Christian Scott – Anthem February 2, 2008

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One of the nice things about living in a timezone nine hours away from France is that I can listen to shows on the French radio that are not mainstream and usually more interesting – and with less commercials, as well. One of those shows is L’Heure du Jazz on RTL every Sunday at 11pm (French time), which has live jazz performances every week. This is how I discovered Christian Scott last year, and after listening to his performance, I immediately bought his CD, Anthem.

It took me six months to get to listen to the CD carefully, and for that, I’m glad I started this blog. I sometimes buy CDs and forget that I even did, which would have been a shame in this case.

Christian Scott is a jazz musician from New Orleans and he plays the trumpet. His second album, Anthem, is not “classical” jazz, but more modern, mixed with some rock-ish sides, such as saturated electric guitars and rock rhythms.

The album opens with Litany Against Fear, which is really excellent, and deserves to be listened to just for the drums and the trumpet. The next song, Void, is a very nice quiet piece, which contrasts with the energy of the first track.

Anthem (Antediluvian Adaptation) follows, which contains an awesome piano part, emphasized by saturated guitars. It is a reference to hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in August 2005.

Re: has a nice heavy bass line and trumpet, but it feels too short, with it’s quick fade out after only 2:14. It is followed by Cease fire, which is a little repetitive to my taste, and Dialect, which has heavy guitars and piano sounds, but isn’t to the level of the first three songs of the album in my opinion, and feels a little repetitive again.

The Uprising and Katrina’s Eyes that follow are two great, very calm tracks, and so is Like That which is a jazzy ballad.

The album closes with Anthem (Postdiluvian Adaptation), which echoes Anthem (Antediluvian Adaptation). This is the only track with lyrics, sang by Brother J of the X Clan. This song is a nice mix of jazz, rock and and hip-hop, which embodies the anger around the Katrina catastrophe and the way it was dealt with by the Bush administration (Was it genocide by drowning or homicide by clowning with time?).

This is a great album of modern jazz, mixing jazz instruments with rock effects and a touch of hip-hop. The middle of the album (tracks 4-6) are a little weaker than the rest, but it’s overall a very interesting album to listen to.

Listen to: Litany Against Fear

Listen to: Anthem (Postdiluvian Adaptation)

Click here to buy Anthem by Christian Scott.

Best of Bootie 2007 January 13, 2008

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Best of Bootie 2007 is a collection of the 21 best mashups of 2007 compiled by DJs Adrian & the Mysterious D. It can be downloaded for free, and there’s a track by a guy called DJ Moule on it (you need to be French to really get the kick out of DJ Moule’s name). How could you not give this album a spin?

Quoting Wikipedia, a mashup or bootleg is a song or composition created from the combination of the music from one song with the a cappella from another. It allows to listen to well-known song with a brand new angle, and despite some hit-and-misses, but it’s always interesting.

Galvanize The Empire (Chemical Brothers vs. John Williams) by Party Ben has an interesting Star Wars theme that will appeal to geeks. Go Home Productions give us a good rendition of Fever using the rhythm of The Passenger on Passenger Fever (Peggy Lee vs. Iggy Pop). Fade To Pretty Vacant (Visage vs. Sex Pistols vs. The Charlatans vs. Fun Lovin’ Criminals vs. Nouvelle Vague) by Copycat is also very nice, helped by the good basis that Fade To Grey is.

I feel bad for criticizing my fellow Frenchman DJ Moule, but I did not like Sympathy For Teen Spirit (Rolling Stones vs. Queen vs. Nirvana). Similarly, I have issues with Funky Goes To Hollywood (Wild Cherry vs. Frankie Goes To Hollywood) by Earworm; all the energy from Play That Funky Music builds up, but the chorus in this mashup is the one from Relax, which feels frustrating.

Phantom On The Bottom (The Lady Tigra vs. Justice), Don’t Stop Believin’ In Planet Rock (Journey vs. Afrika Bambaataa) or More Than On Point (House of Pain vs. Boston) are other tracks that I do not care too much for.

On the other hand, Say It Right Away (Nelly Furtado vs. The Egg vs. Madonna) by Earworm (using The Egg’s Walking Away as the basis of the track), Divide & Kreate’s Illiterate City (Jackson 5 vs. Guns N’ Roses) (associating Jackson 5 lyrics with Guns N’ Roses music), and especially DJ Magnet’s Love Comes Running Up That Hill Quickly (Placebo vs. Pet Shop Boys vs. Kate Bush) are excellent.

