More Fabulous Ladies - Quadron, tUnE-yArDs and V.V. Brown

Quadron is a Danish dance-pop duo that reminds me of Erykah Badu's first album. The songs are slinky, sly, and smooth. The beats are neo-soul/jazz lo-fi affairs. Average Fruit and
Horse are both lovely. Slippin is a catchy doo-wop affair. Jeans is a little funky masterpiece.



tUnE-yArDs is a one-woman sound machine from Northampton, MA named Merrill Garbus. She takes a Beck inspired any sound is a good sound ethic and creates undefinable music that's melodic and unique. I can hear tinges of world-music, twee, and folk influences as well. Although Garbus plays with sounds, by far her greatest instrument is her amazing, unbridled, and unpredictable voice which she often loops over itself even when performing live. There are several tracks I'd recommend: Hatari, Sunlight, News, Jumping Jack, Safety, Want Me To, and Hap-B.



Finally, V.V. Brown is a soul-pop singer from Britain. She's well (perhaps overly) produced and writes songs that are irresistibly easy to sing and dance along to. If you need something sweet and low-cal, then she's for you. Check out Shark in the Water, L.O.V.E, and Everybody.
Here's the official video for Shark in the Water

Feeling blue? Girl pop will make you feel better.

For the next few days, I'm going to post about my favorite female artists from the recent months. Today I'll start with Annie and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Annie's music is pure pop. If she were in the States, she'd be Britney Spears, but since she's Norwegian, I can listen to her and still be moderately cool. I'd recommend My Love Is Better, The Breakfast Song and Loco.



Charlotte Gainsbourg has more of an indie sound. Her vocal style would be at home among the late 90s power pop of Liz Phair or Juliana Hatfield, but the songs are sparely arranged, with current folk rock elements (as might be expected from an album produced and largely written by Beck). I'd recommend Me and Jane Doe and Voyage.

Hudson Mohawke - Spacey DJ Guy

These two tracks by DJ Hudson Mohawke are happy, bouncy, high pitched anthems of electronic mayhem.

Enjoy if you like RJD2, Prefuse 73, Emerson Lake and Palmer, or Yes.

Fuse


Rising 5

Lala's Dead - but my blog lives on

Just a quick note to say that most of the links on this blog bring you to Lala which Apple bought and then killed. So as far as I know of, there's no other site where you can legally listen to an entire track. I guess from now on, I'll have to use links to YouTube because there's just no other choice. I would continue to encourage you to buy music you like or buy merchandise from the artist or something so that they get money from their art.

Long live Lala.com. Boo Apple.

http://www.lala.com/

Wolfmother - Rock Like It's the 80s

In the heyday of the 80s, bands wore tight leather pants, had bushy manes of manly hair, band names that sounded vaguely tough, ridiculous album covers, and the music was HEAVY METAL. Welcome, Wolfmother, to the 80s. Wolfmother just plain rocks. They play muscular metal that doesn't wander off into speed, stoner, satanic, prog, thrash, punk, or any other adjective you can put in front of metal. It's just plain heavy metal. And it rocks.

Wolfmother hit it slightly large on their eponymous first album with the descriptively titled single, Woman. The cover is a dark painting of a pale half-naked woman with wings and a tail standing on the shore of a raging ocean. Wolfmother are not subtle and are unapologetically simple. Other songs on Wolfmother, the album, that rock are Tales, Love Train, and Vagabond. Vagabond was used to great effect as the soundtrack to the great montage sequence in (500) Days of Summer when our romantic hero returns from a broken heart by rededicating his life to the manly pursuit of architecture.

Wolfmother - Wolfmother

On Wolfmother's latest release, Cosmic Egg, they continue to perfect their heavy rocking, high-pitched singing style. My favorite tracks are: New Moon Rising (the get tough song), White Feather (the radio sing-a-long), In The Morning (the power ballad), 10,000 Feet (the scary song), Cosmonaut (the sci-fi song), Caroline (more power balladry), and Phoenix (the rock epic).

Cosmic Egg [Deluxe] - Wolfmoth...

Bibi Tanga & The Selenites

Bibi Tanga & The Selenites have a signature sound, combining afro-pop, funk and trip-hop dance grooves. Tanga's vocals moan and pump over the polyrhythmic beats and the chorus of female singers.

They only have an EP out now, but I'll definitely be looking out for the full length coming out soon.

Recommended if you like: Michael Franti and Spearhead, Fela/Femi Kuti, Anjelique Kidjo, Les Nubians, etc.

It's The Earth That Moves - Bi...

Groove Armada - I Hear You Baby

Over the last year or so, I've been sifting through Groove Armada's discography and unearthed some great dance tracks. So rather than recommend a particular album or track, I'm creating my own track list of GA's greatest hits for you.

Needless to say , I haven't even listened to everything they have yet, but if you like Fatboy Slim, Chemical Brothers, Bassment Jaxx or any big beat, dance DJs, at the very least, you'll probably like GA's best songs.

From The Best Of (2004):
If Everybody Looked the Same
I See You Baby
My Friend
Purple Haze
Easy
Think Twice

The Best Of - Groove Armada

From Soundboy Rock (2007):
Get Down
What's Your Version
Song 4 Mutya (Out of Control)

Soundboy Rock - Groove Armada

From the Groove Armada EP (2009):
Drop The Tough
Go

EP - Groove Armada