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Happy Christmas

2007-12-21T09:46:00.000Z

Apologies for the lack of updates, i've been in Italy. There's absolutely nothing going on in the charts over there but i did pick up some lovely jumpers. The sands of 2007 have all but slipped through the hour-glass and it's time to cast a rheumy eye over the the cultural landscape of the year we are so close to leaving behind. Rather than repeating songs i've already posted for those who weren't paying attention, i thought i'd round up a few highlights that other blogs beat me to or i simply couldn't find the energy to put up. In a superb year for singles, there's no shortage of choice.

One of the most exciting new acts of the last twelve months has been "8-bit terror-pop" duo Crystal Castles. Drawing inspiration from lo-fi eighties computer games isn't particularly revolutionary, making it sound as exciting as finally completing Shinobi after an eight-hour, finger-bleeding, red-eyed marathon is.

Crystal Castles - Alice Practice

I have a particular phobia of hand-related accidents after my mother caught one of hers in a blender when i was ten. I like to think that Jens Lekman's beautiful Your Arms Around Me has helped me through it, in some small way.

Jens Lekman - Your Arms Around Me

The award for 'remix of the year' must surely go to Boys Noize for their glorious take on the newly-huge Feist's My Moon, My Man although Bonde do Role's clever decision to remove all traces of Young Jeezy from Young Jeezy's Trapstar and just shout over the top in their inimitable style makes for a worthy runner-up.

Feist - My Moon, My Man (Boys Noize Remix)

Young Jeezy - Trapstar (Bonde do Role Remix)

Recent years have seen a number of amazing songs about robots, Janelle Monae's Outkast-inspired cartoon pop on Violet Stars Happy Hunting gets the credit for being the first that isn't a thinly-veiled tribute to sex toys.

Janelle Monae - Violet Stars Happy Hunting

2007 was the year that Nashville discovered the internet and the associated geek-mocking possibilities that come with it. Brad Paisley's Online is rather warm-hearted though - embracing technology's ability to help completely reinvent yourself.

Brad Paisley - Online

More may follow before January.......

Post 224, Blog 27

2007-11-23T12:37:00.001Z

Polish teens Tola Szlagowska and Alicja Boratyn took the internet by storm with their excellent, if largely unintelligible, cover of Teddybears' Hey Boy (Get Your Ass Up) last year, earning praise from the likes of Stylus and Billboard. It would be wrong to dismiss them as one-hit-wonders however - their position at the top of the domestic pop tree was cemented by four supplementary singles and an album. The LP in question, titled "LOL", is roughly as stupid as it sounds and about twice as much fun. The highlight is Turn You On To Music, perhaps Poland's first attempt at a teen-pop / reggaeton hybrid and one that works wonders. Their unusual take on the English language is in evidence again, although it's hard to tell whether lines like "no-one said it would be furr" and "if the people stop and sturr" are simply heavily accented Slavic pronunciation or an affectation picked up from Chingy. Tragically, Wikipedia announced that "Alicja and Tola had a misunderstanding in their friendship" leading to the former leaving the band. A new album, presumably called "ROFLMAO", is set for 2008 though.

Blog 27 - Turn You On to Music

Marit To The Mob

2007-11-16T12:32:00.000Z

Marit Bergman's show at the Hoxton Bar & Kitchen on Monday was a magical experience for the forty-or-so people who could be bothered to turn up. As witty and effervescent in person as she is on record, the between-song banter about her shrinking chest and having a song rejected by Kylie would have been worth coming along for on its own. Her eight-piece band (two of whom had to stand on boxes to fit on the rather small stage), cranked out fizzy, pop-punk versions of the highlights from Baby Dry Your Eye and I Think It's A Rainbow with the slickness and professionalism of an act more accustomed to huge arenas but charm enough to match any of Sweden's more lo-fi indie icons. Whether soaring through songs like Let's Just Fall In Love or bouncing around the front row of the audience, Bergman herself was as magnetic a performer as you could wish to see. Perhaps the finest moment was I Will Always Be Your Soldier, apologising for how beastly Marit had been to her elder sister when growing up in Rättvik. If she ever makes it back to London, help ensure the size of the crowd does justice to her enormous talent.

Marit Bergman - I Will Always Be Your Soldier

Dusting Off The Crates

2007-11-02T09:26:00.000Z

Since the excellent Fluxblog laid some truth on the indie world, i've been digging in the archives to find records from my feckless alt-rock youth reflecting the article's core point that the cycle of hype-to-hate in the music press (which as the Klaxons will point out can now be completed within the space of a week) is nothing new. The idea that, in a scene dominated by image and the whims of a select group of "tastemakers", nobody can really invest themselves in a band lest they go out of fashion cuts to the heart of the current malaise in guitar-rock circles.

Possibly the third most famous group ever to emerge from Holland (although in contrast to Shocking Blue and Golden Earring, they do have more than one song) Bettie Serveert were a minor sensation in the US college rock world with their dreamy debut Palomine, even featuring on the soundtrack to the *cough* epoch-defining drama series My So Called Life. They never quite recaptured the interest shown in their debut and ended up rather ignored on both sides of the Atlantic. Although still going, their Dust Bunnies album was probably a last hurrah of sorts before they stopped trying for mass appeal and started making Velvet Underground cover records. The fuzzy pop of Story In A Nutshell weights in at just 1:11 but still manages to pack a few great hooks.

Bettie Serveert - Story In A Nutshell

Sticking with our liberal, pancake-eating neighbours, former MTV presenter Marijne van der Flugt's Salad were popular on the London music scene for roughly thirty seconds before being crushed under the weight of the backlash against fellow female-fronted-rock-group Sleeper, a band so mediocre they single-handedly managed to set the cause of gender-balance in indie back four years. It also didn't particularly help that people kept referring to the lead singer as "former MTV presenter" Marijne van der Flugt. They were always just a fraction to odd to be pigeon-holed as generic and too good to deserve the tag of also-rans. Marijne makes handbags and sings in a group called Cowboy Racer these days.

Salad - Drink The Elixir

Although Evan Dando is as close to a songwriting genius as US rock produced in the 1990s, he was never quite accepted by the press. Dismissed, according to the occasion, as "too pretty", "too pop", "too strung-out" or "too self-indulgent", a disasterous appearance at Glastonbury cemented his reputation as a bumbling laughing-stock, regardless of the fact that the quality of his records has always been superb. Sleeping with every woman under the age of thirty in Boston, New York and L.A is inevitably going to make you enemies though. Although It's A Shame About Ray is probably their finest album, Big Gay Heart from Come On Feel The Lemonheads stands as my favourite of his songs.

The Lemonheads - Big Gay Heart

Indie girls have to operate to a fairly arcane set of

rules. Bookishness is mandatory but cross the

thin line into being a geek and you're in trouble. Any evidence that you might want to steal the indie boys' pristine sets of Star Wars figurines or mint-condition comics is cause for grave concern. It's unsurprising that Mary Timony never quite fitted in, coming across like she only stepped away from the Dungeons & Dragons board to eat or record pristine lo-fi pop gems.

Helium - Cosmic Rays

Liz Phair made the classic mistake of recording a brilliant debut album and following it up with a series of records that didn't sound exactly the same. Even at her peak, she was always too brutal, raw and inelegant to make her the kind of safe indie crush that journalists love though. Fuck & Run shows her at her absolute best - a combination of superb pop writing and bleak, uncompromising lyrics. The final straw came a few years ago when she enlisted The Matrix to engineer a shiny out-and-out commercial attack on the charts in the style of a slightly more grown-up Avril Lavigne. She sold a comparatively huge amount but remains dead to critics.