Go listen to it. Below are a couple of excerpt to give you a taste.

Listen to: Say It Right Away (Nelly Furtado vs. The Egg vs. Madonna)

Listen to: Love Comes Running Up That Hill Quickly (Placebo vs. Pet Shop Boys vs. Kate Bush)

Click here to download Best of Bootie 2007.

Rihanna – Good Girl Gone Bad January 11, 2008

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I came across Rihanna for the first time on the radio when I starded hearing Umbrella. I hated this song, I found it repetitive, I couldn’t understand why people liked it, but for some reason my wife did, so Good Girl Gone Bad is another CD that I got her as a present. Once the CD was in our music collection, I got curious about why she was so popular and started listening to the album.

The album’s opening song is Umbrella, which gave the CD a bad start for me. However, I liked a number of subsequent songs quite well, such as Don’t Stop the Music, Breaking Dishes, Rehab, even though that’s a style of music that I don’t usually listen to. Question Existing is interesting, but I could not help but wonder how real the lyrics are; they try hard to show that she is a good girl, compared to today’s Hollywood’s crazyness.

Good Girl Gone Bad is also nice, but I really have issues with the repeated use of we was; I don’t like misuse of grammar in general, especially intentionally, and every instance of we was makes me cringe.

What I wasn’t expecting was that, after a few listens of the album, Umbrella would start growing on me. I now appreciate the rhythm of this song, and by listening more carefully to it, I really got into her voice.

There are other songs that I am still undecided on, such as Push Up On Me and Sell Me Candy, and others that I don’t like (e.g. Say It, which sounds like a Spice Girls song), but despite my first impressions, I quite like this CD in the end.

Listen to: Don’t Stop The Music

Listen to: Breakin’ Dishes

Click here to buy Good Girl Gone Bad by Rihanna .

Emily King – East Side Story December 31, 2007

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I bought East Side Story by Emily King as part of my exploration of R&B, after she came to play a mini concert at work. I actually missed the concert, but it was enough to make me curious about her and try her album.

I really got into the first song, Walk In My Shoes, which has a very good beat. This is apparently the title that she tried to put forward, as the album contains a bonus track, with is an alternate version featuring Lupe Fiasco. Another song that I quite like is Alright.

Not all songs pleased me though. The rhythm box is really overused on You Can Get By. E Melody doesn’t do it for me.

The album also features a cover of Bill Whithers’s Aint’ No Sunshine. It’s a nice cover, and you can really hear that Emily King has a very nice voice on it, but it’s not that different from the original. I always wondered about the appeal of artists to do covers on album studios that are not radically different; examples of good covers in my opinion are Hey! Joe by Willie DeVille or All Along the Watchtower by The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

As I’m really a beginner in R&B, I’m not quite sure how this album would fare with R&B fans. Coming with a rock background, I found it a promising but unequal first album. Emily King is only 21 years old, so I’m sure we’ll hear from her again soon.

Listen to: Walk In My Shoes

Listen to: Alright

Click here to buy East Side Story by Emily King.

PJ Harvey – White Chalk December 29, 2007

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I had gotten comfortable with PJ Harvey’s rocky sound. From To Bring You My Love to Who The Fuck?, she had a lot of decibels to release, in a way that very much pleased me. However, when I listened to the preview of her latest album, White Chalk, on her Web site last summer, I discovered that it was going to be very far from the sound I was familiar with coming from her: no heavy guitars, no screaming, but harps, pianos, fiddles and other acoustic instruments with Polly-Jean Harvey’s voice.

This is why, when I bought the CD, I was wondering how much I was going to listen to it.

The packaging itself is different: instead of a standard jewel case, a very thin cardboard sleeve with PJ Harvey wearing a white dress, in a photo that could have been taken a century ago.

The music turned out to be very soothing. Songs mainly feature her voice, sometimes a-cappella, and a piano, with a few other instruments. Some really bear her style in my opinion (e.g. The Piano), but all the arrangements are extremely simple. It took me a couple of listens to really get past what I thought PJ Harvey’s music for to really get into it; I then learned to enjoy it in a way which is completely different from her other albums.

It is basically a short (only 33.5 minutes), refreshing album. It’s not the type of album that you’ll be listening to in a loop, but rather one that you’ll be very happy to put on when you’re in the right mood and that will do its job then. Below are a couple of my favorite songs on this album, Dear Dearkness and Before Departure.

Listen to: Dear Darkness

Listen to: Before Departure

Click here to buy White Chalk by PJ Harvey.