Albums you've been listening to lately

[thanoson]

Hey Zulu, thanks for the Lamb. It's pretty good. As a big Portishead fan, I really love the sound of this.

[Jakew]

I have mostly been listening to Nujabes and Vampire Weekend.

[Cardmaster]

Mika's "In Cartoon Motion" is PHENOMENAL. Been listening to it non-stop for about two days.
His main influences are Queen and Freddy Mercury, (which really shows in some songs) but everything he makes is just plain fun.

I'd really recommend him for anyone who likes upbeat songs full of sweet vocal arrangements, hilarious lyrics and RIDICULOUSLY catchy tunes.

Two songs to check out:
"Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)"
"Love Today"

Awesome stuff! :D

-CM

[zuludelta]

Hey Zulu, thanks for the Lamb. It's pretty good. As a big Portishead fan, I really love the sound of this.

You're welcome

I have mostly been listening to Nujabes and Vampire Weekend.

Hey a fellow Nujabes fan!

Stuff I've been listening to lately:

Various Artists - Cafe del Mar Vols. 3 - 6: The Cafe del Mar series of CDs have set the standard for most "chillout" collections. I haven't kept pace with the recent volumes (I think they're up to volume 14 now), but the mid-to-late 1990s stuff mixed by DJ Jose Padilla have always held a nostalgic spot in my aural memory... reminds me of waiting for the dawn with friends in the streets of Manila's Malate district, half-drunk, beats still reverberating inside our skulls, looking for any place that would serve coffee.
Media Links:
Nightmares on Wax - Nights Interlude
Nova nova - Tones
AR Rahman - Mumbai Theme
Jose Padilla - Adios Ayer

Jazztronik - Samurai: Jazztronik is the stage moniker of Japanese DJ/producer Ryota Nozaki. The stuff on Samurai is a lot more traditional jazz-sounding than Nozaki's previous nu-jazz work released under his name as DJ Nozaki. I personally like the breezy tone of this album, but it borders on the dreaded "smooth jazz" genre at times.
Media Links:
Samurai
Colour of Day

Nujabes - Metaphorical Music: Nujabes (a.k.a. DJ Jun Seba) is probably more well-known in the West for his contributions to the Samurai Champloo anime soundtrack. He's pretty much laboured under the shadow of Japanese hip-hop/electronica giant DJ Krush (to whom he's always compared), but he's got a unique sound of his own, incorporating a lot of latin and jazz inflections in his hip-hop productions.
Media links:
Letter from Yokosuka
Lady Brown (feat. Cise Starr)
F.I.L.O. (feat. Shing02)
 
Rivermaya - Atomic Bomb: A little Rivermaya primer: Rivermaya was a band created precisely to cash in on the burgeoning Philippine indie/post-rock scene of the early/mid-1990s. Although they were initially derided by many of their fellow musicians for being a "manufactured" act, they eventually shed the label by forging their own unique sound. Atomic Bomb, released in 1998, was their last record with original vocalist Bamboo Mañalac (who went on to form his own group). Many fans consider this record to be the best of their early work, and I'm inclined to agree with them.
Media Links:
If
Elesi (Rotor)
Hinahanap-hanap Kita (I'm Searching for You)

Eraserheads - Aloha Milkyway: Perhaps the most influential Philippine act to come out in the last 20 years, the Eraserheads' music is an appealing blend of tight pop hooks, folk, punk, and a post-rock edge (think Manu Chao meets Elvis Costello). 1998's Aloha Milkyway is one of their less popular releases (it was their first primarily English-language album), but I liked how they tried a more experimental approach to their music this time out, especially since they were beginning to stagnate creatively after 5 years or so of unparalleled local commercial success (which even led to an MTV Asia Viewer's Choice Award as favourite Asian group).
Media Links:
Andalusian Dog
Julie Tearjerky
Tamagotchi Baby     
Fruitcake (originally released on the Eraserheads' Christmas album of the same name)

[Jakew]

Went on a downloading spree recently, so I'm currently listening to MGMT, the new Goldfrapp (I can't believe she's 41! What a doll!), Akron Family, Danger Mouse's Grey Album, a Susumu Yokota compilation, DJ Format's Music For The Mature B-Boy, Fabriclive.36, American Music Club's new one, MF Doom's Mm... Food, Dan Deacon, and Fog's Ether Teeth.

Like a lot of his western audience, I got into Nujabes via Samurai Champloo (one of the my favourite anime series ever).

[rain]

Hey Zulu... Nice topic.