Liz Phair - Fuck & Run

Hard as it may be to believe, The Cardigans were briefly the best pop group in the world at one point. The sugar-sweet mixture of French, Brazilian, English and Swedish retro sounds of the Emmerdale and Life albums were combined with knowing winks and Black Sabbath covers in a way which could have been insufferably twee had it not been so perfectly executed. Sadly, the band appeared to agree with large sections of the press that they were little more than an extended joke and moved gradually away from being interesting over the course of the next ten years. Their transformation now thoroughly complete, Nina can duet with the Manic Street Preachers without anyone batting an eyelid (although this might be down to the fact that it's hard to bat your eyelids while sleeping).

The Cardigans - Hey! Get Out Of My Way

2007-10-26T15:39:00.000+01:00

Russia has a fine tradition of unconventional female singers and Elka is currently one of the most popular. Visited more frequently by the Tune Fairy than her compatriot Linda, her atmospheric Bjork-influenced electro-pop contrasts quite sharply with the ultra-glossy likes of Julia Kova. Other than the fact that her name means "Christmas tree", it's difficult to know what more i can impart. She's a woman of mystery.

Elka - Gorod Obmana

Mika! No, The Other One

2007-10-17T12:09:00.000+01:00

Production continues apace in the Ukrainian music industry but relatively little seems to be reaching the shops at the moment. It might be because the likes of V.I.A Gra and Tina Karol are sitting on new records in anticipation of the Christmas rush or a reflection of the fact that physical releases are less of a priority in a pirate-heavy market than elsewhere but, although both have new videos in circulation, the CDs are lagging a little behind. Tragically, this means i won't be able to bring you the latest propaganda wheeze from foxy kleptocrat Yulya Timoshenko in anything other than a Youtubular format as yet.

Ballads seem to be the order of the day for the nation's pop titans and few come more epic than the adorable Mika Newton's Teplaya Reka. Karol's Nochen'ka is much more low-key but incredibly pretty as well.

Mika Newton - Teplaya Reka

Tina Karol - Nochen'ka

Chisinau That's What I Call Music *

2007-10-06T10:24:00.000+01:00

Coincidentally, in the same week as i returned from my adventuring, the new Michael Palin documentary on BBC1 was covering much of the same ground. One of the highlights of the slight but interesting programme was a brief section showing the peerless Zdob Si Zdub playing deep in the Moldovan countryside. Although lovely to see one of Europe's most under-valued groups get a little coverage on UK television, the piece was most notable for confirming that yes, their matronly mascot Boonika (Grandmother) is still alive and banging. Boonika Bate Doba achieved an incredible top-six finish in Moldova's first foray into Eurovision a couple of years ago despite the group receiving little or no backing from the government that still controls much of the domestic media and hailing from a country, frankly, most people in Western Europe had absolutely no idea existed. Others may have had money, friends and a Eurovision pedigree but ZsZ had a secret weapon - a twirling pensioner with a drum almost as big as she was.

Moldova is, euphemistically, a "troubled" country - notable for its extreme poverty, people trafficking and the internal conflict that has seen much of its industrial heart break off to form the unofficial "Republic" of Transdniestr so the ability to compete with the major players in the continent and come away successful was a huge source of national pride. The new Zdob Si Szub album, Ethnomecania superbly reinvents some of their previous work to add more of a traditional feel and to give more prominence to the Tsigane (Romany / Gypsy) influence that has always been a part of their work. It also contains a wonderful Russian-language cover of Kino's classic Videli Noch. As good as Gogol Bordello's Super Taranta was, this is the Gypsy-punk album of the year.

Zdob Si Zdub - Boonika Bate Doba

Zdob Si Zdub - Tiganii Si OZN

Zdob Si Zdub - Videli Noch

*sorry

The News From Romania.......

2007-10-06T10:05:00.000+01:00

is that there is no news. Romanians are eternally proud of their historic links with the Italians - sharing large parts of their language, their cuisine and, it appears, their almost complete disregard for a domestic pop industry. While folk music and the traditional songs of the Romany minority remain enormously popular, most TV and radio stations seem to devote less time to all their own pop stars put together than they do to Enrique or Fergie. In addition, unlike in most of their neighbours, it's not the easiest job to track down a record shop with a decent selection of local hits, even in the capital Bucharest. Inevitably, there is some good stuff though - the pop-rock of Voltaj is rather cute.

Romania can also boast one of the finest 90s-throwback techno-pop acts in Europe in the form of Activ. Many will have heard Visez before but it can still make me dance around my kitchen at six in the morning on a work-day.

Activ - Visez

2007-08-26T11:05:00.000+01:00

This time next week i'll be heading off on another adventure to Europe's wild, wild East. I'll be gone for three weeks and, assuming i make it back, will have plenty of new pop records to share. Things are going to get very Slavic very quickly so, to tide you over, i'll offer a selection of songs from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea and Japan.

Ayumi Hamasaki - Endless Sorrow (Single Version)

The Brilliant Green - Bye! My Boy!

Candy Lo - The Latin Night

Kelly Chen - Phone

Lee Jung-Hyun - Wa!

Angela Chang - ??

Sun Yan-Zi - Realize

Oh Mandy

2007-08-26T10:54:00.000+01:00

Mandy Moore has, over the last seven years, successfully managed to combine a "meh" recording career with a "meh" acting one. While her films and records have helped redefine the concept of "pleasant but avoidable" her voice has developed a rather charming maturity recently that seems much better suited to covers than her own material. She has put together a nice country-tinged remake of Rihanna's monster Umbrella.

Mandy Moore - Umbrella

Hindi Mein “Disco” Kaisey Kahtey Hain?

2007-08-12T10:32:00.000+01:00

There can't be many people under the age of thirty with vaguely Asian (or indeed Soviet) parentage who won't have seen the 1982 Hindi flick Disco Dancer at some point. It's a cult legend amongst Desis and Sovoks alike. The film tells the moving tale of one man's attempt to overcome a fear of guitars stemming from his mother's electrocution by a sabotaged six-string in order to compete for India in the International Disco Dancing Competition. Really.

M.I.A has a sampled Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy Aaja on the latest single from the terrific Kala album but the film's soundtrack boasts more than one Hindi-disco classic, including a memorable wholesale rip off of The Buggles' Video Killed The Radio Star. The centrepiece song for me will always be the appropriately ridiculous I Am A Disco Dancer though, an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink epic whose creative process appears to have included the thought "hmm, it's good but not quite excessive enough - why don't we throw in a section from The Sound Of Music?".

Incidentally, if anyone knows whether there is an International Disco Dancing Competition, please get in touch.

Vijay Benedict - I Am A Disco Dancer

J.L.G, Pour La Vie

2007-07-31T16:28:00.000+01:00

As you are no doubt aware, it hasn't been the best of weeks for legendary European film directors. The almighty Ingmar Bergman died yesterday and Michelangelo Antonioni popped off today. Two titans of the screen have departed this mortal coil but, as they say, these things tend to come in threes. Assuming Mike Reid wasn't the other icon in the triptych, this means one more cinematic master may be set for a game of chess with the man in the black robe. It's time to launch Operation Don't Let It Be Jean-Luc Godard. If you know of his whereabouts, please do everything you can to stop him coming to a sticky end. Shepherd him across the road, cut his food up into little pieces so he can't choke, wrap him in a blanket if it turns chilly - every little helps. Alternatively, push Michael Winner under a bus and hope that The Powers That Be really liked Death Wish. Ma Ligne de Chance comes from the soundtrack to the wonderful Pierrot le Fou.

