The band's name originates from the Nadsat slang in the novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, in which it means "milk" (from the Russian word for milk, молоко), actually the name of a milk drink Alex and his "droogs" consume mixed with narcotics.

Notre Dame de Paris

A brief note to register my recent fascination with, guess what, another musical - Notre Dame de Paris.

Even those who don't like musicals can't be indifferent to this one, I've tested it, twice! The voices are great, the feeling in them contagious. Sad and tragic story, to be seen with time and open spirit.

Agnès Bilh - Chanson Française

I've found something new. New because even after being in Paris after 1 year, I had never been to a concert of Chanson Française. And this first time couldn't have been better!...Fulminant lyrics, intelligent criticim and portrait of our society, Agnès has already published 3 brilliant albums and is a great entertainer! Worths listening over and over again, to understand every hidden meaning! :)

http://www.agnes-bihl.fr/

In new music we trust II

My tunes of the moment (ALBUMS)

HIGHLIGHT:

- Newton Faulkner - Hand Built By Robots (Folk \ Alternative)

Newton Faulkner is probably my favorite artist at the moment although he has just debuted in the music industry. Having heard him sung in a bar in Brighton for only 50 people I was blown away by his sense of humour and simplicity. Everyone was deeply entertained by him as he created a big empathy with the small audience. But not only does he have great communications skills, his ability to play the guitar is absolutely amazing and he has a great voice too. His style is considered to be folk pop but I like to call him a campfire artist as his songs are very “warm and cosy”. There are some that say that his sound has some resemblances to Extreme or Mr. Big in the 90’s but with a modern outlook. This may be so, but there is no doubt that Newton is going to make it all the way the top. I just hope he doesn’t let fame get in the away…GO NEWTON!

Score: 5 out of 5

OTHER ALBUMS

- The Decemberists - The Crane Wife (Indie)

This is a band with a very interesting sonority that I have just recently found out. They have a wide-ranging music, which encompasses baroque pop, progressive rock, and dozens of other styles. This album was much acclaimed by critics and listeners but it is definitely not commercial. It was inspired by the Japanese folk tale “Crane Wife” and all the tracks evolve around that tale. Be aware that these are not catchy tunes. It takes a while before you become evolved with their sound, but when you do, you’ll be amazed.

Score: 4 out of 5

- Loreena McKennitt - An Ancient Muse (World \ Ethnic)

With irish and scotish blood in her heritage, this Canadian-born singer has been classified as a new age and celtic artist. She has had a long and much-admired career in the music industry that somehow as been interrupted by several misfortunes in her private life. “An Ancient Muse” is her latest work after a 9 year gap and unlike her previous albums features music influences from Greece, Turkey and the middle east. This is a great album to enjoy a relaxing break.

Score: 4 out of 5

- Linkin Park - Minutes To Midnight (Alternative Rock \ Rap)

Linkin Park have been one of my favorite bands for years and years, since they first debuted with Hybrid Theory in the year 2000. Of course at that time I was a bit more into rock and hard rock songs as I was still on my late teen phase and had a “bad attitude”. It was during this period that I begun to love bands like Incubus, Limp Bizkit, Korn and later Linkin Park. Since than, I have matured in life and in sound but I still find that I have not got bored of the latter. Minutes To Midnight has polarized critics and fans. Some say it is Linkin Park’s best album and others see it as the worse. One thing is for sure. Their sound is different. The album features a mix of punk, classic rock and hip-hop and reflects the growth of the band. One of the good surprises for me is that Mike Shinoda (which I had the pleasure to meet) is singing much more in this album. Overall, I find it to be very eclectic and diverse. I learned to love it, but I recognize that it might take a while, especially for Linkin Park fans, to fully appreciate it.

Score: 4,5 out of 5

- Hot Chip - The Warning (Electronic \ Dance)

“The Warning” is the second album from London quartet Hot Chip. Continuing with the sound that graced their 2005 debut, the band continues to create a strange mix of hip-hop, funk and indie pop, taking influence from many genres and artists including Prince, Public Enemy, Brian Wilson and The Neptunes. Hot Chip are one of those bands that are reinventing pop and electronic music. It is definitely worth listening to.