Currently the Number one album in my Ipod:
8 Diagrams - Wu Tang Clan
Easily proving that the talent behind this group is what truly makes them legends and one of the most influential rap acts of all time. RZA is at his peak on this one, combining his amazing and imaginative use of samples with his choice of beats that are always just "slightly off" but work oh-so-well. The rhyming is easily the best stuff I've heard since... well... 36 Chambers.
I can't reccomend this CD enough.... if you like rap or not... it's truly amazing.
(BTW there is *one* truly atrocious cut on this CD, removing the group effort between Wu-Tang, John Frusciante and Erykah Badu will make enjoying this CD alot easier. It really is the only dog cut on it... but it is REALLY bad)

[zuludelta]

Glad you're enjoying the thread rain.

Been spending a lot of my evenings curled up into a fetal position listening to my CDs (don't ask), so I might as well write about them here, hopefully it'll inspire you guys to check some of these artists out:

Various Artists - Environmentally Sound: This compilation album was released as part of a World Wildlife Fund campaign, with all sales going to fund the WWF's conservation efforts in the Philippines. I'm not usually too fond of these well-meaning albums, since song popularity often takes precedence over how the tracks fit the record as a whole, but Environmentally Sound actually sounds coherent. The album's 14 tracks represent a good cross-section of current Filipino popular music, from the excellent trip-hop of Drip to the virtuoso jazz guitar of Johnny Alegre Affinity to the traditional folk strains of Pinikpikan.

Media Links:
Drip - Turning Grey (they're a great live trip-hop act, especially when they've got turntablist Caliph8 in tow, it also helps that singer Beng Calma is teh hawt! check out their video for Song #9 for more Drippy goodness)
Johnny Alegre Affinity - Jazzhound
Pinikpikan - Butanding ("Whale Shark") note: 30 second excerpt only, registration required to hear full song

Chillitees - Extra Rice: An up and coming Philippine pop/R&B group... vocalist Uela Basco is as good as any you'll find out there right now, with a vocal range to put more popular singers to shame, and the band's instrumentalists are rock-solid professionals. These guys put on a great live show.

Media Links:
Paikot-ikot ("Going Around in Circles")
Sama Na ("Come On Already")
Ikaw ("You") 
not on the album, but here's Chillitees performing "Sama Na" live (in my hometown of Baguio no less!). I'm always impressed with bands who can flawlessly recreate their studio sound live (Uela does a great job filling in and doing the rap portion of the song).

The Radioactive Sago Project - Urban Gulaman: A great jazz/spoken word outfit with humourous, but always politically and socially incisive lyrics. Their musicality is outstanding, but being a spoken word act, a lot of the impact of their work is lost if you don't understand the lyrics (the album title translates to "Urban Fruit Jelly" by the way).

Media Links:
Alaala ni Batman ("Memories of Batman"): my favorite superhero-themed song, an excellent excellent song that talks about a child's continuing fascination with the character Batman, and how it sees him through poverty, social upheaval, growing old, betrayal, a broken lovelife, and depression)
Astro (there's a killer trumpet solo at around 3:55 in the video)
Mr. Pogi In Space ("Mr. Handsome In Space") 

UpdharmaDown - Fragmented: One of my new favourite acts of the past couple of years. I can best describe their music as a mix of traditional Filipino pop and Western alternative music passed through a trip-hop, R&B, and ambient filter. Think Sigur Ros-meets-Lamb-meets-Joss Stone in Southeast Asia. They were recently featured in a Time magazine article that touted them as the Asian music phenomenon that has the best chance of achieving cross-over success in North America. They're accomplished musicians in their own right (vocalist/keyboardist Armi Millare has a bachelor's degree in Asian Music), and have toured with Incubus, Arcade Fire, Bloc Party, among others. Fragmented is an excellent record that runs the full gamut, from the catchy groove-pop of "Oo" to the alterna-pop of "Maybe" and the Sigor Ros-esque instrumental of the title track and "Broken Mirrors and Screaming Turtles," I can't recommend this album enough.

