(# 330) Ceu – Self Titled
(2006)
It’s not that often that I’m swayed into buying an album by a
sticker or overlay but this is one of the cases. Even more remarkably, on this occasion the
description is so spot on I may as well repeat it here. “Just when you think that Brazil must surely
have exhausted its supply of jazzy, funky, sexy, soulful electro-pop, singer
songwriters, someone like Ceu comes along and irresistibly mixes samba, reggae,
dub, electronica and soul music and makes you think that maybe that particular
well is bottomless after all.”
(# 331) Fatoumata
Diawara – Fatou (2011)
Born in Cote d’Ivoire to Malian parents, Fatoumata Diawara
is a female guitarist singer/songwriter who sings in the Malian language. On the basis of this CD, her debut full
length release, all I can say is that she no less than the female version of
Mali’s greatest musical export, Ali Farka Toure. (Little wonder that musicians
of the calibre of Tony Allen and John Paul Jones make cameo appearances.) This package’s booklet removes the language
barrier by providing lyrics also in French and English as well as her comments
on each track. From this I know that she
sings about African conflicts and the difficulties of being a child, a woman
and a mother there. It’s pretty sobering, yet impressive stuff.
(# 332) Grace Jones –
Nightclubbing (1981)
I can’t believe it took me the best part of 30 years before
I bought this. It is a strong moody
album characterised by a great selection of material including her well known covers
of Flash And The Pan’s Walking In The Rain, Iggy Pop’s title track, Bill
Withers’ Use Me and The Police’s Demolition Man. Best of all is I’ve Seen That
Face Before (Libertango) where she sings part of the lyric in French to incredible
effect. All this and the hit Pull Up To
The Bumper too.
(# 333) The Blue Nile
– A Walk Across The Rooftops (1984)
This is a synthetiser album from the 1980s. If you’ve never heard this, I bet you’re
thinking something along the lines of Gary Numan/Tubeway Army or Erasure or
Soft Cell. Well this is not like any of
those acts, being essentially adult songs graced with the distinctive, slightly
gravelly voice of Paul Buchanan. The
title track, Tinseltown In The Rain, Stay and Heatwave are all graceful atmospheric
tracks that are brilliant to hear on headphones and are perfect for a cold
winter’s evening in front of a fire.
But there is only so much, style and sophistication I can
take in a day. I scrolled for something
that is the complete opposite of this and came up with;
(# 334) Turbonegro –
Darkness Forever! (1999)
Turbonegro are a Norwegian punk band that refuses to take
anything seriously. On stage they are a
hoot, churning out straight ahead punk on tunes with titles such as Don’t Say
Motherfxxker Motherfxxker, I Got Erection, Good Head, Rock Against Ass and Are
You Ready (For Some Darkness), all of which are present here. This is their only live album to date which
includes tracks recorded at their final show before they disbanded for the
first time, but their more successful era was still to come. It more or less also functions as a demented
best of lacking only the fake blood and gore they threw into the audience as they
did on the time I saw them.
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