Anna Karina - Ma Ligne de Chance

Mehdi, Set, Go

2007-07-28T15:23:00.000+01:00

Although London may be the only city in the UK where you are expected to be grateful for paying £700 a month in rent for a flat without a front door, there's nowhere to match it for live music. Canada's Chromeo are in town for Fabric Live on the 17th of August, lining up alongside Ed Banger's DJ Mehdi. Mehdi's album slipped out underneath the radar last year but it's being re-released to capitalise on his label's post-Justice publicity surge. The attention Chromeo are picking up in the press at the moment shouldn't hurt either as one of the standout tracks is a collaboration between the two.

DJ Mehdi ft Chromeo -I Am Somebody

Chromeo's compatriots Crystal Castles are playing Camden's Barfly a week earlier with The Teenagers. As someone on Youtube noted "Crystal Castles = LIFE". Believe.

Camden is, of course, most famous for its British guitar groups and, these days, British guitar groups are most famous for being rubbish. There are very rare exceptions, thankfully, and The Picture Show is one of them. The most pressing problem with the genre seems to be an incredible narrowness of scope with too many people using the same frame of reference. It's enormously refreshing to hear a band drawing influence from somewhere completely different - in this case the work of iconic Soviet rock giants Kino and Nautilus, the legacy of lead singer Alexei Haigh's formative years split between Russia and the UK. The result, a combination of Slavic folk-rock and Anglo-American indie, makes them perhaps the most intriguing unsigned band in the city at the moment. They're playing at the Water Rats near King's Cross on the 13th.

The Picture Show - The Revolutionary

One of the gigs of the year so far took place last night at the Forum in Kentish Town as the legendary Os Mutantes held two-thousand, mostly Brazilian, fans spellbound for ninety minutes of stunning tropicalia and psych-rock. They inspired the kind of devotion in their army of followers i haven't witnessed since Mylene Farmer in Paris last year, exemplified by the girl-on-girl fist fight for prime dancing space down the front. Support act Bonde do Role were terrific too - the highlight of their set being the wonderful Funk da Esfiha, a ridiculous Salt 'n' Pepa vs Grease car crash that presumably didn't make it on to With Lazers for clearance reasons.

Bonde do Role - Funk da Esfiha

Os Mutantes - Bat Macumba

Vintage Austen, Mint Condition

2007-07-14T10:29:00.000+01:00

Paris is the centre of the world at the moment as far as electronic music is concerned, prior to that it was Berlin and, for a little while in the mid-1990s, it was Vienna. The latter's Christopher Just and Patrick Pulsinger can be credited with reinvigorating the genre and laying some of the foundations for the rise of their neighbours - particularly with the classic I'm A Disco Dancer.

One of the most unusual stars of the electroclash boom was another Austrian, Louie Austen, a sixty-year old jazz crooner who appeared with Peaches on the brilliant (albeit nightmare inducing) Grab My Shaft. Although considered something of a novelty at the time, he's still going and has covered I'm A Disco Dancer in quite an interesting way - fleshing the one-line techno stomper out into a "proper song". He remains resolutely creepy though.

Louie Austen - Disco Dancer

New Gogol Bordello!

2007-06-27T13:51:00.000+01:00

Gogol Bordello release a new album, Super Taranta!, next month. There are no great departures - it largely follows the formula of their breakthrough Gypsy Punks (Underdog World Strike) in combining traditional Eastern European instrumentation with rabble-rousing internationalist lyrics and elements of dub, rock and hip-hop. Cynical listeners may still be able to argue that they are little more than an English-language version of Leningrad or Zdob Si Dub but they remain one of the most effervescent and exciting groups in the world, as well as one of the most endearing. Their political messages have tended to be fairly broad in the past, dealing with few of the specific issues faced by Eugene Hutz' country of birth, Ukraine, or its neighbours. The excellent Zina-Marina marks something of a shift in that respect, although depth is substituted for a stirring chorus.

Gogol Bordello - Zina-Marina

File Under: May Be Slightly Racist

2007-06-20T12:17:00.000+01:00

One of the more interesting developments in Russian politics recently has been the rise of the "youth movement" Nashi / Наши (Ours). Officially formed as a response to a wave of skinhead violence in Moscow and St. Petersburg, their stated aim was to provide a way for patriotic young Russians to come together to fight the neo-Nazi threat in their midst. In practice, the Kremlin-sanctioned organisation, thought to be 100,000 strong, has been accused of extending the definition of "fascists" to include British diplomats, the Estonian government and almost anyone who isn't terribly fond of Putin. The American press in particular seems to regard them, rather fancifully, as a Hitler Youth in the making. Although almost certainly a government creation and often deployed for entirely questionable political purposes, there's an idealism to many of the young members that's oddly charming, not least in the belief that grassroots involvement in politics at an early age can provide a powerful tool for social and civic regeneration.

Patriotic music, usually involving soldiers, is a huge market in Russia but it's something that tends to be the preserve of middle-aged men, at least within the mainstream - young stars have their attention turned elsewhere. One notable exception was Nashi Parni Molodtsi by Kisski, a group i once rather uncharitably described as looking like the result of a Soviet-era experiment to genetically engineer prostitutes capable of surviving a nuclear holocaust. The song itself sounds like Scooter having a fight with the Red Army Choir while their drunken girlfriends scream encouragement from the sidelines. Running through a host of national stereotypes about the Japanese, Caucasians and others, they come to the conclusion that only Russian love will do for them. As i'm sure you can imagine, the video is quite something to behold. The highlight may well be the African man trying to buy them off with exotic fruit. Although wrong on almost every conceivable level, it really is quite amazing.

Kisski - Nashi Parni Molodci

Shotgun Wedding

2007-06-19T11:44:00.000+01:00

The Nashville music industry isn't without its faults (rubbish fashion, dubious politics, Garth Brooks) but has a lot more going for it than many give it credit for. The combined cultural weight of Carrie Underwood and Hannah Montana have forced the genre many see as second only to hip-hop in terms of global popularity back on to the British radar, if only as a faint, distant blip that could be confused with a flock of migrating geese.

One of the more interesting aspects is the relative parity between men and women - both on-stage and behind the scenes. This strength, in combination with country's tradition of tough, emotional, narrative songs, has led to a number of taboo-breaking hits over the years, particularly where domestic violence is concerned. Rather than simply lament their predicament, the new breed have a stirring faith in the power of retributive bloodshed. Whether you want to off your abuser by poison, fire or a good, old-fashioned, hand-gun, there's a song for you. Interestingly, there tends to be a theme of community / authority indifference to abuse that seeks both to justify the vengeance and add an expressly political undercurrent to the songs.

Few can have sounded so positvely thrilled about blowing away their partner as the superb Miranda Lambert:

"I'm goin' home, gonna load my shotgun
Wait by the door and light a cigarette
If he wants a fight well now he's got one
And he ain't seen me crazy yet
He slapped my face and he shook me like a rag doll
Don't that sound like a real man?
I'm going to show him what a little girl's made of
Gunpowder and lead"

Miranda Lambert - Gunpower & Lead

My indifference to Nashville for the last half a decade, only recently dispelled by Lambert, stemmed primarily from the almost complete disregard it showed to the almighty Allison Moorer who toiled for little reward while lesser talents flourished. Her album, The Hardest Part, still stands as one of the finest of the last ten years. Despite, as a child, watching her father kill her mother before turning the gun on himself, Moorer can still aim a pistol between the eyes of a no-good son-of-a-bitch in song, although the sour ending to Ruby Jewel Was Here is unusual in the context. Send Down An Angel from The Hardest Part, on the other hand, showcases her at her most beautiful.