Media Links:
Maybe
Oo ("Yes")
Pag-agos ("Flow")

Not on the album, but these live videos are impressive (guitarist Carlos Tañada does a great job of layering his sound and I love it when drummer Ean Mayor does a manual "break" every now and then, reminiscent of The Roots drummer ?uestlove's drum&bas break in the outro to "You Got Me"): 

UpdharmaDown live clip 1
UpdharmaDown live clip 2 (the first song is a remake of a classic Filipino pop hit from the 1970s)
Playing with the Manila Symphony Orchestra

[zuludelta]

Cynthia Alexander - Rippingyarns: I used to watch Cynthia Alexander perform regularly when I was in my late teens living in Manila's red-light district during the late 1990s. My apartment was across the street from The Verve Room (an upscale music lounge that hosted up-and-coming artists) that I could occasionally get into despite being a "financially-challenged" working student because I had friends who sometimes did production/set design work. Alexander's material is probably best described as "neo-folk" music, think Carole King meets Ravi Shankar. Prior to her releasing her solo records to limited international critical acclaim (and even more limited commercial success), Alexander's most prominent exposure in the international music scene was probably winning the Best Bass Player award in the 1989 Yamaha Band Explosion contest held in Budokan Hall in Tokyo.

Rippingyarns is a solid set of tunes, although it does seem to lack a sense of focus at times, and Alexander's distinct vocal style is not to everybody's taste.

Media Links:
Intertwyne
The Weather Report
The Flowers of Youth (a pretty sad torch song... in the words of Chris Rock, "hope you don't slit your wrists to this one")
A brief interview with Cynthia Alexander (where she talks about songwriting, bass-playing, her musical influences)

[Verfall]

Tarja Turunen, the former lead singer of Nightwish, went solo after being unceremoniously kicked from the band. Just got it yesterday, and it's very good if you like an operatic lead with hard guitars.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwbtbfAnI80

[zuludelta]

Nujabes - Modal Soul: Japanese DJ/producer Jun Seba's second solo effort is another solid outing, although calling it a "solo effort" might be inaccurate... as in Metaphorical Music collaborators Cise Starr and Shing02 and others again lend their talents on some tracks. The great thing about Seba's heavily jazz-influenced music is that it stands very well on its own, and MC's are only used to embellish the track further, instead of being used to cover up pedestrian backing tracks/production or to extend a track beyond it's actual listenable length. This isn't DJ Krush (that may or may not be a good thing depending on what you're looking for), but it's a solid hip-hop record, and a welcome respite from the aural detritus that passes for a lot of hip-hop these days.

Media Links:
The Sign (feat. Pase Rock)
Feather (feat. Cise Starr & Akin)
Thank You (feat. Apani B)
Luv(sic) (feat. Shing02)

[Spam]

Let's see... around two weeks ago I listened to Explosions in the Sky's album, "Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die...". It still is an amazing album. My favorite song off of there is probably "Yasmin the Light." Most definately recommended listening. If you haven't heard this song, I highly suggest you check it out. Especially since I'm giving you a link, too. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLRbriRAU9s

I've also been listening to one NiN song. "A Warm Place." Such a pretty song...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj3QWxFf4XM

[detourne_me]

Let's see... around two weeks ago I listened to Explosions in the Sky's album, "Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die...". It still is an amazing album. My favorite song off of there is probably "Yasmin the Light." Most definately recommended listening. If you haven't heard this song, I highly suggest you check it out. Especially since I'm giving you a link, too. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLRbriRAU9s

Definitely a great choice Spam! When they were touring for this album along with ...And you will know us by the trail of dead,  that was one of my musical highlights in my life, catching the show, and making friends with the guys afterwards.

[Protomorph]

I have been listening to a few new things lately.

Daughter Darling, Sow (Anna Wildsmith and Ray Watts), Qntal and Xandria

Hyperlinks where possible to peruse their work (the bands' MySpace pages)

[zuludelta]

Neat links Proto... is it just me or is the mid-1990s trip-hop sound seeping its way into current popular music? I suppose it never really went away for some people and in some parts of the world (Europe and Asia, especially), but I hear trip-hop inflections in everything these days... TV ads, video game soundtracks, non-trip-hop albums.
 

[DetroitBerserker]

Song:*bleep* it feels good to be a Gangsta - The Geto Boys

Song:My Mind's Playin' Tricks on Me - The Geto Boys

All of the Heathen and Earthling Albums by David Bowie

Album:Collected by Massive Attack

Every Album by the Stone Temple Pilots

Album:Syd Barrett - Opel

[style]

Kanye West "Graduation"

[Spam]

Let's see... around two weeks ago I listened to Explosions in the Sky's album, "Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die...". It still is an amazing album. My favorite song off of there is probably "Yasmin the Light." Most definately recommended listening. If you haven't heard this song, I highly suggest you check it out. Especially since I'm giving you a link, too. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLRbriRAU9s

Definitely a great choice Spam! When they were touring for this album along with ...And you will know us by the trail of dead,  that was one of my musical highlights in my life, catching the show, and making friends with the guys afterwards.