Score: 4 out of 5

Amy Winehouse - Back To Black (Soul)

Amy Winehouse is becoming a world wild phenomenon, after having stormed her way into the British much populated music world and conquered everyone with her powerful voice. By only looking at her, it is hard to imagine how she can produce such a voice with a skinny and almost fragile body but she has proved to everyone that the strength of soul voice doesn’t lie on the shape of the body or race. “Back To Black” is considered to be one of the best soul albums to come out for years earning appraisal in almost every country. Amy’s emotive vocals tinged with 60's girl-group stylings, sly funk, and anguished jazz have made her be compared to the likes of Etta James. In fact it is said that she's taken her inspiration from some of the classic 1960's girl groups like the Supremes and the Shangri-Las, a sound particularly suited to her textured vocal delivery, while adding a contemporary songwriting sensibility. Be as it may, this is one of the best albums of the year…so far.

Score: 5 out of 5

- The Chemical Brothers - We Are The Night (Electronic)

This is a group that doesn’t need to be introduced. All the same, they never cease to amaze regarding their ability to compose music. “We Are the Night” continues their eclectic electronic approach even though it includes some songs that have a very different sonority from their previous albums. This is considered by many to be their best album. I guess it is up to you to decide, but don’t worry if you don’t like it initially. Listen to it a few times as this is definitely a grower.

Score: 4 out of 5

- Bustan Abraham - Pictures through the painted window (World \ Ethnic)

Although I am including this album in this post I must say that this is not a new album. If fact, it goes as far back as 1994. Nonetheless it is one of my recent discoveries and I thought that it would suit the purpose of this blog well: to share good music knowledge with others. Having said that, it important to enlighten that, Bustan Abraham is comprised of seven distinguished Israeli musicians, both Jews and Arabs, who have combined their experience as composers, soloists and heads of musical ensembles to create original instrumental music which combines elements of both Eastern and Western traditions. The backgrounds of Bustan's members represent an astonishing variety of musical cultures, including classical Arabic and European music, Jazz, Indian, Turkish and flamenco music. This is why their sound is so unique. Don’t miss out a chance to listen to “Pictures through the painted window”.

Score: 4 out of 5

My tunes of the moment (SINGLES):

Axwell - I Found You
Biffy Clyro - Folding stars
Brick & Lace - Love is wicked
Chris Daughtry – Home
David Guetta - Love is Gone
Fair To Midland - Dance of the manatee
Faithless - Music matters
Fall Out Boy – Thnks fr th mmrs
Fergie - Big Girls Dont Cry
Ida Corr - Let Me Think About It
Kate Nash – Foundations
KT Tunstall - Hold On
Manic Street Preachers - Your Love Alone Is Not Enough
Mark Ronson feat. Lily Allen - Oh my god
My Chemical Romance – I don’t love you
Pendulum - Blood Sugar
Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah
Razorlight - I Cant Stop This Feeling Ive Got
Scouting For Girls - Its Not About You
The Chemical Brothers feat. Ali Love - Do it again
The Enemy - Had Enough
Trevor Hall - The Rascals Have Returned
Unklejam - What Am I Fighting For

Empty places

Yesterday night @ Villa Ada (Rome)

Tinariwen is a musical band formed in 1982 in Moammar al-Qadhafi's camps of Tuareg rebels. They play in the Tishoumaren ("music of the unemployed") style, and sing mostly in the French and Tamashek languages. Their songs mostly cover the subject of independence for their people from the government of Mali. They are said to be the first Tuareg band to use electric guitars.

The live performance was really good, surprising in a good sense, very earthy, dreamy, relaxing and above all good-natured.

Official WebSite

PS: Tinariwen is Tamashek for "empty places"

What?! You don't know Saïan Supa Crew?

Well, you better! Especially dedicated to the ones living in France, this post goes to remind the fairly distracted minds that happen to fancy the flare of top quality hiphop that the top of the pops lives there. That's right, Saïan Supa are a musical phenomenon. It's hiphop, that's true, but with an own, exclusive flavour. Great rhymes are accompanied by reggae style, choruses, soul, beatbox, african, arab, world music. It's like a bag of M&M's.

The initially six-piece act is made out of different styles of MC's, who ride the all-perfectly produced beats and rythms that serve as background for this fully loaded melting pot masterpiece. We got Feniksi, full voice smart-pace MC; Vicelow, bass voice and consciousness; Sly, the human beat-box after Rahzel; Sir Samuel, the reggae ambassador to the band, brilliant; Leroy Kesiah, light-speed rhymin'; and Specta, bad-ass gangsta Saint Denis-sur-Seine mafia kind of guy, Wu-Tang style. The last two guys are no longer part of Saïan Supa Crew in 2007.