Allison Moorer - Ruby Jewel Was Here

Allison Moorer - Send Down An Angel

The Mighty Sparrow

2007-06-15T12:44:00.000+01:00

Although reviews have been mixed, one the of the most eagerly anticipated films of the summer, for me, will be La Môme / La Vie en Rose, the new Edith Piaf biopic. Even leaving aside stories stemming from Piaf's own habit of mythologising her past (she probably wasn't, as often claimed, born in a gutter), there should be no shortage of drama. Almost certainly a prostitute, quite possibly a killer, Piaf's rise from the slums of Paris was propelled by gritty, scandalous tales of poverty and debauchery and one of the few truly inimitable voices in the history of popular music. So distinctive was her vibrato that original recordings had to be used for the majority of the film, nobody else could do her justice. Even in death she remains the French music industry's most successful export - as much an icon of the country as any architectural landmark. Her status and her incomparable talent pose huge problems to those seeking to cover her work - faithful renditions will almost inevitably flounder so invention and personal interpretation must come to the fore. Etienne Daho and Grace Jones, in particular, don't try to compete vocally but spin Mon Manège à Moi and La Vie En Rose out loosely and languidly. Tricatel signing Romeo offers an interesting take on La Goualante Du Pauvre Jean too.

Edith Piaf - Mon Manège à Moi

Etienne Daho - Mon Manège à Moi

Edith Piaf - La Vie En Rose

Grace Jones - La Vie En Rose

Edith Piaf - La Goualante Du Pauvre Jean

Romeo - La Goualante Du Pauvre Jean

You Just Can't Get The 'staff These Days

2007-06-13T12:31:00.001+01:00

Despite being rather grey, it's another unpleasantly warm day in London. Counterintuitively, as soon as the temperature hits about 18 °C the city seems infinitely grumpier. In a nation built for mild, slightly damp conditions, "continental" weather seems to ignite the kind of rage usually reserved for "continental" polticians in a significant proportion of the public. The Underground becomes a sauna, offices bake (designers tend to overlook air conditioning) and the thousands of uncoordinated, out-of-shape, middle-managers who decide to get their bikes out of storage and cycle to work mean that a stroll along the pavement at 8:30 in the morning can be roughly as dangerous as being a spectator at the Isle Of Man TT. We spend ten months looking forward to summer and two complaining about how rubbish it is.

For me, the chief drawback is that i can no longer wear my flossy Belstaff jackets. A classic British brand reborn as an icon of modern Italian fashion, Belstaff has recently found favour with American hip-hop and r&b stars as a name to drop alongside Cristal and Mercedes. The jackets feature prominently in the video for Fergie's London Bridge and Ciara's 1,2 Step, for example.

I shall have to console myself with two cracking remixes of the aforementioned artists until it starts bucketing down with rain like it's supposed to. Space Cowboy, in particular, adds the kind of giddy bounce to ol' Meth Face's third good single in a row that makes the prospect of long summer evenings working up a sweat in a packet-out club seem almost agreeable.

Fergie ft Ludacris - Glamorous (Space Cowboy Remix)

Ciara - Like A Boy (Gotdion Remix)

New! Miranda! Video!

2007-06-13T08:51:00.000+01:00

Prisonero Video (Youtube)

Hurrah! Argentina's finest electro-pop extroverts, Miranda!, are releasing a new album shortly. Prisionero is El Disco de tu Corazón's first single. While we wait for the CD to come out, you'll have to make do with the peerless Tu Juego from Es Mentira.

Miranda! - Tu Juego

Fake T.A.T.us

2007-06-07T13:26:00.000+01:00

It seems hard to believe that Ivan Shapovalov's charges released their debut album six years ago but that's what Wikipedia claims and, like most people, i can't be bothered looking for a second source to verify whether it's correct. What's certain however, is that T.A.T.u exploded at the fag end of the Napster boom. Before file sharing became semi-accountable through web-logs, if not to the RIAA then to your readers, you could get away with labelling any old toss as a leaked recording by a popular group and nobody would be much the wiser. Practically anything involving at least two Russian girls was feverishly downloaded in the hope that it was, as advertised, the latest effort from Yulya and Elena. Little came close to their magnificent brand of slightly hysterical pop but that's not to say there weren't some fairly decent knock-offs doing the rounds.

One of the best was the endearingly morose Melom by Propaganda - far and away the best thing on any of their first few albums. They later reinvented themselves as a rather excellent spangly electro-pop group with Super Detka and Yai-Ya, borrowing more than a little from Dead Or Alive.

Propaganda - Melom

Propaganda - Super Detka

Propaganda - Yai-Ya

TEMA, pictured looking glum at train station, are quite an oddity in that they appear to have been formed to bridge the gap between the tribute band and the copy-cat. Their Prosto Ya Fanatka album seems to have been intended to mirror the sound of 200 km/h down to the last detail - not simply to cash in, so they said, but because, as the name would suggest, they were such huge fans. It's a variable collection but Kto Esli Ne Ya is almost worthy of their idols.

TEMA - Kto Esli Ne Ya

I bought Leona's album, Argumenti, in Lviv last year simply because she was wearing a chequered-tartan-mini-skirt school-uniform type affair and i wondered how closely the musical influence would follow the sartorial one. The obvious answer is "quite a lot". Charmingly, she's actually pictured studying Mikhail Bulgakov on the inner sleeve, like a good Ukrainian school-girl, rather than feeling-up a hot classmate. The title track's very good.

Leona - Argumenti

Krylya Sovetov

2007-06-04T09:37:00.000+01:00

Aleksei Balabanov's Brat and Brat 2 are probably the definitive Russian gangster films of the post-Communist era and, given how many gangsters and films about them Russia can boast, that's quite an impressive achievement. Part of the films' success can be attributed to the terrific performances of Sergei Bodrov Jr, sadly killed in an avalanche a few years ago, part again to the astutely selected soundtracks. One of the most prominent uses of music sees Bodrov's Danila wander through a film shoot in an attempt to find out which song's playing in the background. Later, in a police station where he has been taken after breaking the arm of the guard trying to eject him, he finds out it's Krylya by Nautilus Pompilius, who make an appearance themselves at key points in the film. Even a brief romance with real-life (and admirably game) pop star Irina Saltykova in Brat 2 can't shake Danila's conviction that his nation's chart music is rather horrific.

I have to confess, despite my love of Kino and others, a lot of traditional Russian rock doesn't particularly excite me. Nautilus had, until that point, been associated with an ex-girlfriend's attempts to convert me to what i saw at the time as being a rather grim, hoary musical beast. In the unlikely event that you're reading this, Sasha Ivanova, i owe you an apology. If i remember correctly however, you owe me a new saucepan so we'll call it even. They're one of the most revered Soviet-era groups and, in retrospect, i can see why. Krylya itself is undeniably beautiful.

Nautilus Pompilius - Krylya

Thanks to Alyosha from Acton's finest, The Picture Show, for the MP3.

One of the first Russian rock acts that struck a chord with me, many years ago, was Chicherina - poppier, female fronted and much more fun. They feature on the soundtrack to Brat 2.

Chicherina - Ty La-La

Chicherina - Zhara

2007-06-02T10:18:00.000+01:00

Although i've never been quite as allergic to Canada's answer to Mika Newton as most people, Avril Lavigne's transformation from irritable goth to Toni Basil's slutty cousin is entirely welcome. Girlfriend's reversal of the traditional process where sparky pop stars feel the need to weigh down their later records with "adult themes" and "difficult issues" is a glorious strike for immaturity in a landscape where success seems to be primarily based on how irksome you can make your impossibly privileged lifestyle seem. Really, aside from not having had a decent role since My So-Called Life, what does Jared Leto have to be grumpy about? Another rather wonderful break with convention has been Lavigne's recording of parts of the single in eight different languages - an indication that regardless of whether you live in Cologne or Sao Paolo, she's still going to take your man, bitch. The Mandarin version is hilarious while the Spanish one makes a cute companion to Belinda Peregrin's Boba Nina Nice which, remarkably, also comes in Czech, Japanese and English. That's globalisation for you.

Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend (Mandarin)

Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend (Spanish)

2007-05-17T12:23:00.000+01:00

The most eye-catching performance of the Eurovision Song Contest was, of course, that of Verka Serduchka - alter-ego of Ukrainian comedian Andrei Danilko. Ukraine is a land where almost anything can take on a political significance and Eurovision, which in 2005 gave the nation its most visible post-Orange Revolution showcase, is naturally no exception. Protesters were out in force in the nationalist west of the country decrying Verka's selection as representative and calling for Ukraine to withdraw from the competition. Their argument was that Danilko's creation is a grotesque caricature of ethnic-Ukrainian peasant culture that paints its middle-aged women as coarse, vulgar and extremely badly behaved. Anyone who has ever taken the early morning bus from Lviv to Przemysl on a market day, however, might feel he's being a little charitable.

It's a difficult experience to describe. Comparison with a classfull of primary school children, pumped full of e-numbers, playing musical chairs in a narrowly enclosed space really can't do it justice. Once the initial brawl for seats is over, the real business begins. The business, in this case, being cross-border smuggling. Polish customs guards must wonder about the miraculous health benefits of a short trip to their side of the fence. However, if the women look morbidly obese at eight in the morning and radically slimmer a few hours later, it's largely because they initially had dozens of packets of cigarettes strapped to them like a suicide belt or six litres of vodka stuffed down their vests. In return for cakes and a fizzy drink, i was more than happy to help out - knowing that regardless of how much contraband i was carrying in my luggage, my lovely EU passport meant i was the least likely to be stopped.

Quite frankly, i don't think i've met many people the wrong side of fifty with so much energy, humour or warmth. Verka Serduchka should be regarded as an affectionate tribute to the most entertaining short-term adoptive grandmothers you could ever wish to have.

Although i wasn't sold on Dancing Lasha Tumbai at first, i've always liked Serduchka's music. Horilka and Ya Ne Ponyala are two of my favourites. Both were written by V.I.A Gra oligarch Konstantin Meladze - the latter's a cover of a song from their Stop Snyato mini-album. You can still hear my beloved Anya Sedakova as they didn't bother to re-record the backing vocals from the original.

Horilka's the Ukrainian name for vodka. Although not a huge drinker, a quick look at the contents of my freezer will show you that i'm something of a fan.

While Russian vodka can't really compare to the stuff made in Poland, it's an integral part of the nation's culture and has been celebrated in countless thousands of songs throughout the ages. One of my favourite recent efforts came from Huinya, the collaboration between Leningrad and English eccentrics, The Tiger Lillies.

Verka Serduchka - Ya Ne Ponyala

Verka Serduchka - Horilka

Leningrad & The Tiger Lillies - Vodka

2007-05-15T08:26:00.000+01:00

Eurovision is a cruel mistress. For the second year in a row, i committed the cardinal sin of betting before hearing the acts sing live. Russia may have had the best song but a slightly out-of-tune performance meant they lived up to their promise to blow my money, money. The contest was ultimately won by Marija Serifovic for Serbia whose Molvita was probably the most impressive vocal work-out of the night and can't be begrudged victory. It's proof that you can still capture the heart of Europe with a decent tune and powerful lungs despite looking like a chubby Chinese boy. The best discovery of the contest was probably Georgia's wonderful Sopho Khalvashi. Although excitement at having unearthed another Bjork should be tempered somewhat by the fact that most of her other songs sound like she grew up in Batumi with only the Loveboat soundtrack for company, she displays a huge amount of potential. On Adjarian Motives is one of her more interesting efforts.

Sopho Khalvashi - Visionary Dream

Sopho Khalvashi - On Adjarian Motives

2007-05-05T09:33:00.000+01:00

I've mentioned my love of April March, California's Ye-Ye queen, a number of times in the past so i'm delighted to see that she's experiencing an upturn in interest in the wake of Quentin Tarantino's decision to use Chick Habit, her 1994 cover of France Gall's classic Laisse Tomber Les Filles, as the title music for Death Proof. Apparently, a follow-up to her excellent Triggers has been finished for a while but there has been trouble finding a suitable label to release it on - as any number of people from Stealers Wheel to Nancy Sinatra will tell you, having Tarantino's backing can hardly hurt. Coral Bracelet and Parisville give a hint as to what we might be missing.

April March - Chick Habit

April March - Coral Bracelet

Mister Neveux ft April March - Parisville

Here's a rather adorable video of France doing the original:

2007-05-05T09:20:00.000+01:00

More reason never to get on the wrong side of a French girl comes in the form of another of the best songs i've heard this year, I'll Kill Her by Soko. On occasion, particularly when faced with the legion of soulless, whiny, over-emoters clogging up the charts, it's easy to forget that a simple song accompanied by little more than a single guitar can still stop you dead in your tracks. It's a heart-breaking combination of vulnerability and vindictiveness.

Soko - I'll Kill Her

2007-05-05T09:19:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I'd like to blame it on Turkish hackers but it has been down to a combination of laziness and bandwidth issues caused by the fact i can never be bothered to take any songs down after i've posted them.

2007-04-08T10:14:00.000+01:00

Far and away the best single of 2007 so far has been Je Veux Te Voir by Yelle. It's an absolutely scathing attack on Cuizinier from the rather enjoyable French hip-hop group TTC delivered with the bounce and flair of an early-80s Lio turned electro-crunk-princess, if that makes any sense whatsoever. It's not quite clear what he did to earn her vitriol but telelvision interviews suggest that she objected to the misogynistic lyrics of his records and decided to respond in kind. The paroles are worth posting in full for those speaking French:

"Cuizinier avec ton petit sexe entoure de poils roux
Je n’arrive pas a croire que tu puisses croire qu’on veuille de toi
Je n’y crois pas meme dans le noir, meme si tu gardes ton pyjama
Meme si tu gardes ton peignoir, en forme de tee-shirt ringard
Garde ta chemise ca limitera les degats bataaaaaaaard

Je veux te voir
Dans un film pornographique
En action avec ta bite
Forme patatoes ou bien frites
Pour tout savoir
Sur ton anatomie
Sur ton cousin Teki
Et vos accessoires fetiches

Cuizi c’est quoi
Ta position favorite
Tes performances olympiques
Mais tu n’as rien d’orgasmique
Tu es tout nu
Sous ton tablier
Pret a degainer
Mais je t’avoue rien n’y fait

Tu reves d’un Hummer fluo
Dessinee par Akroe
Mais tu n’as pas le permis
Tu prends toujours le metro

Superstar d’un soir ta vie redevient normale apres
Pas besoin de lunettes noires pour te cacher personne te reconnait
Ta carte verte t’attend mec
C’est pas des paroles en l’air
J’ai reussi à t’en faire
Une avec mon scanner
L’entree est gratuite ce soir
C’est le seul moyen pour qu’on vienne
Alors les filles on se promene
Ouais on va aux chippendales
On avait pas prevu de passer la soirée avec des rigolos
On voulait voir des pectoraux, des mecs montés comme des taureaux

Tes posters de Lil’Jon recouvrent ceux de Magic Jonhson
Ton corps est trop crunk pour assurer les dunks

Cuiziner c’est toi que je veux voir
Que je veux voir ce soir
Te faire ridiculiser par une fille qui rappe mieux que toi
J’ai pas assez de mes 10 doigts pour les compter dans la salle
Toutes ces filles coiffees comme moi qui savent ce que tu vaux a poil "

Ouch!