Oh man, just seeing both of those bands play would be absolutely outstanding... that must have been a great show.  ;)

[detourne_me]

yeah, and it was insane!!!
in a tiny club, EITS were playing "a song for our fathers" so intensely that (crap i forget his name) the guy with the kind of fro, broke his tambourine in pieces he was smashing it so hard on the floor (playing an ebow on the guitar with the other hand) and michael was playing bass so hard that his hand ripped right open!

then in the trail of dead set ,conrad went nuts playing drums (i think he broke a rib the previous night in toronto)
so he gave us a crash and a highhat in the audience with a tonne of sticks... then i think he broke a beer bottle on his head.
i still remember it like yesterday! haha! they really got into that show.

[zuludelta]

Just stumbled upon a video of UpDharmaDown guitarist Carlos Tañada (I "reviewed" their album a couple of posts earlier) trying out a Boss RC-2 LoopStation... awesome way to recreate the layered guitar sound in a live setting (although all the foot-switching would probably require some tap dancing lessons):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=n-BcbEDRp6c

[detourne_me]

Nice find ZD!
i've been out of the new music scene for too long,  i think the last post rock album i heard was one by Eluvium (and it was kinda sucky)

[zuludelta]

Nice find ZD!
i've been out of the new music scene for too long,  i think the last post rock album i heard was one by Eluvium (and it was kinda sucky)

Yeah, it's hard to find newer "post-rock" acts that have their own distinct sound... part of the reason is because so much of "the sound" has been codified and systematized (an incidental side-effect of the popularity of groups like Sigur Rós, Tortoise, Mogwai, etc.) and the easier reproducibility provided by digitization. The ones that do manage to stand out from the pack are those who use post-rock techniques in different aural settings (like UpDharmaDown... who are probably more pop/R&B-influenced than your typical "post-rock" act or the more diverse-sounding Constellation music label guys like Godspeed You! Black Emperor).

Also, it bears mentioning that many of the newer generation of "post-rock" musicians just aren't very good, from a technical standpoint. I think one of the requirements for a musician to be in a "reactionary" artistic movement should be a reasonable degree of familiarity with whatever's being reacted to. It gives much more depth and context to the music. Unfortunately, many younger musicians simply ape the sound without knowing the creative impetus that resulted in post-rock (a criticism, I suppose, that one can level at not jsut newer post-rock acts, but at many of the "new" or "modern" version of reactionary musical trends... like "indie music" or "new metal" or "modern punk" or "new alternative" or "neo-soul")     

[detourne_me]

your right,  but i don't want to kind of "top-out" my musical selection in the mid 2000's it kinda seems funny, cause i remember growing up with guys that swore that music would never get better than iron maiden/metallica and slayer,  and i find my musical selection ending with (on one side, Mogwai, GYBE! and others) then on the other side the punk and HC scene which hasn't really gotten better than it was in the late 90's.

ahh this isn't totally true,  theres still canadian rock like the constantines and arcade fire to sate me.
ignore me

[zuludelta]

your right,  but i don't want to kind of "top-out" my musical selection in the mid 2000's it kinda seems funny, cause i remember growing up with guys that swore that music would never get better than iron maiden/metallica and slayer,  and i find my musical selection ending with (on one side, Mogwai, GYBE! and others) then on the other side the punk and HC scene which hasn't really gotten better than it was in the late 90's.

Yeah, I'm always on the look out for new stuff to listen to myself. It's funny when I trace the development of my listening habits, if you had told me ten years ago that I'd be listening to nu jazz now, I'd have called you a liar. Like most people in my (our?) generation, I was raised on a lot of classic rock (Beatles, Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, etc.) and I spent the first 18 years or so of my life pretty much absorbing the whole guitar-oriented rock thing (everything from folk-rock, blues-rock, punk, to prog, to metal and even more experimental stuff like early Sonic Youth) but I think at some point, I just burned out on the whole thing, which led me to discovering, relatively late (around the late 1990s, early 2000s), classical music, jazz, hip-hop, house music, and all the other variegated forms of electronica. Now, I'm in a place, musically, where I can't even imagine what it was like before when I shunned some musical acts and their material because they weren't similar to the stuff that I grew up with.   

[Jakew]

The new Cadence Weapon and Black Keys albums are quite good.