These six guys make up this whole thing. I can say for myself, I'm not the biggest hiphop fan, but I made a trip to Madrid just to watch their show last year. Saïan is something that stretches out into a different universe of hiphop pace and skill. Starting out in 1999 with the debut album KLR - with hits Angela, La preuve par trois, Raz de Mareé -, and then evolving to a second album (2001) called X-Raisons, equally good - main catchies were X-Raisons, Soldat and A Demi-Nue. 2005 was the year they released their latest album, called Hold Up. Not as good as the old days, in my opinion, but with two very funny singled-out songs Blow and La Patte (featuring some guy from the Black-Eyed Peas).

The first guy to leave the group was Specta, but things did become a little different without the lyrical storm Leroy Kesiah, which was like a landmark for the band's originality. They will be coming to Portugal, finally! After 6 years of having offered the first myself-to-myself gift ever in my life (their first two albums), they will be coming here. Festival Sudoeste is the venue, so I advise you all to show up if you're nearby, believe me, it's worth it.

I'll take this chance to further introduce you to the Saïan Supa Crew world, since they all took up their own personal projects outside the main band. Here's what they've done: ´

1) Leroy: three albums, two good hiphop ones - 1erCoup de Massue and 2éme Coup de Massue-, and a crazy beats compilation called Bollywood Trip. All 2006 releases. Check www.leroy.fr .

2)Explicit Samouraï: Gangsta hiphop with expertise. Leroy teams up with former Saïan Specta to create a really dark-side-of-the-force kind of music. Recommended for experienced french hiphop listeners only. All 2005 prints: La danse du sabre and Jump up Millennium maxis, and the album RAP.

3)OFX: African rooted Vicelow and Feniksi came up with this perfect album called Roots (2004). It's got the soul of an Alabama tobacco-plantation worker and of tribal ceremony from Zambia. Great flow, spirit and positive vaibréachone. Great music.

4)Sir Samuel: Wanna listen to a great reaggae album with a flavour of hiphop here and there? Check this out: Vizé Pli O (meaning "vois plus haut" in Martinican French). This is one of my top french reggae albums of all time, and believe me, I know. I may not know a lot about hiphop, but I ken mi lotta reggae style inna di frenchland and this is one of the very best prints you can ever get. Check www.sirsamuel.net.

5) Sly the Mic Buddah: Has a beat-box skillz album, 100% fait de bouche. The guy is a freakshow, since he beatboxes everything. I don't know his 2005 album Something You've Never Heard Before, but check it out at http://www.myspace.com/themicbuddah .

Go to http://www.wmaker.net/saiansupacrew for more information. But really, if you don't know this legend, go listen to it. One of my very favourites and one of the most admirable projects I know of. On top of it, they throw a killer show.

Really, you listen to these guys and you understand why MTV is all about money - I just came back from a 3-week vacation in New York, home of hiphop, you think I heard anything that even gets close to this? Believe me, I haven't, and all those kids selling their promos on Broadway are all in all 50Cent Puff Daddy wannabes, and most stuff isn't worth shit. Teach'em Paris!

No, I'm not making mony out of this post; but for those who love the music and get carried out talking about it, I just might fit the profile.

Le SaïanSupa agrippe le mic sans jamais se noyer
Rapide comme le vent, emportant les âmes enflammées,
Telle une flamme le cyclone décime la masse d ‘affamés,
Désormais sur la plage, c ‘est le raz d ‘ marée

Stéphane Pompougnac / Hello Mademoiselle

The Frenchman, mostly known from his Hotel Costes compilations, released his second album on May 2007. His debut album “Living on the Edge”, in 2003, didn’t meet gross success but “Hello Mademoiselle” is here to shout that this guy is not just a DJ or remixer. The fact that the album’s two most catchy songs are remakes is not a reason to let you down as his touch on them is apparent. Firstly he converted one of the most mediocre and colourless Morricone’s songs (“Here’s to You”) to a fascinating tune. In his second experiment he managed to bequeath to a great but dusted 60’s blues a modern electro-jazz style (“On the Road Again”). As regards the rest of the content, it is without doubt equally elegant where its variety of sounds and styles make it difficult to categorise.

While listening to the album for the first time, I caught myself saying that these rhythms would be nice on a beach, laying down, doing nothing… I’m not sure whether it was due to my holiday mood that specific day, but after a closer look I realized that these melodies will accompany my summer this year.

In a phrase, it is certainly an album that won’t pass unnoticed!