It's rather interesting to note that the star she's most often likened to, everyone's favourite Belgian-Portuguese pop nymphet, made her best record in twenty years with a fellow TTC member, Cuizinier's cousin Teki.

Yelle - Je Veux Te Voir

Teki Latex ft Lio - Les Matins de Paris

2007-04-01T11:17:00.000+01:00

For reasons too uninteresting to recount at length, i spent half the week hanging about outside the Chinese Embassy in Portland Place. To drown out the sounds of increasingly angry English businessmen shouting at the girls behind the visa counter, i listened to some of my favourite Cantonese and Mandarin-language singers. The warm breeze and summery pop was enough to make you forget you were queueing for three hours for a process that takes, at most, thirty seconds if you remembered to bring all the correct forms.

Faye Wong - Wrong Number

Fan Wei Qi - ????

70/80 - ????

2007-03-11T09:30:00.000Z

Next month sees the start of London's second Balkan Fever Festival, a series of events showcasing seven of Romania and Bulgaria's finest folk groups, which should be worth a look. Another essential date for the calendars of aspiring Haidouks is June the 5th, when New York's Balkan Beat Box visit Cargo. Like Gogol Bordello (with whom they share members), they combine effervescent traditional music with modern Western influences, in this case electro and funk carioca. The excellent Bulgarian Chicks sounds like a mountain wedding remixed by Diplo.

Balkan Beat Box - Bulgarian Chicks

2007-03-01T08:12:00.000Z

My well of South American inspiration is running a little dry but 25 de Enero by Argentina's Rosal is a wonderful way to finish the run. Like the finest moments of Stereolab and Broadcast, it marries wonky electro touches to Sixties-influenced perfect-pop brilliantly. They also appear to have the Fast Show's Professor Denzil Dexter on guitar. You can download a few more songs from their cute website here.

Rosal - 25 de Enero

2007-02-10T11:39:00.000Z

Now that the American one is officially "not that bad" there's probably little shame left in being known as the Mexican Hilary Duff. Like her gringo counterpart, Belinda Peregrin Schull, has upped her game and brought in a few electro touches to her second album, Utopia. The rather excellent Ni Freud, Ni Tu Mama is the lead single.

Belinda - Ni Freud, Ni Tu Mama

2007-02-10T11:28:00.000Z

Working in the exciting field of language assessment, i'm always shocked that people born this millenium are taking exams, it makes me feel horribly old. Imagine what Montala by seven-year-old reggaeton star Miguelito does.

2007-02-09T12:37:00.000Z

Tomorrow marks the first day of the Chinese New Year celebrations and what better way to celebrate than with Andy Lau riding an eagle?

2007-02-06T13:35:00.000Z

Kasia Stankiewicz has emerged from three years of hibernation looking rather grim and gaunt - like Tilda Swinton's slightly goth Polish cousin. Mimikra, an album colder and darker than the classic Extrapop, matches the imagery perfectly.

Kasia Stankiewicz - 4 Ręce

2007-02-04T10:38:00.000Z

The more i hear from the South American underground, the more i want to plan another trip to the continent - then i remember that the last time i was there i was robbed at gunpoint twice in three days and decide that i'm probably better off ordering over the internet. If Buenos Aires' Miranda! are doing any live shows in the near future, i may be tempted again though. Famed for their outlandish theatrical performances as much as they are for their glorious falsetto synth-pop, they're deservedly one of the most popular indie acts in the Spanish-speaking world. Romix from the Es Mentira album is stunning.

Miranda! - Romix

2007-02-04T10:22:00.000Z

I was in the Wood Green branch of TK Maxx yesterday morning buying a pair of mauve velvet trousers that had been reduced from £175 to £6, presumably on account of them being mauve and velvet, when i heard Big Day by Tahiti 80 being played over the public address system. Although there's only a limited amount of sympathy you can have for a band that calls its album Fosbury and then goes on to see it flop, their brand of radio-friendly pop would seem to have been perfect for the UK market. When meagre talents like The Feeling are being hailed as the greatest thing in the history of ever, it's a crime that a group doing AOR with a touch of Gainsbourg's gallic flair thrown in couldn't have made more of an impact here.

Tahiti 80 - Big Day

2007-01-20T12:36:00.000Z

It may be a little too much to hope that two South American electro acts can hold a place in the public consciousness at the same time, but Maria Daniela y su Sonido Lasser are just as worthy of praise as the celebrated Cansei de ser Sexy. The Mexicans' debut album is winging its way to me from Label Records of Buenos Aires along with lots of other interesting things.

Maria Daniela y su Sonido Lasser - Miedo

2007-01-20T12:29:00.000Z

Despite the name, Ukrainian girl group Havana (or Gavana is you're a Russian) appear to have little or nothing to do with the last outpost of Communism in the Caribbean. They're not quite up there with XS or V.I.A Gra but rather good fun none the less, Divochi Rozvahi in particular.

Havana - Divochi Rozvahi

Get Well Soon Comandante!

2007-01-20T12:06:00.000Z

Many of you will be aware of Fidel Castro's rather delicate medical condition at the moment. Here's a tribute of sorts by Mighty Sparrow that raises more questions than it answers.

Mighty Sparrow - Castro Eating A Banana

2007-01-13T08:56:00.000Z

Although Milk & Honey sing in a mixture of English, French and Arabic, pinch Jamaican dancehall's famous "Diwali riddim", feature an Algerian and claim to be based in Morocco, the sheer impossibility of anyone outside of Germany wanting to hire Ann Ross from Preluders gives a definite fix on their real origins. Despite being an enormously crass exercise in Orientalist cultural plundering, Habibi is really quite fantastic.

Milk & Honey - Habibi (Je T'aime)

Assuage any guilt by listening to the lovely Souad Massi afterwards.

2007-01-06T10:30:00.000Z

Monika Brodka's new album might not be quite as much fun as the latter half of her debut suggested but her way with a lush ballad has not abandoned her. Much of Moje Piosenki indicates that she's still intent on becoming a tiny Polish Erykah Badu but, at first listen, there aren't all that many arrangements that do her voice and personality justice. That said, it took a while for Brodka to grow on me as well. Znam Cię Na Pamięć is the rather lovely lead single.

Monika Brodka - Znam Cię Na Pamięć

Red Alert!

2007-01-06T10:21:00.000Z

Cat5! Meat Raffle! 20th January! Free entry! Amazing!

MEAT RAFFLE
Saturday 20th January
Upstairs at Catch, 22 Kingsland Road, Shoreditch, London E2 8DA (0207 729 6097)
Free entry
9pm - 2am.

Happy Christmas!

2006-12-22T08:54:00.000Z

And what better way to celebrate the start of the festive season than with a bundle of Christmas joy from the incomparable Cristina Monet?

Cristina - Things Fall Apart

2006-12-21T08:53:00.000Z

This is the new Tina Karol video. Probably not a subtle tribute to Jacques Rivette's La Belle Noiseuse but it's heartening to see that they gave her a towel to sit on. Studio floors must be quite chilly in Kyiv at this time of year. Nice coat at the end too.

2006-12-17T10:02:00.000Z

This picture really can't do justice to quite how bad Zhanna Friske's Moscow tan has become. She looks like she decided to paint her stockings on with gravy powder like a wartime housewife and liked it so much she just kept on going. Never mind, her uncomplicated Russian pop is still charming.

Zhanna Friske - Gde-To Letom

2006-12-17T09:54:00.000Z

The Polish music scene seems to be in a pretty poor state these days. Aside from awful domestic attempts at hip-hop and reggae, practically the only songs you hear on the radio at the moment are by Sweden's Basshunter (the one-man Scooter who clearly still lives with his mother) and the engaging Romanian techno-pop trio Activ. Along with new or forthcoming albums from Kasia Stankiewicz and Monika Brodka, one of the few bright points of the year has been Reni Jusis' awesome Magnes. Despite threatening to go a bit trance in places, it's one of the best electro-pop records of 2006. It's more than enough to make you forgive the questionable cover of Dreadlock Holiday on her debut a few years ago. The terrific Ginger Girl is one of the highlights.

