newest latest: caravan + prodigy!
comrades! i give you three int'l diskies, and one prodigy best-of! proceed!Artist: Apollo Nove
Title: Res Inexplicata Volans
Label: Ziriguiboom / Crammed
Genre: int’l / Brazil
Grade: A-
Fun fact: this disc’s title is the Latin translation for “unidentified flying object”! Apollo Nove isn’t quite praying to the aliens just yet, but this loungey electronica nova sounds like Air the morning after Rio carnival—no coincidence, then, that their engineer recorded and mixed this record! Nove himself sings on about half the tracks, the rest covered by several guests, most notably Seu Jorge on “Ensaboar Você” (04) and “Capoeira” (11). If you’d like an English-language track, try “War” (07).
Reviewer: bjorn ingvoldstad
Artist: v / a
Title: Brazilian Lounge
Label: Putumayo
Genre: int’l
Grade: A
Wonderfully slick, urban Brazilian music fills this CD from start to finish. The works are essentially what one would expect as ambient background music in a documentary on modern Rio, but the sound indeed goes past that somewhat. The basic format for much of it is electronica meets samba or bossa, but excellently executed. There are hints of something more adventurous now and then, but in truth it's not often the aim of lounge music to be adventurous as much as it is to be simultaneously relaxed and grooving. Standout tracks on the album include a remix of Bebel Gilberto's "August Day Song" (09), a short vocal performance by Seu Jorge over the top of a funky cut from BiD (08), and the new bossa cut of Paula Morelenbaum (01) that harks back directly to the work of Jobim and de Moraes, but with a tight little cut of drum'n'bass added in. A highly consistent album, rarely leaving the realm of the key groove. ( 4 stars )
Reviewer: Adam Greenberg, All Music Guide
Artist: Angá
Title: Echu Mingua
Label: World Circuit / Nonesuch
Genre: int’l
Grade: A
Miguel Díaz, the Cuban conga player nicknamed Angá, is all over the map on Echu Mingua, his first album as a bandleader. He’s had a lot of time to stockpile ideas in his years with the Cuban flagship Latin-jazz group Irakere and with the Afro-Cuban All Stars, and one result is an album that wants to mingle everything from Malian lute to old-fashioned Cuban danzón to Santeria chants to hip-hop. Some tracks are overstuffed—particularly with samples of dialogue—and not every experiment works. But all tallied, Díaz is a virtuoso, and the disc is daring.
Reviewer: Jon Pareles, New York Times “Critic’s Choice”
Artist: Prodigy
Title: Their Law: The Singles 1990-2005
Label: XL
Genre: electronica
Grade: A+
Even more so than the celebrated Chemical Brothers -- who began recording after Prodigy but received a hits compilation before -- Liam Howlett and co. were fantastic singles artists who also fashioned excellent full-lengths. As such, Their Law 1990-2005, the singles collection that could put the cap on their career, is a collection that will leave listeners breathless but also one that can't capture how special Prodigy were to the electronica and rave scenes. Their biggest single, "Firestarter" (01), comes first, and its LP (The Fat of the Land) gets most of the early slots, although things right themselves by the end with no less than five singles -- all of them incredible -- from 1995's Music for the Jilted Generation and four from 1992's Experience. Including three tracks from 2004's desultory Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned may help fans hear, for the first time, the best of a bad album. ( 4 ½ stars )
Reviewer: John Bush, All Music Guide
posted by Anonymous @ 12:47:00 PM
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