The number of projects reconfiguring folk music and following the steps of Animal Collective has been too large to keep track on all of them, but this one you definitely can't miss. A 3-piece band based in Auckland, New Zealand, The Ruby Suns have a strong local identity on them, a feeling that partly comes from the fact that half of their songs vocals are in Maori. Mixing tribal chants with psychedelic pop melodies, vibrant percussions, apparently dissonant sounds, orchestral arrangements, tropical harmonies, new-wave hooks and a large amount of alien elements, "Sea Lion" is a permanent surprise, such are the many twists and influences that it incorporates. With some sublime intimate songs giving the perfect counterpart to its more festive larger-than-life moments, "Sea Lion" mostly impresses because of its inventive composition that keeps making experiments, using whatever is in hand to create a complex sound virtually impossible to classify, but also one that never ceases to cause strong emotions. A soundtrack for moon parties, beach moments and trans-continental dreams that actually come true. (8/10)
Above, the stills from Grace Jones new video, called "Corporate Cannibal". It was premiered at the Meltdown Festival (curated this year by Massive Attack) where Grace gave a 2-hour show that seems to have amazed everyone. Her last studio album goes back to 1989 but 2008 will see her releasing "The Hurricane" album, and I can't wait for it any longer. This new song is really impressive and as avant-garde as she was in the 80's, so she is due for a great comeback. Other leaked songs didn't disappoint me either. She is one of the most important performers ever, one of the first truly originals to exploit the importance of image in music by becoming the muse of artists such as Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and her former lover Jean Paul Goude. Let's put it this way: without Grace there would be no Björk.
Bellow, the video for "Corporate Cannibal" as screened during the Meltdown Festival:
And the hedonistic disco classic "Pull Up To The Bumper" performance:
The record-breaking one-million-units shipped during its first week of sales in the U.S. alone is just the tip of the iceberg in a long path to place 25 year-old Lil Wayne as the greatest rapper alive. Nine years after his first album and following a recent series of incredibly good mix tapes put online for free during the last months (of which Da Drought III is particularly good), Tha Carter III culminates everything in the most successful way possible. With contributions from the likes of Kanye West, Bangladesh, Just Blaze, Streetrunner, Swizz Beatz and Alchemist as producers, this music is a permanent sonic fest, taking literally everything that is relevant in today's hip-hop and some more, incorporating it in Lil Wayne's vision. With a life full of dramatic moments (two times shot, near death experiences, etc.), he could spend the rest of his time gloating about past glories, but instead, this is someone that prefers to offer a sincere picture of who he is today, exposing his personality, his contradictions and with that, giving us the perfect soundtrack for this exact moment in time. Celebrating the present with a sense of confidence, risk-taking and even including all the impurities that make life more exciting, Tha Carter III totally deserves all the laurels that it has been receiving. Adventurous, electic, urgent and imperfect (in the best sense of the word), this is literally the work of a (his) lifetime. (8,5/10)
While the general view is that The Neptunes glory days are almost gone, their production is still as great as ever, with some fine examples coming in the last couple of years for the likes of Clipse (the masterstroke album that is "Hell Hath No Fury") and some shit-hot songs for Jay-Z ("Blue Magic"), Gwen Stefani ("Yummy") and Britney Spears ("Why Should I Be Sad"), amongst many others. And after beating rival Timbaland and winning the best moments in "Hard Candy", no one should be blamed for expecting the best on this third album for their side project N*E*R*D. The news that this time they didn't have a label and were supporting it with their own money added some extra interest, as if this would be a perfect moment to capture these guys doing what they really like with no external pressures. And now that "Seeing Sounds" is finally here, what's the verdict? Confounding expectations, this album needs more than a few listens to be completely understood, such are the many twists and external influences that it incorporates, sometimes in the space of just one song. Without the sensual atmosphere of "In Search of..." and the catchy and immediate hooks of "Fly Or Die", "Seeing Sounds" prefers to be an intricate showcase of the many tricks and styles these guys are capable of: drum'n'bass beats, funky organs, dirty bass lines, kitsch arrangements, hard rock guitar solos, weird grooves, distorted percussions, r&b melodies, psychedelic choruses, you name, it's here, in a multitude of layers and textures for each of these 12 songs. The bottom line being that few people are so passionate about music as Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo and their partner-in-crime for this project Shay Haley, and the urgency felt in "Seeing Sounds" is only a testimony for that. (7,5/10)
