Maracatu NY Drum Up Baque Do Brooklyn

Despite sounding as if they've come straight from Carnivale, percussionist Scott Kettner is based in New York and has been studying drumming since his days at university. Little did he expect his studies and love of percussion to lead him to Northeastern Brazil to learn about maracatu drumming but thanks to legendary drummer Billy Hart that's exactly what happened.

Under the guise of Maracatu NY, Kettner has created a band and an album that's a stroke of percussive genius. Baque Do Brooklyn is the very definition of percussive music and while it's led with plenty of horns the album is truly all about the drums. This is the sound of Carnivale moving through the streets and is so rhythmic that it's perfect for marching. Baque Do Brooklyn blends Brazilian maracatu with New Orleans rhythms, funk, and blues. It's a globe trotting record that's all about movement, energy, and the simple joys of beats and brass.

If you love drums and percussion it truly doesn't get any better than this. Baque Do Brooklyn is simply a brilliant record filled with all kinds of rhythms and sounds that creates movement. It's rare to hear drums up front and taking center stage but it does here thanks to Maracatu NY and it's energetic and fun. Baque Do Brooklyn is so authentic that if it had whistles and lines of dancers to accompany it, it would be a street party.

Ryan K. Hamlin Runs

As one might expect with an artist who goes by their name, Ryan K Hamlin is a singer songwriter armed with a guitar and big songs. His EP Run is packed with country twinges, rock and roll influences, soaring harmonies and apparently a broken heart. The four songs here are all pretty well written and played and to say that they are ready for teary TV moments would be an understatement.

Run is a heart breaking, emotional roller coaster of a little record. With five songs guaranteed to make girls swoon and melodies that will haunt their souls Run is good for what it is. While I'm not a big fan of this sort of stuff I can totally appreciate what he's going after. I'll put it to you this way, if Ryan doesn't wind up with material playing in the background of some CW show in the near future there's clearly something wrong with the world.

Hooverphonic Are Back The Night Before

As I opened this package I couldn't help but think that it's been six years since Hooverphonic last released a record! That's a lifetime in the music industry, so to actually see The Night Before come across my desk was a pleasant surprise!

Unlike their earlier works, The Night Before isn't so much a trip hop record as much as it's epic theatrical pop. The album is lush, sweeping, and sensuous stuff that will tear your heart apart. It's gorgeous lovelorn pop that's seductively sexy and slyly manipulative; vocalist Noemie Wolfs is determined to have her way with you on this set of songs and you'd be an idiot not to let her.

The Night Before is so dramatically beautiful that the whole thing comes off like a series of torch songs sung in a smoke filled dark room to an enraptured audience. Even at it's poppiest The Night Before is still opulent, textured, and breathtaking. It's obvious the effect of having previously worked with an orchestra has had on the band; the arrangements throughout are stunning and the orchestral sounds continue to contribute immensely in creating an extravagant atmosphere. The whole thing sounds like a John Barry soundtrack on overdrive; it's like a series of the best Bond anthems never written.

Sixteen years after their debut it's awesome to see and hear Hooverphonic carrying on. Overwhelming, emotional, and excellent, The Night Before is a welcome return to form from one of the best bands to come out of the trip hop movement. With music as strong as the songs on The Night Before it's easy to see them continuing on for another sixteen years. The Night Before is a fantastic record and probably one of my favorites of the year..

Moondoggies Haunt With Adios I'm A Ghost

Adios I'm A Ghost, the third album by northwestern band The Moondoggies and it sees them continuing to explore the territory between Midwest and Deep South while remaining firmly in place up north. Adios I'm A Ghost is essentially west coast pop meeting the deep south in a rock and roll dust up. It's a record that easily switches between rock and roll and pastoral pop and leaves your ears in awe. This is a dusty countrified rock record that's laden with twangy hooks and huge melodies and comes with a sense of drama throughout. The record is expansive and rustic and blends the woodsiness of the Pacific Northwest with the homelike emotions of the Deep South with endearing results .

Adios I'm A Ghost comes off sounding like Chris Isaac in a gang fight with Kings of Leon, Mazzy Star, and The Tyde. The songs are dramatic and sweeping but intimate, rustic and rural. They're plodding but in a beautiful way and will bring to mind long winding roads and breezy drives through forgotten towns. It's all a bit swoonsome and romantic in a yearning for something comfortable kind of way. Adios I'm A Ghost is a great listen and quite a stirring effort. It's power lies in it's subtlety and swoony melodies and how it manipulates you into falling for it. It might not pop you on the top of the head with a hook, but the hooks do find a way into your subconscious and never find a way out; surely a sign of a good record and why you'll love being haunted by these ghosts.

