Various Artists
Over the years, an intricate web of musical links has formed across the
world, despite political borders, linguistic variables and tastes in
television mini-series. "Groove Women from the Chill Cafe
Lounge" (subtitled 'Unrelated tunes by gender identified artists from the
Cocoa Butter Lands') documents the extraordinary power and far-reaching
influence of music from the some of the famed cocoa butter lands. Here are
their most exhilarating sounds, exquisite and lyrical music by some of the
planet's greatest female and gyno-social oriented artists. This is a global
party, a veritable feast of womanly voices featuring cutting-edge world
music and soothing traditional sounds, a collection of unforgettable songs
from the countries where cocoa butter and its sweat-shop derivitives
originate. Thrill to classical divas like Ensalada Verde, rendering the
tarantella like you have never heard it before. Hear tablas replaced by
syntheizers as they gently carry the voices of western women to eastern
dream worlds. These 27 tracks (compiled by bona-fide registered experts so
you don't have to be bothered with the guesswork and labor of exploration)
display the depth, breadth, and heights the soul can reach when offered a
good hook line and coffee-shop friendly packaging. This is sure to be on
everyone's Top 10 list this holiday season, so get a stack of them to put
next to your cappuccino machine today. As the producer told us in an e-mail
interview last week, "Of all the lousy chill cafes in the world, and you,
dear listener, have to walk into mine..." Make sure you have plenty on hand
for all those folks you can't really bother to buy a nice present for this
Christmas. - Louis (Double-Skim-Latte) Gibson
Putumayo Presents a New Groove Putumayo is going in a new direction. Instead of churning out another groove CD that sounds just like all the other groove CDs, this one sounds like all the hair and makeup ads on TV. Hey, it's progress. - Louis "Luscious Lashes" Gibson
Various Artists This compilation bears so little resemblance to actual world music, you would honestly get a more international musical experience by phoning a series of embassies and being put on hold. Each track is like flying to a different far off land, and never making it past the duty free shop. Everything has been sanitized and pre-packaged for your consumption. Except I'm using "consumption" in the tuberculosis sense. One can only assume that the producers spent so much time in the highlands, that hypoxia has damaged their brains. - Louis 'please hold for an operator' Gibson
Brave Combo
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Afro Celt Sound System
Anatomic? How could something so uptempo seem so Catatonic? See for yourself at Amazon.com
Andrew Skeoch & Sarah Koshak Far be it for me to cry fowl, but I'm virtually certain that the sounds on this CD did not all come from the throats of Mr. Skeoch and Ms. Koshak. Clearly these kids had help: from an uncredited R2D2 perhaps? And what was with all those nonsense lyrics? Didn't they get the memo that post-Katrina it's all about meaning? Plus I distinctly heard more than one insect buzz by. I'd get that studio of yours fumigated if I were you. If you need to hear crazy bleeps and bloops, go play with the phone. - St. Louis Gibson
Andreas Vollenweider The New Age harpist and dead-on Richard Simmons impersonator is baa-aack with more over-inflated, worldish hoo-hah. When he whispers "Hey you, come in" like the witch in Hansel Und Gretel, even malnourished Bavarian rugrats who are jonesing for a sugar rush would run for their lives. Other lowlights: a scary simulacrum of a Hitler Youth rally, a weird yet criminally inept attempt at scat-singing and a series of bloated, pretentious orchestrations. A numbingly non-erotic Teutonic Barry White hom�ge could send the already moribund Northern European birth rate straight down the crapper. It should be noted that this release is presented in a format wherein both sides of a single CD are programmed with audio and/or visual content. It's a great idea, but flip this guy over at your own risk! - Louis (Acropolisi) Gibson CD is probably available at Amazon....
Madooo (Madhukar Dhas)
Madooo, a Madras-born, boarding school-educated, violin-playing nerd (we're told) who worshiped the Beatles, lost his place in medical school and went on to warble the lead in an Indian production of "Jesus Christ Superstar," sang jingles and Close-Up toothpaste ads, toured the Midwest with a Vietnamese rock band, impersonated Elvis and Jim Morrison, and woodshedded with a New York gospel choir. Now, in the histrionic role of a lifetime, Madooo tacks between tragedy and farce in a bizarre execution of the Beatles oeuvre, capped with a morbid medley over audio reportage on Lennon's assassination (with added bonus of a "radio edit"). In sum, to invoke the cautionary phrase of the Lennon-McCartney chestnut also Madooodled here, "You Can't Do That."
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