Mysterious Skin – Original Soundtrack by Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd

In the 80s there were people making beautiful chill out lounge music. This was before Ibiza, Café del Mar and Buddha Bar, and they called it “ambient”. Harold Budd, ambient luminary, is an American neo-classical composer that creates sparse, haunting, mostly piano-driven compositions that captured the attention of the indie rock underground over 20 years ago. On the 4AD label he collaborated with the Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie on the album ‘Moon and the Melodies’. Cocteau Twins have Elizabeth Fraser’s angelic, consciously inarticulate vocals combined with Guthrie’s impressionist swabs of guitar. Now these two phenomenal artists collaborate again to do the soundtrack for this disturbing but beautiful film. Although lots of mesmerizing music from the 4AD label plays in the movie, the soundtrack itself only features Budd and Guthrie. This is intelligent music that you can listen to at bedtime after a long day, or at breakfast on your day off. If you enjoy this, I can highly recommend the Cocteaus’ Victorialand (recorded when the drummer was away, which made it dreamy and ambient) and also Budd’s current collaboration with Eraldo Bernocchi, Fragments From The Inside.

Bruce Springsteen – We shall overcome (the songs of Pete Seeger)

To me the more quiet moments of this singer songwriter were always his best. In 2002 he released a truly moving document of September 11, entitled ‘The Rising’. It featured some of his best songwriting in years, and reunited him with the E Street band for the first time in the studio since ‘Born in the USA’. Then 2005’s ‘Devils and Dust’ album combined his acoustic side with the rich layered Americana sound that he is best loved for. On we shall overcome Bruce invited a quite a few good musician friends from New York with rootsy instruments like banjos and fiddles to cover the songs of political folk legend Pete Seeger. This was recorded with no rehearsals or overdubs during a 3-day session at his New Jersey farm. The music comes off rough and natural, and his voice on the almost unfamiliar backing reminds one of Tom Waits or the Pogues. This is new territory for him, but Springsteen treads masterfully.

Carmel – The Drum Is Everything

If you have never heard of Carmel, and female vocals like Shirley Bassey, Billie Holliday and Della Reese are your thing, then you should investigate Carmel. The band is fronted by a beautiful blond lady that went from a modeling career to pop in no time. The group started as a jazz combo that did an astonishing array of music from bluesy swing to dub infused chants and even gospel, but all with a jazz flavor reminiscent to the style of Frank Sinatra or even the Peddlars. With the aid of several session musicians, they recorded this debut album on 24 track tape for major label London records in 1984. At a time when new wave was fighting back at punk, Carmel appeared with the refreshing jazz chic of their hit single ‘Bad Day’. It was classic and timeless then and the music has not dated at all today, and that is something that few albums from that era can lay claim to. They recorded another five albums, but nothing ever equaled the passion and successful experimentation of The Drum Is Everything.

Twin freaks – twin freaks (Paul McCartney remixed by the Freelance Hellraiser)

Two years ago I stumbled across a song called ‘A stroke of genius’. This was indeed a pun because the track was an almost unbelievable sound illusion., It consisted of an instrumental part from a punk rock tune by the Strokes, with accapella vocals overlayed from Christina Aguilera’s ‘Genie in a bottle’. The strange sound marriage worked so well that the track became a hit. The mastermind behind this called himself the Freelance Hellraiser. I emailed him and he sent me some of his demo mixes in the post.

Then in 2004 the Freelance Hellraiser joined Paul McCartney on his European tour, Djing 25 minute opening sets before each performance. The last date was Glastonbury where Paul did a headline performance. At the time he said: "There is such an amazing album to be made of some of Paul's unknown tracks from the late Seventies and early Eighties. He was doing some utterly cool stuff then that the young audience would lap up now". Indeed Paul also liked what the Freelance Hellraiser was doing and commissioned these bootlegs to be released.

Here then is an album of some of Paul McCartney’s best but lesser known moments, from his electro pop experiments to his psychedelic rock era with his band Wings. The album spans his career from his first solo album to the most recent, all tracks remixed by the Freelance Hellraiser. It makes for a very interesting listen, with a general feel of psychedelic rock meets funk. This is TWIN FREAKS eponymous debut album and it is released through Parlophone Records on the 13th of June.

Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra – Government Magic EP

In 1998 The Daktaris released an album called ‘Soul Explosion' on New York based label Desco. The album was packaged to look like a re-release of an obscure afro-funk classic. The white band members were even given Nigerian aliases to make the hoax all the more believable. But what made it most convincing were the tight seventies styled afro funk grooves contained within. Some tracks had a part 1 and 2 layout, as if mastered from an original 7” single (they used to spread longer tracks over two sides, merely fading it out and back in on the next side).

Some members of The Daktaris went on to form Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, also an afrobeat revivalist group. Their hypnotic afro, latin and dub beats can easily be mistaken for prime seventies era Fela Kuti. They couldn’t match his sound any closer, for they even employ a Nigerian vocalist, Amadou Dioulde Diallo to sing in Spanish, Yoruba and deliberate broken English. Brass, organ, and vocal chants all amalgamate over a complex but tight rhythm into an aural feast that displays experienced musicians that enjoy what they do. This trendy updated sound will no doubt please lovers of anything from reggae to jazz to Claude Challe.

Antibalas is Spanish for bulletproof, and here they fire their final 30 minute round of killer grooves before the release of their anticipated fith album. The grooves are tighter than tight and display experienced musicians that enjoy what they do. Antibalas are available on Ninja Tune records.

Moonbootica - Moonbootica

Moonbootica first made a name for themselves as remixers. Now they also own their own label, Moonbootique Recordings. They certainly started making waves with their versions of Panjabi MC’s Mundian To Bach Ke and The Boogie Pimps’ Fear and Loathing sampling ‘Saltshaker’. Here then is their delicious and clever album of unexpected breaks and breakbeat house. Quite a few of these tracks were previously released on 12” vinyl. Collected in short form it makes for a good listen, coloured with lots of surprising guest vocals and samples ranging from an 80’s ballad by Imagination (who recently rerecorded their 80’s hit Just an Illusion into a club stomper with Dj Dero) to the Flirts’ ‘Passion’. They manage to update the Flirts’ classic into a monster with their signature touch of breaks, blurps and bleeps while they somehow maintain the funkyness of the original Bobby O production. Though some of the tracks lose my attention, there are enough gems here, like ‘Don is back again’, an acid spy-jazz theme, and ‘Hildegarde’, a moody, sexy organ groove featuring an obscure French vocal interplay. Both these tracks fit more in lounge territory, and they display Moonbootica’s diverse influences colourfully. You can get their recent single ‘Listen’ as a cellphone ringtone or buy legal Moonbootica mp3s at www.beatport.com.

Madonna - confessions on a dancefloor

Thirty years after moving from Michigan to New York to look for success, Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone, at the age of 46, releases her 14th album since her debut ‘Madonna’ in 1983. Once again she continues her formula of collaborating and composing closely with different producers to reinvent herself. This time it is a disco ride to surprise those that thought she would never emerge from her 90’s spiritual and political bubble. For a moment we thought we lost Madonna as she found herself, but she turns around here with anashamed dance pop, exactly what most fans were missing from her last two albums. The hooks are there, but despite the title, it never actually confesses as much as ‘American life’ did. From the clever Abba-sampling opening single it’s filter house all the way, lush arrangements, and only one breakbeat near the end to break the wanted dance monotony. On ‘I love New York’ she bitches in true style: ‘If you don’t like my attitude then you can F-off’. At First it’s the second single ‘Sorry’ which stands out. This is one of the best Madonna hits in years and it sticks like another ‘Into the groove’. No wonder you might hear the Green Velvet remix twice in the early Sunday morning hours on Sliver’s dancefloor. The tag on the cd cover promises a future plug track ‘Jump’. When this will be released we don’t know yet, but it’s a standout, written with her brother in law, alt-country star Joe Henry, who also wrote one of her previous hits ‘Don’t tell me’ and even recorded a lesser known but beautiful duet with her. With only slight variations in tempo, the album plays almost like a clubmix, though tracks never go on for too long, except maybe for third last track ‘Isaac’ which could snugly have fit on Ray of Light. This is what Madonna should sound like, now that she has explored far enough to return to form, and the proof of the pudding is that she is in vogue yet again. Fans can look out for a new Madonna documentary entitled ‘Im going to tell you a secret’and a limited edition Confessions Remixed album that has just been released.