Various Artists / It's A Cool, Cool Christmas / Jeepster For indie labels, assembling a holiday album is a challenging task. The mere act of acknowledging a nominally Christian event like Christmas can be the kiss of death among the fashionably agnostic indie rock set. The result is usually a mixed bag of newly-written, nominally holiday-themed songs, tongue-in-cheek takes on traditional tunes and few half clever, half kitschy re-interpretations of classics. It's a Cool, Cool Christmas is no exception...more» FEATURED ON THE BOOMBOX!
		Plastilina Mosh / Juan Manuel / Astralwerks Plastilina Mosh might hail from south of the border, but they have much more in common with French disco mavens Daft Punk or big beat guru Fatboy Slim than they do with any of the dozen or so currently hip Latin-pop superstar types. With Juan Manuel, keyboardist Alejandro Rosso and guitarist Jonàz display an impressive mastery of a cosmopolitan electronic dance idiom. "Nordic Laser" almost comes across like something from the Beta Band, whose Chris Allison had a hand in Juan Manuel's production...more» FEATURED ON THE BOOMBOX!
		Various Artists / The Rough Guide to the Music of Hawaii / World Music Network A veritable sponge, Hawaii has absorbed and integrated numerous musical influences over the years. In the early 1800s, visitors from Mexico and South America introduced guitars to the islands. Tweaking the instrument, Hawaiians loosened the instrument's strings, thereby creating the slack key sound that has reverberated from Hawaii ever since. Later that century, Portuguese immigrants introduced the islands to the braguinha, which inspired the locals to create the ukulele...more» FEATURED ON THE BOOMBOX!
		The 6ths / Hyacinths and Thistles / Merge The album begins with the twinkling "As You Turn You Go", which features a Momus vocal dancing around firefly-like beats and plucky harpsichord flourishes. Sally Timms lends an almost ethereal quality to the minimal new wave pulse of "Give Me Back My Dreams". The album's highlight comes soon after, as Bob Mould's stirring baritone croon joins the lush piano work of He Didn't", which wouldn't sound out of place on 69 Love Songs...more»
		Richard Buckner / The Hill / Overcoat/Convent While The Hill might be seen as an artist going for broke, I see it more as the work of a performer who knows his strengths and his present limitations. Richard Buckner's life might be too damn nice or uneventful to provide his voice with true dramatic landscapes, and so he has built this effort around Edgar Lee Master's dark, visually exciting Spoon River Anthology. And, from what I make of it, he has one-upped Edgar Lee by a poem or two...more»
		Cinerama / This is Cinerama / spinART Not too many women I know could resist hearing smoky lyrics like "Tout ce que je veux faire c'est être couchée à tes côtés, ici dans ce lit" or "I love your hips" from "Love", perfectly accented by the female background vocals, the poppy guitar and mellow flute. The cover of "London" should thrill Smiths fans as well as regular people. I suspect Gedge chose to cover it for the line "Do you think you've made the right decision this time?", but then, who knows...more»
		The Czars / Before...But Longer / Bella Union When The Czars rock out, in their most gentle way, on "Get Used to It", all seems well with your existence. You'll notice a touch of Mark Lanegan (without the cigarette gruff) on songs like "Gangrene"; you'll even find hints of Morricone, particularly when Paula Frazer (of Tarnation) is providing background vocals (you might call it Once Upon a Time in the Post Punk West). A good point of reference would be a more energized Low...more»
		Fizzle and the Flood / Golden Sand and the Grandstand / Unread There are at least seven thousand things that could go tragically wrong when a University of Nebraska at Omaha student/home-recordist decides to write a "home symphony" based on a fictional history of the local thoroughbred race track, and then record it all by himself using only a Radio Shack microphone. Miraculously, Doug Kabourek, the one-man music-making machine behind Golden Sand and the Grandstand, has managed to avoid virtually all of those pitfalls...more»
		Mad Planets / Music Makes Me Think of You: A Collection / Papercut Since Mad Planets has been defunct for more than a year, you may question the point of releasing a retrospective from a band that few have heard of and none will hear from again. The answer, quite simply, is that the New York trio wrote some smashing music. Plying the same feminine variety of punk that made the Primitives one of my favorite late '80s bands, Mad Planets combines pogo-ready rhythms, smoky melodies and poetic lyrics...more»
		Various Artists / Pieces of a Utopian Puzzle / Priapus Pieces of a Utopian Puzzle features six bands, and devotes a vinyl side to each of them, creating the equivalent of a boxed set of six EPs. This not only allows each group a lot of "space", but permits them to make a complete artistic statement without the next band's material coming in on their heels a la typical compilations. Of course, you can't really assess long-form textural explorations in the same way that you review a three-minute pop song...more»