Reni Jusis - Ginger Girl

2006-12-17T09:33:00.000Z

Of course, no country can truly call itself a modern Western nation without at least one Avril-Lavigne-style rebel-girl-with-guitar pop star. Ukraine was finally accepted into the fold with the release of Anomaliya by Mika Newton last year - a record that conforms to all recognised international standards on perkiness, angst and a-bit-goth-but-not-enough-to-scare-the-boys presentation. Membership of NATO can only be months away. In all seriousness, Newton is really rather good - a few steps up from her Canadian counterpart and on a par with the much improved Yulia Savicheva. I like her a lot - the irresistable punk-pop of the title track in particular. She has an
English language website too.

Mika Newton - Anomaliya

2006-12-16T08:45:00.000Z

To be perfectly honest, i have enough difficulty knowing who's currently in Ukraine's magnificent pop car-crash Via Gra without troubling myself with keeping track of all the people they have kicked out over the years. This would go some way to explaining why i didn't recognise Svetlana Loboda immediately. If memory serves me well, she was the one who replaced Anna Sedakova, went on a brief tour of Asia and was sacked when she asked to be more involved in writing the songs without ever making it to one of their records. Producer Konstantin Meladze may be regretting the decision now - her single Postoy Muschina is superb - as good as anything he has come up with in years.

Svetlana Loboda - Postoy Muschina

2006-12-16T08:36:00.000Z

In two hundred years time, historians will argue over whether Eugene Onegin or Diego by Timoshenko-loving Ukrainian girl group XS represented the pinnacle of Slavic culture. The lack of sirens in Pushkin's epic poem will surely tip the balance in favour of the latter.

XS - Diego

2006-12-16T08:06:00.000Z

For me, one of the most interesting things about Arash when he first hit the charts two years ago was the degree to which he or his record label played up the "Bollywood" angle to his sound - odd for a Persian singing in Farsi with no obvious connection to India. While much of that can be put down to the fact that Hindi pop culture was rather in vogue at the time in the West (and has always been in Eastern Europe where families will sit down and watch a four-hour Mumbai melodrama just as happily as they would in Asia) there may have been a sense that making explicit references to his controversial homeland might have been a little too sensitive. Iran Iran drives a coach and horses through the latter idea though. I think it was tied in to the Islamic Republic's disappointing summer of football. It's a terrific song though - there may be three and a half years until the next World Cup but it might come in handy if you fancy cheering on the underdog in any future wars.

Arash - Iran Iran

Lucky Twice are a more conventional product of the Swedish pop industry and currently doing quite well in Ukraine. While the music may be gleefully bouncy Euro-pop, the lyrics to Lucky, seemingly about the joys of self-deception, are amazingly bleak.

Lucky Twice - Lucky (Youtube Video)

Christmas Karol (Sorry)

2006-12-16T07:55:00.000Z

Christmas, as you may have noticed, is fast approaching but you'd be hard pressed to tell in L'viv. Despite (or perhaps because of) the fact it's a city religious enough to have more than fifty churches within about a square mile in its beautiful centre, the commercial trappings of a modern European festive season are largely missing. Those after a bit of schmaltz might want to turn to Tina Karol's Ukrainian-language Silent Night. It's more of a curio than something you'd want to listen to regularly though. More interestingly, the excellent Honey from Show Me Your Love is now available in Foreign.

Tina Karol - Silent Night (Ukrainian)

Tina Karol - Milii

2006-12-02T10:59:00.000Z

I posted Pivni by Katya Chilly a few months ago. Since then, the album Ya Molodaya has grown on me to such a degree that that i now think it's one of the best of 2006 so far. It's a simple concept and one that has been attempted with little success by others in the past. She takes traditional Ukrainian folk songs and adds an electro-pop backing. It's something that could sound crass or gimmicky but as the flowery words of umka.com.ua point out "in this case glass and metal constructions do not destroy flax and wooden aesthetic ". Part of its brilliance undoubtedly stems from the astonishing purity of her voice, almost enough to render any other instrument incidental. The class with which the arrangements are handled is a bonus.

Katya Chilly - Krinichenka

Katya Chilly - Vishen'ka

2006-12-02T10:17:00.000Z

Moby's combination of preachy environmentalism and people-carrier advertising may have been horribly misjudged but the level of hatred he generates in the press could give you impression that he has undertaken a mission to personally run over the dog of every music journalist alive. In truth, his worst crime is having been slightly dull since the early 1990s. Hooking up with Mylene Farmer on the French version of his recent hits package was a masterstroke though. The unexceptional Slipping Away is elevated magnificently by Farmer's inimitable breathy vocals. A massive hit in France, it's a shame it couldn't have been released more widely - it's probably Mylene's best chance of recognition in the Anglophone world in over a decade.

Moby ft Mylene Farmer - Crier La Vie

L'viving On A Prayer

2006-11-18T11:43:00.000Z

I'll be back in Ukraine in a week and i haven't really finished posting things from my last visit in September yet. One of the strangest moments of my trip to Kyiv (just after coming face-to-shrouded face with the preserved corpse of St Anthony in the caves beneath the city) was stepping out of my hotel and into a crowd of revellers screaming along to Ani Lorak covering Bon Jovi's It's My Life. She has been one of the country's most popular stars for over a decade. The Ukrainian version of Avto / Car Song is preferable to the English one, if only for the fact that it doesn't contain the truly awful line "nobody's at the filling station / my heart is filling up with tears". Words so profoundly silly Jon Bon Jovi could have written them himself.

Ani Lorak - Avto

2006-11-04T11:28:00.000Z

I finally got my hands on the new Puffy album a few weeks ago. As you would expect, it's terrific. Alongside creative god-father Andy "Jellyfish" Sturmer, the guest list includes Jon Spencer of Blues Explosion and Dexter Holland from The Offspring. It's the Japanese writers that shine brightest though, Okuda Tamio, producer of so many great Puffy hits over the last decade, in particular. Arguably, the highlights are Koi no Echuudo, Koi no Etude with Kusano Masamune of Spitz and the beautiful Rakuda no Koku. The latter gives Yoshimura Yumi the chance to revisit the gentle, reflective pop that made her half of the SoloSolo project so charming.

Puffy - Koi no Echuudo, Koi no Etude

Puffy - Rakuda no Koku

2006-11-04T11:13:00.000Z

Singing the praises of The Gossip is a bit like singing the praises of cheese. I probably wouldn't be telling you anything you didn't know already. I braved the Hell on Earth that is Koko to see them at Club NME yesterday, a night that can surely only appeal to people with a thought process that runs "hmm, i've always wanted to know what it's like to be a veal calf in transit, but where can i get that experience and listen to Bloc Party at the same time?". They really were fabulous - tight, danceable punk-funk fronted by Beth Ditto, one of the most charismatic lead singers in the business. Listen Up was one of the highlights.

The Gossip - Listen Up

Kate Ryan

2006-10-25T17:42:00.000+01:00

Before this year, Kate Ryan was probably best known as as a faux-Mylene Farmer, with her covers of Libertine and Désenchantee. 2006 was an eventful year for Ms Ryan, aka Katrien Verbeeck. She was Belgium's entrant in Eurovision this year, shocking all Europe when she failed to make it through the qualifier to the main contestant. Her song was completly pop-in-a-Scandi-style, and a big fan favourite. It didn't, however, seem to sit with the musical style that Kate Ryan was known throughout Europe for.

