1. The Sugarcubes, are planning a reunion performance in Reykjavík, Iceland on November 17, 2006! The concert celebrates the 20th anniversary of Bad Taste Records (Smekkleysa), the Icelandic record label created by members of the band. All of the original band members will be playing, including international superstar, Björk!

2. Nordic Lounge Weekend album was realeased, this extraordinary compilation extracts the most relaxing grooves from the Nordic region, after compilations like Nordic Lounge 1 and 2, both of them masterpieces. Trust me, this one is not an exception, get them all.

3. Recently I discovered Plej’s myspace page, he is a brilliant musician and producer from Sweden, in fact some of his tunes are in Nordic Lounge 1 and 2. His debut album “Electronic Music from the Swedish Leftcoast” is, in my opinion, a jewel of electronic music because he fusioned some of the finest house with jazzy atmospheres, this mix sounds truly elegant… anyway his myspace page annouced the release of the new album, certainly I’m longing to get it on my hands.

4. Hanne Hukkelgerg has also made her second album in Propeller studio. It is named “Rykestrasse 68” after her half year living in Berlin. The album is truly amazing. A more orchestral and cinematic sound unfolds new sides of Hanne’s beautiful voice. All songs are written by Hanne except the dark version of Pixies “Break My Body” featuring Daniel Warg Sanden on nyckel-harp. Rykestrasse 68 is out in Norway and itunes store only!

October is almost here and along come some of the best music festivals, they are fresh, at a northern location, and filled with some of the best new talent in the industry. This year’s October-trio are as follows:

Pop Montréal, October 4-8; Montréal, Canada.
Gonzales, Damien Jurado, The Russian Futurists, Think About Life, Tapes n’ Tapes, Dr. Octagon, Regina Spektor, Sunset Rubdown and many more! plus films and contemporary art.

Iceland Airwaves, October 18-22; Reykjavík, Iceland.
Brazilian Girls, Kaiser Chiefs, Jeff Who?, Reykjavík!, Mammút, Mates of State, The Go! Team, Jenny Wilson, Daníel Ágúst and many more! plus great parties and the chance to take a glimpse of the Aurora Borealis.

CMJ Music Marathon, October 31-November 4; New York City, USA.
Architecture In Helsinki, Hot Chip, Blonde Redhead, CSS (Cansei de Ser Sexy), Kid Koala, George Clinton, Keren Ann, Suzanne Vega, Medeski, Martin and Wood and many, many, many more! plus films and interaction with the music industry.

These simple percussion instruments of prehistoric American origin, part of the idiophones family and also known as shakers, consist of a pair of leather, wood, plastic or dried gourd shell filled with seeds, rice, or dried beans with a handle that also covers the filling entrance hole. Often one maraca is pitched higher than the other and are played by scraping them.Make your own maracas or shakers.

There’s a lot of surprising music around the world a good example is Cyndi Seui, you can find out very talented artits on Myspace, please suggest your favorites here.

I have a huge list on my mind…

Watch this video of Cesar B. de Guzman… a.k.a. Cyndi Seui which is an electronic music producer in Bangkok, Thailand. Continental Affair is one of the most impressive tracks of his debut album Micro Bitz Life which is an incredible album, in fact I can even compare it with Towa Tei’s work. I was looking for a sample of Cyndi Seui but I couldn’t find anything, so I uploaded my first Youtube video.

Our selection for album of the month this time is Sabrina Malheiros’ Vibrasons, this magnificent album is an excellent collection of remixes of her songs. Sabrina is an outstanding brazilian singer who has a vast heritage beacause of Alex Malheiros, her father, who is a bass player from the legendary Brazilian band Azymuth. Her grandfather played with Sergio Mendes and was the first Brazilian to manufacture an electric bass, she also studied music when she was 6 years old, and by the time she was 12, she had made her recording debut singing lead vocals on the title track of Azymuth’s 1991 album, Curumim!

All this knowledge and effort has given her the possibility to work with great artists, like the japanese Acid Jazz act United Future Organization when she was just 19, after that she recorded 4 songs for a movie soundtrack included there was the highly successful track, Dancing in Rio with Paulo Williams.

On her debut album Equilibria the sound contains mainly Brazilian sambas and bossas, all the melodies and rythms reflect in some way a little piece of the musical roots of Brazil but at the same time sounds contemporary and elegant, this extraordinary album was so great that it was screaming for for a remix, so some great artists and producers were involved in creating incredible remixes, people like: Kenny Dope, Quantic, Nicola Conte, Boston Rodríguez, Max Cole, Spiritual South and many more, therefore it is not a collection for DJ’s beacuse there are too much styles and tempos each one of them contributing with their personal trademark, and also compiling Sabrina’s tracks to build up an ultra-rhythmic and sophisticated compendium.

Sabrina explains, “Vibrasons is a play on words, it’s a combination of Vibração (vibrations) and Sons (sounds). I love all the remixes as they breathe new life into the tracks.”

Today I found this fantastic website, in there you can download the Monfresh Sessions in Podcast format of Moncef Belyamani,, which is a well recognized DJ around the world, in fact he has played on the mitical Pacha club.
His DJ’s sets range from Nu Jazz, House to Soul and Disco, you can listen to one of my favorite sets “Monfresh Sessions #14“.Suscribe to his podcast here or listen to his live radio show also named “Monfresh Sessions” on www.handzonradio.fm: Saturdays from 3-5pm ET.

Smart and gloomy indie pop comes out from Bangalore, the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka, the project 777, led by singer/songwriter Kamal Singh (with some help from Swaroop & Abhi), doesn’t have a discography yet, but you can start listening to its soft, rich, and well composed tracks and hope they release an album soon. Using mellow lyrics of despair, Singh introduces himself to us and for this reason he was awarded Songwriter of the Year at the Freedom Jam 2004, a festival that focuses on original material and welcomes all styles of music.