Impassioned Rations

Evening m'colleagues. It's Tuesday and we're into the jungle once more. With that in mind, I thought I'd throw a few more crumbs to feed your musical souls and some sharp tunes to cut through those metaphorical vines. This is what has been getting me through February. This, and a bottle of Laphroaig...

Two Dancers - Wild Beasts
The first thing that you might notice when this album starts, aside from the beautifully slow-building intro and superbly measured rhythm, is the shrill, almost operatic voice of lead singer Hayden Thorpe. It takes what might otherwise be a simply good album to new heights of interest and fascination that lie outside the usual realm of modern indie music. Mmm, yes...

Just Saying Is All - Mux Mool
Moving, yet fun and not displeasingly, cheesy techno-style, 80's hiphoppy stuff. If that makes sense. Even if it doesn't make sense...

The Professor's Here - Gary Davis
This is just one song rather than a whole album and is one I am oft want to bang on and on about. Pretty much the only track I've ever heard that reasonably falls under the genre of 'experimental disco'. Doesn't that on it's own make you want to listen to it?

Solaris Original Soundtrack - Cliff Martinez
Delicate, poignant and haunting, this set-off the Stephen Soderbergh remake of the Russian original just beautifully.

Setting the tone for the whole film, with precisely inserted strings and what sounds like a Hang drum (pretty much my favourite instrument right now) this makes for incredible cycling-through-London-at-4am music. Gently mind-blowing...

Watina - Andy Palacio and The Garifuna Collective
I positively hate the term 'world music' and am compelled to do that two-fingered inverted commas thing whenever I use it to more easily convey music to someone. Like a catholic crossing themselves when they mishear references to funk.

Surely all music is world music, unless you count the experimental, 80's electronic plinkyplonky from Close Encounters.

Anyways, tiny rant over.

Hailing from the Garifuna people from all round the Caribbean and Central America and recorded in Belize. Filling the band full of masters of their trade and a deep understanding of these traditions and complex drum rhythms, this is one of the most joyous and uplifting albums you will hear in quite some length of time. Even in the depths of a February Tuesday, this can bring a spotlight of sunshine...

Over and, indeed, out x