Brass Funkys - Big Col Birthday Mix

01 - Medeski Martin & Wood - Where's The Music
02 - Al Green - Just For Me
03 - Joan As Police Woman - Magpies
04 - Sonar Kollektiv Orchester - Midnight Marauders - remix by DJ Chill
05 - Rickie Lee Jones - Tell Somebody
06 - Calvin Harris - Colours
07 - The Ting Tings - Great DJ
08 - Ohio Players - O-H-I-O - remix by DJ Chill
09 - Hucknall - Farther On Up The Road
10 - Fiest - Sealion
11 - Tito Puente - Oye Como Va - remix by DJ Chill
12 - The Raconteurs - Many Shades of Black
13 - Whitest Boy Alive - Golden Cage
14 - KC and the Sunshine Band - I'm Your Boogie Man - remix by DJ Chill
15 - Acoustic Ladyland - Skinny Grin
16 - Prince - Mr. Goodnight

Please download this and play )))LOUD((( lins in the comments

My Brightest Diamond - A Thousand Shark's Teeth - 2008

Wonderful live with a kick ass band I urge you to see MBD at your earliest. Quite rightly album of the week in TST and deffo one of my contenders for AOTY.
buy

Bon Iver - For Emma Forever Ago - 2008

There's a possibility that this album may get overhyped so greatly has it been praised thus far. Whilst it's good - it's not that good; my money would be on the rev. Al Green's new release as "album of the month".
It's becoming a cliche I know but it is quite astonishing that this album was thrown together by the author and just his laptop. The result is a collection of intimate tunes both in context and sound, calling to mind Thoma Dybdhal, that display a wonderful restraint and subtle yet sophisticated production technique.
buy

Joan As Police Woman - To Survive - 2008

My very favourite gig of last year JAPW @ End of the Road.
Very difficult to find an ul of this and as this new album would seem to require a good listen before posting any comments I'll say nowt more.
buy

Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree - 2008

I'm going to stop saying "here's another good album" as it can now be taken as a given that it wouldn't be featured if it wasn't, actually, it wouldn't be featured unless it's an exemplar.
Think this is my first of 2008 and what a way to start. As with Tears for Fears, and their album "Seeds of Love" before them, this is Goldfrapp's "Sargent Pepper's.." ie it's now that the duo, for they are Alison Goldfrapp and the shy retiring Will Gregory, evince a total mastery of their art. Not in a showoffy how clever are we way, but in that of consummate professionals. Beautiful broad (expensive) synth and orchestral pads back Alison's amazing voice: part Kate; part Madge; even part Kylie; yet wrapped in a unique package and given what I can only describe as that 1940's filmstar thing (a kindof catch at the top of the throat diction). Not as inventive and progressive as their 1st two recordings and ditching the glamslam camp of their last, an album very much designed with a live show in mind, the new cd has a newfound pastoral quality and I'd love to see it performed in a nice compact sit down auditorium, say Lighthouse in Poole - I can but hope.
web buy

Rachel Unthank & The Winterset - The Bairns - 2007

Four canny young lasses from Newcastle, giving Folk a good name and making up for all that "thou shalt have a fishy, on a little dishy" bollox. Don't know where I've been at, letting summat this good pass me by. Astonishingly beautiful voices set amidst beautiful and unusual (for Folk) instrumentation. Bypass the 1st couple of tracks as, though they are good, the album really kicks in after these. Definitely one to listen to of a cold dark winters eve.
web buy

Ingrid Michaelson - Girls And Boys - 2006

I'm getting to like popular music despite getting my fingers burned by Eva Cassidy (hawk spit). Ingrid Michaelson, very big in the States apparently and very big on Grey's Anatomy - something else I never watch. I'm a bit po'd with hearing familiar songs on tv but not being able to remember who/what/where they are; heard a track on The OC purely by chance and it took me a whole morning rummaging through my drawers to find it was The Veils "Lucia", still rummaging through ones drawers - there are certain upsides. Anyway, Ingrid Michaelson - sounds uncannily like Erin McKeown and, as she's a particular favourite whose output has tailed off somewhat of late, that's no bad thing. Don't know whether I should tell you to cut straight to the song "Breakable" and play it over and over again, as having done that myself I've now got it playing on constant repeat inside my head. Seems to be no cure for this does there, save for over wiping it with the next song to come along and obsessively take ones fancy.
web buy

Emma Pollock - Watch The Fireworks - 2007

Most definitely a grower this one, with some particularly outstanding tracks too. Someone new to me but I do know she used to be in The Delgados - a band I never particularly took to. Like Laura Veirs she sings in a very unaffected way and with a tendency, which takes a little getting used to, towards being slightly flat (ie off tune) and as with Charlotte Hatherley there's a lovely Englishness, or as she's Scottish I suppose we should say Britishness, to her sound.
web buy

The Cinematic Orchestra - Ma Fleur - 2007

First blog and very possibly the best album of the year.
The Cinematic Orchestra
Nice!
Cooler than cool without need of cool they just are.................cool
Outside, and quite possibly ignorant of, the current morays and categorisations of the music biz.
I can't say, however that this album surpasses "Everydays"; it kind of sidesteps it. You know that J Swinscoe has a fascination with cinema and this album is, to coin the cliche, "a soundtrack to an un-made movie": cinematographic, slow tracking, wide angle and enigmatic. A bitter sweat love story with a subtly twisted open ending.
It's not a very good rip so I'm hoping that the real CD will sound good as I'm determined it should be the opener to when I get a new flat with my stereo set up again - fingers crossed.
The shock horror of this album though is the introduction of guitars, shock as in not shocking, Will Ackerman rather than Van Halen, adding beautiful tonal texture and colour to a very pared-back "less is more" production.
The good news is Fontella Bass is back, she's a true original as opposed to Patrick Wilson's and Lou Rhodes' respective pastiches of Jeff Buckley and Marianne Faithful; bad news.
This title will be released on May 7, 2007. Pre-order now! and in the meantime enjoy this download.

Air - Pocket Symphony - 2007

The Sexy Boys return with a Pocket Symphony as opposed to pocket billiards [phnarr pnarr]. They always turn up at this time of year don't they? Missed them at the get go as 1. nothing good comes out at the start of the new year 2. nothing good musically comes out of France 3. nothing good comes from considering the views of critics. But then along came Sexy Boy etc etc. Nicolas Godin et Jean-Benoît Dunkel I guess kicked off the whole dreamie trippe hoppe thynge - n'est pas? Zero7, Lemon Jelly et al followed.
It's business as usual here for Air but then when you've a business as good as this why change anything. We do get some new vocalists, Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannon can do that dreamy Air thing very well. In fact Hannon sounds so like Jose Gonzalez [that's the guy bigCol] only better and not like Neil Hannon at all, maybe, as Divine Comedy has been a bit lacklustre of late, he's decided to earn a bit on the side as vox for hire.
Not released til March so I can't link to a sales site yet, but maybe Ken Wood will blow us a mmMpeethreefile. If he does you'll hear 320kbps that's virtually ceedee qualitee. I wouldn't say Nigel Goodrich has added anything that gr8 production-wise to this album but aparently Air have been spending time learning how to play classical Japanese instruments [now here's a man who's read the press release] well worth a download.
I'' recommend sour cream, chopped chive & dill, blinis, homecured gravadlax and a nice flinty white Burgundy - lightly chilled of course ;-)