Kitsune Puts Summer In High Gear With Soleil Mix 2

Around this time last year, Kitsune released the nearly perfect Kitsune Soleil Mix to kick off summer. As per usual for the French label the record was monstrous and packed to the gills with brilliant electro, indie, and proper house tunes. As summer 2013 carries on in a blaze of sunshine and humidity, it's a welcome surprise that Kitsune has followed up Kitsune Soleil Mix with yet another slice of sunshiny perfection on Kitsune Soleil Mix 2.

Mixed by Gildas Kitsune and Jerry Bouthier, Kitsune Soleil Mix 2 is an absolutely massive mix that has sun and fun written all over it. The tag team of Kitsune and Bouthier are masterful here seamlessly blending and building tracks into a sexy electro house furor. This is proper dance music that's about as far removed from fratstep and the stuff that nu-metal kids call EDM as you can get. This is REAL dance music. Totally Ibiza ready, you can almost picture the blinding sunsets and massive DJ sets as each song ebbs and flows. Kitsune Soleil Mix 2 is packed with 20 brilliant tunes that absolutely conquer the season.

In the world of dance music few are as on top of their game as Kitsune is. Kitsune Soleil Mix 2 is proof of that. Whether it's their mix CD's, their singles, or even their clothesline, Kitsune is a world apart from everyone else. Kitsune Soleil Mix 2 is so well put together it gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it. Kitsune Soleil Mix 2 is pure musical escapism at it's best and easily one of the best compilations you'll hear all year.

We Are The City Get Violent

Ya know there's just something about Canadian indie rock. It's just so vast, epic, and sweeping than it's American counterpart. While us Yanks tend to rock out, the Canadians tend to make this heady brew of artful, thoughtful, and emotionally draining stuff that soars above everything. We Are The City are just the latest in a long line of bands from the Great White North who do this and do this very well. Their album Violent is anything but, but it is a brilliant record that's another notch in Canada’s bed post of excellent bands.

Violent is herky jerky indie rock with obtuse rhythms and disjointed melodies. Think a bit Arcade Fire, Spoon, Modest Mouse and your kind of on the right track. It's got Northwest Indie splattered all over it and it sets them apart from everything making tracks on the east coast. I love the fact that they utilize organ sounds and keyboards on top of all these mathy stop/start jumpy riffs that kind of startle you in unlikely places. It's all very nervous and disjointed but it works because the songs on Violent catch you off guard and constantly surprise you. It's all very algebraic but with a strong sense of melody and place and it makes an impact simply because it all sounds so unpredictable.

Violent is an excellent album and We Are The City are a fantastic band. Their ability to fuse math fueled indie with an artful pop sense is remarkable. They seemingly run each song through a series of equations and come up with something that's complicated but still simple to latch on to. We Are The City have created an excellent angular and flighty record that's as vast as the Canadian frontier and something that is very easy to get lost in. Canada does it again.

Hausu's Total

I have to admit Portland area band Hausu conjured up strange images about their name. I wondered what does it mean? Where's it come from? How the heck do you say it? What's it all about? Listening to their album, Total, didn't improve the situation. Where did that come from? Who's it sound like? And why?

While I have no idea about the name, as it turns out, much of Total revolves around thinking about things on a musical basis and being shaped by the small, indescribable elements that make their influences special. Acting like a band of mad scientists, what Hausu comes up with is a noisy indie rock record that hovers some where around the mid-90's. While you might shrug at that rather cliched summation, what's really striking about Total is how effectively Hausu has taken a band like Dinosaur Jr. and let it make a guitar based mess over and on top of The Cure. If slackers wore eyeliner and goth's were slackers you'd have Hausu in a nutshell. Total is noisy, depressing, twitchy, and fairly lackadaisical. It's got walls of churning guitars turned up to 12, bashed drums and apparently Robert Smith on lead vocals. This is the sort of record where guitars are shredded into wood chips, vocal chords are left in a shambles, and songs are somewhere between collapse and not caring. It's all very passive aggressive stuff that's simply fantastic.

Total is a dense, complex and freaked out record. It is a nervous and edgy record that's the very definition of post-slacker rock. If Dinosaur Jr. were thirty years younger this is the kind of record they'd make and heck might even still be making. It's an impressive homage to the past that pushes things in a anti-depressant fueled way forward. They readily admit that their record is an assemblage of observations made by four different people and collected in one place. Total is that place and it's one heck of place to be.