porous, post-modern pop—each listen is packed with moments of breathless excitement, sheer surprise and incredulous hilarity.

[visit the Sublime Frequencies website here, buy Cambodian Cassette Archives here]

Errorsmith – Last Dance [Near Disco Dawn]

So much electronica sounds like a reliable machine, working along algorithms, deducing the next bar of music from the last one; but Erik Wiegand aka Errorsmith’s techno cut-ups are full of jagged malfunctions, as if he’s rewiring it on the fly. This live CD shows his intricate working methods at their most raw, the result being a kind of improv-techno, all treacherous silences and abrupt noise assaults. Somehow it keeps the rhythm going, always offering a beat for your feet to land on. This is electronic music that attacks from multiple angles, a frenetic electronic Kung Fu attack of feints and light speed strikes.

[visit Errorsmith’s website here, buy Near Disco Dawn here]

KG – S.P.E.C.T.R.E. 01 [Adieu A L’electronique]

Part of KG’s music is the melodic, pristine synthscapes so familiar from M83, another act on the wonderful French label Gooom. But KG’s brand of techno pop has also got the balletic, dramatic scope of Detroit techno. It’s there in the implacably frosty melodies, the bursts of radio static, the feeling of driving through a city at midnight. Techno purists might hate this impure mix of genres and influences (lots of Moroder, Depeche Mode in there), but for me there’s a hundred times more invention in these electronic fantasies of the Gooom label than the frigid dancefloor workouts of most contemporary electronic stuff.

[visit the Gooom label website here, buy Adieu A L’electronique here]

Note: These songs are no longer available for download.