The thing that I worship about James Di Salvio’s collective is the same thing that most critics crucify: A broad eclectic style, but that is just the key that unveils Di Salvio’s indisputable love for music. I rather listen to 20 Bran Van 3000’s albums in a row, than 3 by any other band with a “clearly defined style”, since I have always thought that listening to a same style for hours numbs your hearing and can produce brain fatigue, the tricky part is that, at BV3k’s current rate, 66 years must pass in order to produce 20 albums, but I wasn’t writing to lament on the low quantity but instead to focus on the high quality of their latest production: Rosé.

Their third album in a decade is a sonic collage that swings from tree to tree of genres with such a gracious method, nurturing mainly on reggae, hip-hop and electronic sounds but adding some guitar riffs, funk and the beautiful voice of co-producer Sara Johnston to the mix. The collectif montréalais use the same formula again and manage to deliver a carefully produced piece that came out on the last days of 2007 and was picked as our first selection this year.

The Church - Starfish

Our instruments have no way of measuring this feeling …the feeling that this album gives me everytime I listen to its fine, clean and well-arranged production that was made possible by Waddy & Richard Wachtel. Sometimes big sales mean not-so-good music, but fortunately this is not the case, Starfish, The Church’s biggest selling album is their best. This mysterious, elegant, melancholic and hypnotic work is a fundamental piece in Australian rock.

Key Name: Russell Kilbey
Prevailing Style: Rock
Best Track: Destination

Gus Gus - Polydistortion

I clearly remember listening to this album for the first time back in 1997, my mind went numb, I was astonished… Gus Gus’ first proper album, Polydistortion, is an electronic, avant-garde masterpiece that will make you dance. Made by an Icelandic collective formed by actors, designers and filmmakers this mellow, quirky and powerful mixture of electronic, funk, jazz, indie and hip-hop is a must-have.

Key Name: Daníel Ágúst/Magnús Jónsson
Prevailing Style: Trip-Hop
Best Track: Believe

Scissor Sisters - Scissor Sisters

Since we’ve listened to almost everything when it comes to rock music in the 2000’s it is extremely complicated to make an outstanding rock album, nevertheless the five-piece band Scissor Sisters manage to achieve that, and when they do it by stealing bits and pieces from 70’s music, it’s even more admirable. The New Yorkers mix disco chunks with Stevie Wonder’s portions, Elton John’s globs, Pink Floyd’s particles and Bee Gees’ nuggets to create a sexy, gay, drag-queenie, glam-rocker and wonderfully rhythmic collage named Scissor Sisters.

Key Name: Jason Sellards/Scott Hoffman
Prevailing Style: Dance Rock
Best Track: Take Your Mama

Based on the Classic Albums series made by Isis & Eagle Rock Entertainment of an idea devised by John Pidgeon and Roger Scott, that feature documentaries of well-known rock, hip-hop and pop albums, we’ve decided to make our own selection of what we consider Classic Albums, trying not to fall into the same routine works that we see constantly in these selections, such as Radiohead’s OK Computer, Nirvana’s Nevermind, The Who’s Who’s Next or Sir Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Our list, however, contains albums that you should seriously consider adding to your record collection, since it’s never too late to own a masterpiece.

So first we are compiling our list and publishing it, but don’t forget that lists are organic, never definitive. We might be forgetting some outstanding works, so, feel free to contribute.

On second hand we’ll be reviewing these albums little by little.

Finally, here’s our list:

