Pulp frictions
	Tom Waits's tales of Alice and Blood Money by TED DROZDOWSKI

Hello, cruel world? Elvis Costello finds a new route back to earth by FRANKLIN SOULTS

Like a refugee Lauryn Hill makes the insanity plea by FRANKLIN SOULTS

Local Anesthesia: Pigeonholing If it's not nothing, it must be something by BOB GULLA

They had the name before September 11, and they're sticking with it. But I Am the World Trade Center aren't exactly publicity hounds: on their new The Tight Connection (Kindercore), in lieu of a band photo, the twin-tower boy-girl duo hide behind a stack of vinyl albums. The album itself, however, is more than the sum of their record collections: it's a disc of laptop techno by indie brats who get disco's infernal combustion almost completely right. Which is to say they're the first "rock" band in a couple decades who have a song called "Big Star" that sounds less like Alex Chilton than like Abba. See IATWTC on Wednesday at the Skinny (207-871-8983) in Portland and next Thursday, May 23, at T.T. the Bear's Place (617-492-BEAR) in Cambridge.

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