[zuludelta]

Blue Scholars - Bayani: Blue Scholars is comprised of the "indie" hip-hop duo of Seattle, Washington-based Geologic (MC George Quibuyen, a.k.a. Prometheus Brown) and Sabzi (DJ Alexei Saba Mohajerjasbi) and 2007's Bayani is their second full-length record. While their beats and rhythms don't stray too far from the slickly-produced, radio-friendly and somewhat jazzy influences of acts like Gang Starr and Eric B. & Rakim, it's their incisive, socially, and politically conscious lyrics that define their sound.

Many of the songs on Bayani revolve around the difficulties of immigrant life in America (Geologic is the son of Filipino immigrant parents and Sabzi is of Iranian-American heritage), one song in particular, "The Distance," really touched a nerve with me and reminded me of my own difficulties as an immigrant in Canada (particularly the bit about being armed with "a Third-World diploma not even worth the paper it's printed on"). As an aside, Bayani is a Filipino word meaning "hero of the people" and the word Bayan is also Farsi for "The Word." Another major recurring theme in the album is the duo's vocal anti-war and anti-globalization stance (evident on songs like "Back Home" and "50K Deep")... these guys are definitely not bashful about their politics.

The one thing that detracts from the album is that some people might find it too "heavy" for casual listening. The politically and socially charged lyrics can be a bit too much to take in one sitting for some, this is definitely not something you can just play in the background at work, the lyrics demand to be noticed and digested. Not to say that the album is too serious for its own good... there are a bunch of more laid-back tracks, mostly about life in the Pacific Northwest (such as "Joe Metro," "North by Northwest," and "Ordinary Guys"), and Geologic's lyrics can be whimsical at times, making numerous cultural references to comics, cartoons, pro-wrestling(!), and Seattle-area sports teams, but for the most part, the songs on this album aren't going to make any party mixes soon (unless, you know, it's a political party mix ha ha ha).

In any case, I heavily recommend this record, it's a great example of intelligent, well-crafted  hip-hop.

Media Links:
The Distance
Morning of America
Bayani
Joe Metro
Back Home
   

[zuludelta]

P.O.T. - Remastered: Remastered is the 2005 re-release of Philippine funk-rock group P.O.T.'s eponymous 1997 debut album. I was something of a fan of the band back in the day, having followed vocalist Karl Roy's career since his stint in proto-funk/hardcore outfit Advent Call (before it turned into a sad excuse for a novelty rock band). Besides the 12 tracks on the original recording, this release also includes 4 new tracks: re-arranged versions of 3 of their bigger hits as well as one all-new song. The tunes are pretty much solid all-around, although they really sound dated (think Red Hot Chili Peppers circa the BloodSugarSexMagik era) this time around. The bonus tracks aren't worth seeking out by themselves, in my opinion, so the only people I can see actually getting these are completists and people who want a complete documentation of "modern" (if a tad obscure) Asian music, or fans of the band who never got around to getting the record when it first came out.

Media Links (it's nearly impossible to find any of their media online, since they never made any actual videos, so all I could find was a bunch of live captures and a couple of snippets):

FYB
Fishcake
Ulitin ("Again") (registration required to hear full song)
Yugyugan Na! (Let's Dance!) (registration required to hear full song)   

[zuludelta]

Pacha Massive - All Good Things: Pacha Massive is the New York-based duo of the Dominican Republic-born Nova and Colombia native Maya (although the backing group is comprised of members from Guatemala and the Philippines). Maya handles most of the vocals and is credited as the group's bass player while Nova handles guitars, some backing vocals and rapping, and keyboards. Pacha Massive represents the continued blurring of lines between musical genres, especially with international artists. Their sound is a lo-fi blend of trip-hop, drum and bass, and Latin music, with some great pop songwriting hooks thrown in for good measure: Imagine Esthero's 1998 album Breathe From Another mixed with some Manu Chao and Sade. If I had one misgiving about this album is that Pacha Massive display their influences too readily, but that's something to be expected from a debut record. Excellent, sultry stuff to listen to.

Media Links:
Don't Let Go
Pacha Massive interview and live set on Latination
Pacha Massive's MySpace page (with listenable cuts from their album)

[zuludelta]

Buklod - Kanlungan: Mga Piling Kanta ng Buklod: Buklod was a Philippine folk-rock band from the 1990s. They never really achieved sizable commercial success, although they did find a niche following in the college and activist communities, because of their ostensibly socially conscious lyrics. I actually first heard their music at the University of the Philippines in the late 1990s, and I would go on to see frontman/guitarist Noel Cabangon perform at a number of venues, including the most memorable one, when he sang to the assembled crowd at the massive week-long protest that led to the resignation of corrupt Philippine president Joseph Estrada in early 2001... it was a beautiful thing to behold, a million people listening in rapt silence as he sang about the common man's struggles.