A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory
The Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen
Air - Moon Safari
Arrested Development - 3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days In The Life Of…
Astor Piazolla with Gary Burton - The New Tango
Aterciopelados - Caribe Atómico
The Avalanches - Since I Left You
Basement Jaxx - Remedy
Bebel Gilberto - Tanto Tempo
Björk - Debut
Bran Van 3000 - Glee
Buffalo Daughter - New Rock
Café Tacuba - Re
Can - Tago Mago
The Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole
The Church - Starfish
Cornelius - Point
Crowded House - Temple Of Low Men
Daft Punk - Homework
Dimitri From Paris - Sacrebleu
Duran Duran - Rio
Emiliana Torrini - Love In The Time Of Science
Erykah Badu - Baduizm
Esquivel - Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music*
Etienne De Crecy - Etienne De Crecy Presents Super Discount
Everything But The Girl - Walking Wounded
Frederic Galliano - Espaces Baroques
Frente! - Marvin The Album
The Future Sound Of London - Dead Cities
Goldie - Timeless
Gotan Project - La Revancha Del Tango
Gus Gus - Polydistortion
Los Lobos - Kiko
Mano Negra - Casa Babylon
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
MC Solaar - Prose Combat
Moby - Play
Mono - Formica Blues
Neneh Cherry - Homebrew
Nicola Conte - Bossa Per Due
OutKast - Stankonia
PJ Harvey - Rid Of Me
Paris Combo - Living Room
Phoenix - United
Photek - Form & Function
Pizzicato Five - Made In USA
Portishead - Dummy
Les Rhytmes Digitales - Darkdancer
Röyksopp - Melody A.M.
Saint Etienne - Foxbase Alpha
Serge Gainsbourg - Historie De Melodie Nelson
Sergio Mendes & Brasil ‘66 - Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil ‘66
Sidestepper - 3 AM (In Beats We Trust)
Sigur Rós - Ágætis Byrjun
Scissor Sisters - Scissor Sisters
Stereolab - Emperor Tomato Ketchup
Steve Reich - Variations*
Soundgarden - Superunknown
Suba - São Paulo Confessions
Telefon Tel Aviv - Fahrenheit Fair Enough
Tom Tom Club - Tom Tom Club
Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes
Towa Tei - Sound Museum
Underworld - Beaucoup Fish
Ursula 1000 - Kinda Kinky
Weezer - Weezer (Blue)
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades - Siembra
Yonderboi - Shallow And Profound
Zap Mama - A Ma Zone
Zero 7 - Simple Things

*OK, these are compilations, but they are assembled in a perfectly coherent album.

One of the most expected albums of this year might be Björk’s sixth studio album Volta, so we forced ourselves to make an objective and impartial review, although as a Björk fan I think that it would be a difficult task.

When Björk announced the release of an album that will pick up again the beats issue, a lot of us were impatient to finally know how she could sound like, because she is always in the innovation terrain with almost everything that she puts her mind on.

So, let’s start talking about Volta with the list of the professional musicians who Björk invited this time:
Antony Hegarty (from Antony And The Johnsons), unfortunately he is on two tracks, in my opinion he’s the worst collaborator that she has ever chosen. Is not that Hegarty’s music is bad is just that both tracks on Volta are insipid and flat, the usual innovation level here is simply in a hidden place. I don’t really think his voice makes a match with the vocalization of the Icelandic lady.
Timbaland, the famous producer who materialized the percussion section for three songs, brings back those fantastic Isobel’s tribal beats.
Mark Bell, which is an extraordinary electronic producer and member of LFO, he’s guilty for the bass lines, low frequencies and strange sounds on Volta.
Chris Corsano and Brian Chippendale, both outstanding drummers they complement the Volta recipe by adding a unique flavor to the beats.
Toumani Diabate, which is a talented kora player from Congo who won the BBC World Music Award last year, his collaboration is one the best here.
10 piece female brass section from iceland, who helped Björk in creating the orchestration to obtain sweet and emotive chords.
Min Xiao-Fen, which is a chinese pipa player, her collaboration is extraordinary and emphasizes the fact that Björk was again experimenting and looking for new sounds.

Björk, describes Volta as techno voodoo, pagan, tribal and extroverted. For me, the most significant word is “extroverted” because Björk in her previous efforts sang with such a sweetness and tenderness, like someone in love, and some songs were almost children’s lullabies. For this album it was not only the return of strong beats, but also she was determined to be impulsive. I guess that is a better way to focus her energy, singing, instead of showing her bad temper, remember that she lives violently happy, after all. All this impulse and playfulness was reflected on three songs: Earth Intruders, Innocence and Declare Independence, the latter simply breaks her own recent rule of creating tender songs, resulting in a recording so extroverted and full of energy that she seems to be singing a revelation song or giving an alarm call, and it is something like that, because her message is “Start your own currency! Make your own stamp! Protect your language!”

Volta is entirely written and produced by Björk so that could be one of the reasons for not resulting in a homogenous album (or should I say homogenic?), Volta might be considered Björk’s most mirthful and risky experiment, she combined so many flavors, so many beat textures, so organic frequencies and samples, that she created a unique collage of electro-worldmusic. I hope for the next records this experimentation will be expanded towards other countries and collaborators, imagine a Björk album using latin beats, it could be marvelous, I hope one day that happens.

After listening scrupulously to the album more that 6 times with my headphones, I have to say that this album is magnificently well done, I especially love Hope, in my opinion is, by far, the best track… nevertheless it is not my favorite Björk album, possibly –maybe– I was expecting another kind of surprise. So go and get one copy for you, so you can built your own opinion, try to buy Volta on the original Special Edition CD, the artwork is extraordinary, and the audio is way much better than if you download it from rapidshare or elsewhere.