Interrupting a sequence of albums that were going further into the direction of pop music, Berlin's techno darling Ellen Allien now moves the opposite way and, with the help of AGF on production, makes her most austere and minimal record to date. With only very few sparse sounds, most of them featuring a very dark and industrial resonance, "Sool" still manages to capture our attention by incorporating micro-sounds that seem like cirurgical frequency accidents made by machines in an otherwise cold, metallic and post-human atmosphere. In an album where the elements used are reduced to the only absolutely necessary, the sounds that aren't heard are almost as important as what is played. And this is the secret for its hypnotic and alienating properties, ones that manage to suggest and evoke a parallell universe of sensations, out of so little. Here's the magic of it. (7/10)
Side-projects are a curious concept. Vanity acts by spoiled stars, or a place where musicians let loose and finally start doing what they really like and want? Whatever the main motivations behind, one cannot complain over the innumerous great releases by these so-called side projects, from this year's Neon Neon ("Stainless Style") to the great late Gorillaz, whose artistic and commercial attributes largely surpassed those of Damon Albarn's main project, Blur. The latest ones on this list are The Last Shadow Puppets, which sees Alex Turner from Arctic Monkeys team up with Miles Kane from The Rascals, counting with the precious contributions of Owen Palett (Final Fantasy) on the string arrangements created with the London Metropolitan Orchestra, and also producer James Ford (Simian Mobile Disco). The goal? Apparently what was supposed to be an homage to Scott Walker has become an excuse to (re)create 1960's-influenced anthemic songs and old movie soundtracks. With sumptuous and luxurious orchestrations, baroque pop compositions, dramatic crescendos and catchy innocent melodies, "The Age Of The Understatement" surpasses the mere symphonic-pop pastiche condition, managing to hit all the right pleasure centers and becoming a collection of goosebump-inducing epic songs. (8/10)
The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatement (video)
I've mentioned before my opinion regarding the confusing state of hip-hop over the last few months, with many examples of how it has become a virus that is influencing most of nowadays mainstream music while, at the same time, receiving itself more and more external influences; in the meantime, we had a few disappointing major releases ("T.I. vs T.I.P." by T.I. and, in some ways, "Graduation" by Kanye West); and some great projects coming from the margins, like El-P ("I'll Sleep When You're Dead"), Dälek ("Abandoned Language") or, most recently, this second album by 22-year-old Canadian MC, DJ and producer Cadence Weapon. The premises in here are simple: intelligent lyrics about a common guy's life, together with a very diverse panoply of beats, synths and samples that seem taken from alien elements like blog-house, electro, hi-tech funk, sci-fi sounds and blips, glitch electronica or even videogames while, at the same time, melting this digital fury with a more organic attitude felt in Cadence's down-to-earth persona. Free from that annoying ostentation that ruins some potentially interesting projects, with a sincere and contagious enthusiasm, the right doses of experimentalism in its sound, and a colourful and eclectic approach, "Afterparty Babies" feels like one of the freshest things to be heard in hip-hop since ages. (7/10)
That's (a slightly weird picture of) Sam Sparro, the 24 year old singer who is blasting on the airwaves with the single "Black & Gold". When I first listened to it I wasn't really impressed, it sounded a bit like another stab at Goldfrapp's electro-pop left-overs, this time by a white male singer who actually sounds black. But, it seems, the song has grown on me and I actually quite like it. It's not fresh and new but it sounds just right. Sparro defines his sound as "somewhere between the church and the club" (he used to sing in a church and is known to be your regular club kid) and that might be one of the best definitions I've ever heard. Check below his electro-soul epic:
Hadn't been in Barcelona for ages and it was nice to see that, besides still having so much to offer, this city is not resting on its laurels and keeps trying to improve (hello new beaches, buildings by renowned international architects, new restaurants, bars, design hotels, shops, exhibitions, festivals...). Unfortunately this also means an absurd amount of tourists everywhere, something I hadn't witnessed to this amount in Barcelona before. Consequently some of its unique character seems to have been lost in the middle of tourist-oriented businesses, but fortunately, so far it's just a small portion. And then there's the vibrant spanish tradition of being outside in the streets, meaning that, whatever time of the day, it's literally impossible to get bored in Spain's most international city.
(Pictures taken in Barcelona between 16th - 23rd May 2008)