This album (whose title translates as "Sanctuary: Select Songs from Buklod") is a "best of" collection of sorts, with a dozen songs culled from their three album discography. This record actually does a good job of representing the band's evolution, from the acoustic peasant and worker anthems of their first album such as "Sakada (Sharecropper)" to the more contemporary sounding and more commercially accessible tunes from their latter two efforts such as the anti-war song "Tatsulok (Triangle)" and the environmental awareness themed "Usok (Smoke)."

As with any musical act that lays the politics on heavily, some of their songs can border on preachiness, which can take away from the music's ability to be "fun" listening, unless you're the type who enjoys grooving to songs about land reform, the plight of the urban poor, and the continuing workers' struggle. Their best songs manage a good balance of musicality and subtle, but still weighty, lyrics, such as "Kanlungan (Sanctuary)," which is actually a song about environmental issues that doubles as a poignant song about lost love, and "Tumindig Ka (Stand Up)," a song about worker's rights which manages to be a pretty good toe-tapping reggae number.   

Strangely enough, their songs gained much much more popularity after the band dissolved, "Kanlungan (Sanctuary)," in particular, became a major commercial hit, being featured on TV and film soundtracks, and covered by other, more famous artists. After the group broke up in the late 1990s, singer Noel Cabangon became a vocal and active member of the Akbayan political party, a centre-left pacifist organization that advocates agrarian reform, peasants and workers rights, and environmental protection issues (it was inevitable, I suppose, based on the tenor of his lyric-writing). Cabangon continues to make music as a solo performer, releasing three solo records and even landing the lead role in the Manila production of Jesus Christ Superstar.

Media Links:
Tumindig Ka (Stand Up)
Kanlungan (Sanctuary)
Tatsulok (Triangle)

[zuludelta]

Drip - Far Side of the World: I'd previously mentioned indie trip-hop group Drip when I wrote about the Environmentally Sound World Wildlife Fund fundraising CD which features one of their unreleased songs. Far Side of the World is the Philippine quartet's first album, and for the most part, it's a perfectly capable effort but it has its fair share of weaknesses.

First, the good: For a group operating with limited resources, the backing sound is pretty tight, and the DJing/sampling/programming trio of Malek Lopez, Morse Magbanua, and Caliph8 is solid, even though they rely too readily at times on tired trip-hop tropes. It's easy to spot their influences here (a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you feel about readily-spotted influences), everything from latter-day Portishead, Lamb, to Morcheeba, and I'm pretty sure that at least one of the songs on the album was heavily influenced by the work of Frou Frou's Guy Sigsworth.

Now, the bad: I'm just not a fan of Beng Calma's vocals. At best, I can describe it as adequate, but there's no escaping the fact that she doesn't bring a lot of range. Still, she's a good live performer and I'm pretty sure she's a significant reason they sell tickets (google "Beng Calma FHM" if you doubt my word). It doesn't help that the vocal mixing needs a little punching up. And the song "Hey Preppie" is just plain horrible and embarrassing, I've heard better bubble gum commercials, definitely the album's low point.

All in all, a decent rookie effort for an indie electronica group, but I feel like only their three strongest songs "Copy," "Song Number 9," and "Sweet Cheeks" are worth the price of admission. You can buy their whole album or individual songs (at 99 cents each) online, by the way, and they come in a non-copy protected VBR mp3 format, so you can use them in multiple mp3 players and copy the tracks with no limit.

They can only get better though... I've heard samples of the new songs on their upcoming album and they sound way superior to their initial work.

Media Links:

You can listen to the whole album for free here.
Awesome hand-animated video for Sweet Cheeks.
Video for Song #9

[zuludelta]

Kala - Manila High: Kala is widely regarded as the current standard bearers for the "Manila Sound", a sub-genre of Philippine music highly influenced by 1960s/1970s funk, pop, disco, and even French/Quebec yé-yé music. The Manila Sound peaked in popularity during the late 1970s but was eventually buried under the influx of popular Western pop music acts after the lifting of martial law in the early 1980s.

Kala deliver a real tight and smooth sound that many of today's popular pseudo-funk musicians would give up their knitted tams and rasta hats for. Even if you're not familiar with the Manila Sound genre, Manila High is a good place to start exploring international funk and R&B.

Media Links:
Parapap
Jeepney
Manila High
Pulis Pangkalawakan (Galactic Police)