I absolutely love to travel, and, of course, I love music more than life, so what better thing to do than blend them together? This is what the gorgeous trio Muna Zul did by taking us to a delightful trip around the world putting their voices flawlessly together to create En Viaje (On Trip), an album that should have seen the light one year ago, but fortunately, it shines with its own glow.

You can hear a few clicks and clangs but the vast majority are vocal sounds, nothing but vivid voices that call, cry, murmur, mutter, roar, shout, sing, and make sounds that transport us through a world of love, selfness, loss, water, but mainly music.

If you like traveling with music or if you love music that makes you travel, this album deserves to be in your collection.

You can read more about them here.

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.

Disconnecting himself a bit from Aterciopelados, Buitrago honestly brings us one of the best albums of the year: Conector which is, obviously, the word in Spanish for a thing that connects and, in this case, the name is quite accurate since connections are what it is made of. Associating Julieta Venegas’ voice with Andrea Echeverri’s singing and the intonation of Alex Ubago, Ever Suárez, Martina Camargo and Noel Petro joining traditional world music with elecro-pop and rock with some bossa nova, connecting Natalia Helo with Sanscrit and electronica.

It is simply a fresh amalgam of top-notch music and spirituality that makes us dream of a musical globe with no borders on it.

I’ve always hated reissues, not because it is the right thing to do when it comes to improve an album, but because they make you spend your money again in an item you already have, but there are some unavoidable jewels that you just can’t let go, in the case of Björk - Surrounded is not a simple jewel, it is a metallic-pink chest stuffed with gold and diamonds. The content in this beautiful 7 dual disc boxset is simple: her full album catalogue, including music videos, all remastered in Dolby 5.1 and DTS Surround Sound, rated in just a word: wow!

We have to listen to a lot of albums from different genres and styles to select our now traditional album of the month, sometimes it is a very hard process to select just one, I think that one of the most important factors to consider is how this album going to strike the music scene and cause some shock to other artists, this is a very subjective issue beacuse some tracks could be greatly innovative, but we are evaluating the entire album.

Recently I’ve listened to 3 different albums which have a lot in common, the are:
Aqua Bassino - Rue De Paris
Fantastic Plastic Machine - Imaginations
Stereolab - Fab Four Suture
What have they in common? Aren’t they different in their own style? You may be asking these questions, The answer is yes, they are radically different, but the 3 of them follow the same pattern or the same formula than their previous releases, let’s talk about a little bit of each one:

Aqua Bassino - Rue De Paris
It’s a fantastic album for creating a lounge atmosphere because almost all of it is downtempo, just a few tracks are house music in 120 or 125 bpm, It could be said that is incredibly well done, the arregments, the vocals, but it’s the same Aqua Bassino’s formula, if you know
his past albums, you will find the similarities.
Register and listen this album here.

Fantastic Plastic Machine - Imaginations
This Japanese producer and DJ has a huge background exposing new ideas to renew the Japanese scene, Imaginations definitely is great for dancefloors, but I won’t compare it with Too (2003) in which every track has a story to tell and a renew way to edit a song, although he invited 3 incredible artists, like Tahiti 80 or Benjamin Diamond, in my own point of view is a quick-made album, therefore, with a lack of imagination, maybe I was expecting more about Fantastic Plastic Machine.
Register and listen this album here.

StereoLab-Fab Four Suture
This one is the most faithful example of how artists could reclycling formulas, aparently Stereolab extract all the essence of their previous releases and put it on Fab Four Suture, they have all the tools to renew themselves, I don’t know why they haven’t done it, but don’t misunderstand me, this album is very cool if you don’t know their past works or if you are a Stereolab fan, The formula they always use could be 40% of sweet vocals by Laetitia Sadier, 30% of 60’s pyschedelia and 30% of electronic arragments, et voilá: you have a Stereolab album.
Register and listen this album here.

Listen to the 3 of them and leave us a comment

Aphex Twin is set to release a new compilation album this April named ‘Chosen Lords’.
‘Chosen Lords’ is partly-inspired by NY electro, Chicago house and Detroit techno classics, but the album also stimulates the kind of “lucid dreaming” atmospherics found on ‘Selected Ambient Works 85-92’, for all this facts i asume that Aphex Twin will do it again changing paradigms of music.

As with most Richard D. James releases, it’s hard to pin it down to any one genre. Largely recorded on Richard’s private collection of analog synthesizers - vintage, modern and home-made, the rhythms, melodies, harmonies, and even some subliminal lyrics have all evolved directly from the machines.
Many people try to imitate Richard’s sound, but he remains an unrivaled innovator when it comes to the emotional and musical depth and complexity of his tracks.

Something sad, these tracks will not be available for download or on CD, they will only be on vinyl, but maybe they will be on p2p networks
Source:Godbrain