As you can see there’s a new player for our traditional album of the month, we hope this tool helps in promoting our favorite music in a powerful manner, so I suggest that, while you read these lines, don’t be shy and play one of the songs, we also have on the right side a few recommendations that you can listen as well.So, let’s go on, well… What can I say about this magnificent album called “Koop Islands” is one of the most sophisticated albums I’ve ever listened to, Koop is a duo from Sweden formed by Oscar Simonsson and Magnus Zingmark, they began in 1996 innovating with their peculiar style of jazz, if you listen to their past albums like Waltz For Koop you can discover some happy tunes along side with some complicated jazz arrangements, one of the most notable differences between their last effort and this one is the retrospective layers in the sounds, this one transports us back to the 30’s and brings us back the soul of those large orchestras, with a contemporary point of view. The sweetness and beauty of Yukimi Nagano is the cherry on top, as you can see in this video. The other thing that I love in Koop Islands is the warmness of the album, the sounds are very organic and soft maybe because of the selection of the instruments: marimbas and wind instruments create a unique texture, marimba is not the kind of instrument that is common to be listened to in these genres, maybe is one of the reasons we publish the Instruments of the Month, we spot some not-usual instruments to help people open their minds to new frequencies and sounds, in conclusion you should add Koop - Koop Islands to your music collection.

I’m not really sure why they dress like women in almost all the photos, I suspect that’s a funny way to promote themselves, anyway, the answer doesn’t matter at all, their music rules!

By the way, in their official website you can read that If you listen very carefully you can hear the Number 4 bus go by on the snowy street outside their tiny studio in Stockholm’s Södermalm, I’ve listened a lot to this album but I can’t notice that detail, could anybody tell us where or in which track?

P.S. Merry Christmas

The band from Monterrey (in the Mexican state of Nuevo León) formed by Priscila González, Gustavo Maurico, both in charge of the guitars and voices; Boscop Benavente, the drummer; Marcela Viejo, who plays keyboards and also sings; and the fine bass player Luis Fara Al Farahel, released their first album, Wof, under the indie-dealt-with-EMI label Happy-fi Records. They introduced their debut LP to a small but joyous audience at La Victoria club in Mexico City. The show was a mixture of gurgling jubilation, dandy music and do-it-yourself fashion and lighting, they instantly became one of my I-recommend-to-see-them-live acts.

Wof, the album, is heroic, gutsy, childish and aggressively primal, it mixes indie rock with alternative dance and eclectic pop, always joined by a terrific bass sound. They autodefine their music with such words as: the caribean, whisky, cinema, smoking, fashion, friends, alter-egos, strawberry drinking yoghurt, second-hand clothing, among others.

According to their version Quiero Club started a few years ago in a radio show hosted by Maurico called “We are the Rock n’ Roll” when Priscila González made a phone call from her home and both started playing live on air, later they got together and made a song set by the anti folk outfit, The Moldy Peaches. They soon started to perform at several Happy-fests (a self-organized music festival by Happy-fi) and then Maurico moved to Barcelona for six months, when he came back the band reassembled into the current line-up. On december 2004 they recorded the track No Coke which gain some listeners in Mexico City and made them participate at the popular Vive Latino Festival and many other stages along their country.

Visit their MySpace page to listen to some samples.