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NEW HEAVY TRASH ‘MIDNIGHT SOUL SERENADE’ |
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| On their third album, 2009's Midnight Soul Serenade, Heavy Trash keep delivering the good old rock & roll, rockabilly, and hillbilly soul that their first two albums handed out like candy at a Fourth of July parade. Jon Spencer and Matt Verta-Ray hit their stride right away on their debut and continue to be nothing short of great. They make no great changes to their sound here; it's still loose as geese on the rockers and pleasantly spooky on the ballads. Spencer and Verta-Ray still conjure all kinds of unhinged noise from the guitars, yet remain firmly within the bounds of the songs. Best of all, Spencer fully embraces his role as greasy, rockabilly crooner with an unrestrained joy and fervor. His performance on their cover of LaVern Baker's "Bumble Bee" is guaranteed to bring smiles, his unhinged howls on "Bedevilment" bring back memories of Lux Interior, and he's never less than entertaining. The whole record is just a flat-out blast, with the duo gleefully raising all kinds of ruckus, blasting through swamp blues, noisy punk blues, cornpone balladry, and nocturnal jazz poetry, and even laying down a song that could have been a chart-topper back in 1959, the sweetly rollicking "Gee, I Really Love You." It may heretical to say it considering the backgrounds of the participants, but Heavy Trash could be the best project either man has been involved with. And while Midnight Soul Serenade may not be the best Heavy Trash album (their debut takes that honor), it's still some of the best rock & roll around. Anywhere, anytime. (allmusic.com)
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DUBPHONIC ‘RELIGHT’ |
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SOAP&SKIN ‘MARCHE FUNEBRE’ | ||||
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Second album by Parisian trio Stefane Goldman (guitar, subassophone, programming), Sylvain "Ben" Mosca (guitar, 3-tones melodica, programming) and Alexis Mauri aka Alexkid (programming, old fashion reverbs, production). Described as a soft but breathtaking album… an elegant blending with Jamaïcan flavours… Haunting compositions, absolute fluidity and clearlight sound quality… their dub fades into electro-ambiant chamanism and becomes a magic sound installation…
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"Lovetune For Vacuum", debut of the young Austrian musician Anja Plaschg, appeared in early spring 2009 accompanied by euphoric reviews; meanwhile the record has sold several tens of thousands of copies throughout Europe. Yet, the fact that "Lovetune For Vacuum" has long been released certainly does not mean that the songs are now inviolable and set in stone the way they are. Modifications during her concerts are not uncommon, sometimes changing small details, sometimes entire arrangements. For her third single "Marche Funèbre", Soap&Skin has now recorded this gripping studio interpretation, while the album version of "Thanatos" the second song of the single respectively the EP, remains unaltered. The CD maxi and stylish 10-inch vinyl releases are complemented with a "Marche Funèbre" remix by Hamburg-based producer and DJ virtuoso DJ Koze. (Gerhard Stöger)
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NEW SHANTEL: PLANET PAPRIKA |
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DAS POP: DAS POP | ||||
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After spending 2008 ceaselessly bringing the party to festivals, concert halls, TV studios and clubs, gathering a host of awards and chart positions along the way, Shantel and his mighty Bucovina Club Orkestar are back, batteries fully recharged and ready to tell the world about a new and exciting discovery in the solar system of pop: Planet Paprika!
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Three years in the making, the time has finally come for Das Pop to release their incredible new album. Recorded, produced and mixed by Soulwax in a host of studios across Europe, the record has already grown a reputation of it's own in music circles. Spoken about in hushed tones and dogged with rumor much like the Stone Roses 'Second Coming' and Wilco's 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot', this is a career defining album. From album opener 'Underground' the sonic spectrum unfolds over the ensuing 12 tracks to leave the listener in no doubt that this is the rawest and most direct record Das Pop have ever recorded. Gone are the synthesizers and sequencers of previous albums, to be replaced with the simple sound of three musicians in a studio. As Stephen Daewale put it: "They're such a brilliant live band that we wanted to capture that on tape. So we literally just recorded them playing together in a room. And because they're such good musicians and songwriters, the results sounded amazing." Label: N.E.W.S.
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CESARIA EVORA: NHA SENTIMENTO |
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Three years after “Rogamar”, the Cape-Verdean singer is back with “Nha Sentimento”, an album that combines gravity and lightness of tone. Despite suffering a stroke during her Australian tour in 2008, Cesaria is going on with her career. Although at 68 (she was born on the 27th August 1941) her voice may be more distant and a little less sinuous than in the past, it is still steeped in the emotions that brought her universal fame as a Creole Billie Holiday in the second half of the twentieth century. This new opus is more coladera than morna. Recorded by Nando Andrade and produced by José da Silva, “Nha Sentimento” conveys a deep emotion that never detracts from apparently light-hearted, but often seriously-motivated songs, whose joie de vivre repeatedly proves stronger than their sorrow, regret and desire. When this is not the case, the words convey an insular resignation that is very much a part of Cesaria, since she has so clearly experienced the things she sings about - on Vento de Sueste, for instance, a morna that conjures up feelings that have never left her.
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