Her current / new album, which has been available since August, rectifies this, with some excellent dance pop numbers. Three of the best are here: Alive, a single which was released in Europe, All for You and the very ace Tapping on the Table. Both Alive and All for You are also on the album, sung in French - excellent for fans of pop-in-a-foreign-language.

Kate Ryan - Alive
Kate Ryan - All for You
Kate Ryan - Tapping on the Table

Kate Ryan Official site

2006-10-14T09:37:00.000+01:00

Much as i like The Pipettes, their jolly-hockey-sticks version of the Sixties girl-group sound can't really compare to the dark teenage melodrama of the almighty Shangri-Las. In truth, little can. I find much more in common between the latter and the likes of Tatu than any number of groups borrowing more heavily from their signature style. There are rare occassions when it all comes together and Bat For Lashes' What's A Girl To Do is one of them. No relation to the Cristina song of the same name, it's a wonderfully atmospheric pop song full of melancholy and tambourines. Fur & Gold is one of the best British albums of 2006 so far - combining English folk traditions and Natasha Khan's cut-glass accent with American influences (Laura Veirs / Cat Power / Mary Timony) and a vaguely Eastern sense of mysticism apparently developed in her youth in Pakistan. The fact that she was born into the country's legendary squash-playing family makes me love her even more. She's picking up critical acclaim from sources as unlikely as notoriously wretched British tabloid The Sun.

Bat For Lashes - What's A Girl To Do

And, if you're feeling nostalgic:

The Shangri-Las - Out In The Streets

How Exciting!

2006-10-14T09:29:00.000+01:00

There's a rather wonderful new MP3 blog called Ni Hao Glitter Owl. As the name suggests, it's all about Chinese pop - written by someone currently living there. There's some great stuff up there already, including a Mandarin Girls Aloud cover. Enjoy!

Ni Hao Glitter Owl

2006-09-30T09:13:00.000+01:00

Although i haven't ordered anything from them yet, i love the website of www.umka.com for its absolutely charming English-language descriptions of the records it sells. For example:

Molodizhnyj raj. (Youth Heavens.)

"This is really an up-to-date collection – twenty freshest Ukrainian hits. So fresh that the majority of them can now be heard only on the radio, as they have not yet been included into new albums by the performers represented here. And, judging by these "first robins", we should look forward for really beautiful, qualitative albums. Let's wait, but while – let's listen to the collection. Songs on this disc are, certainly, varied – from hot, dance ones to those lyrical, really deep. Actually, for me it is another occasion to specify – Ukrainian pop culture is confidently developing, advancing. Even now it already has bright, remarkable features, and if it continues so, the future seems, to tell you the truth, quite nice. As now in our variety art one can hear virtually all styles that are actual in the world – and their quality is growing on. And a few years ago, if anyone remembers, we could only dream about this kind of variety. So, let's listen to the Ukrainian – eventually, you do have something to listen to. "

To be honest, the compilation isn't all that hot but does include a few great songs, Lama's Self Control influenced Moe Sertse being the best.

Lama - Moe Sertse

2006-09-23T09:51:00.000+01:00

Lily Allen may be a bit of a cow but i can't hold a grudge against anyone who puts Red Rat on their mixtapes. Wallace Wilson's as close as dancehall gets to straight-up pop, completely free of the bluster and aggression of much of the mainstream, he has built a ten year career on humour and personability. His squeaky voice may not be to everyone's taste but it works brilliantly on Big Man, Little Yute, a typically daft collaboration with Goofy i first heard on the John Peel Show, of all places, in 1997.

Red Rat & Goofy - Big Man, Little Yute

2006-09-16T15:48:00.000+01:00

Diskoteka Avariya may look like my A-Level Geography teacher and two boss-eyed day labourers but they sail perilously close to genius on their latest album Chetvero Parnei. Incredibly, it's their first for five years (they presumably spent the interim thinking of words that rhyme with "davai"). Even though it's a little patchy in places and a couple of the best songs (Pesenka Razboinikov and Stradaniya) have been available for two years, it probably sets the standard the rest of the Russian pop world will be trying to match in 2006. With no pretentions about class, decency or musical ability, their wilfully stupid, enormously energetic Junior-Senior-meets-The Beastie-Boys pop is absolutely huge in Russia and Ukraine.

One of the album's highlights, Malinki, features a guest contribution from Zhanna Friske, former lead singer of Blestyashchie and currently one of Russia's most (only) internationally recognised actresses following her role in Timur Bekmambetov's Night / Day / Final Watch trilogy, described rather unfairly as Russia's answer to The Matrix.

Diskoteka Avariya - Opa

Diskoteka Avariya & Zhanna Friske - Malinki

2006-09-16T10:27:00.000+01:00

One of the problems with buying so many cheap CDs in Eastern Europe is that it's almost impossible to give them all the attention that they deserve back home. I still have records from my visit to Russia in 2004 that i haven't really listened to yet. In Ukraine, i caught a re-run of the 2004 Muz.TV awards that jogged my memory. Along with Fabrika's charming performance of Lalik, and a stupendous medley from Diskoteka Avariya, one of the highlights of an amazing show was Hi-Fi's Sedmoi Lepestok.

Although Russian pop has never been afraid of pushing the camp factor, lead singer Mitya has been one of the most "flamboyant" performers in the entertainment industry since the group's inception in the late 1990s (he's the one with the big hair, not the woman with a moustache molesting Dima Bilan). They've been quiet for a while but look set to return this year with a new female singer called Katya joining the line-up.

Hi-Fi - Sedmoi Lepestok

2006-09-09T09:45:00.000+01:00

Of course, the Russians are no slouches when it comes to girl-groups. One of the best is the adorable Fabrika who i posted about a while ago. They've been away for a surprisingly long time in the fast-moving world of post-Soviet pop but look likely to release a follow-up to the majestic Dyevushkie Fabrichnie this year. Their most recent single, Romantika, may have been the first time anyone has actually put the polka pre-set on a Casio keyboard to good use.

Fabrika - Romantika

2006-09-02T09:18:00.000+01:00

Ukraine, having no shortage of pretty girls, has no shortage of pretty girl-groups - all with perfect gym-toned physiques and the kind of legs that could make Nadine Coyle feel a bit stumpy. XS are one of the best. They were great fun at the Independence Day concert - alternating between hi-NRG camp and gleefully trashy hip-hop posturing. Shtol'nya manages to be great despite being a collaboration with the abysmally-named rappers New'z'Cool while the slightly darker Yulya suggests that they may have what it takes to fill the void if the revolving doors of the magnificent V.I.A Gra finally come off their hinges.

XS - Shtol'nya

XS - Yulya

2006-09-02T08:57:00.000+01:00

I've detailed the turbulent history of Ukraine's finest pop group, V.I.A Gra, in the past. Unsurprisingly, since i last mentioned them they've got through another two singers. Their last original member, Nadya (the one who looked like she could snap a man's neck with her thighs) has finally moved on, replaced first with a girl called Christina who lasted all of one single and then by the fabulous-looking, raven-haired Olha.

Naturally a certain amount of shamelessness is expected from anyone who names their band V.I.A Gra but their tyrannical overlord Konstantin (brother of Valerii) Meladze took the biscuit with the recent record Brillianti - a "new album" containing a grand total of two new songs, neither of which were much good. They're back in terrific fashion with the storming L.M.L though. Blonde Vera seems to have taken more vocal responsibility and, although none of the remaining singers have a top-notch voice to match the dearly departed Anna Sedakova, they've managed to achieve a nice balance, augmented here by a children's choir.

V.I.A Gra - L.M.L

2006-08-29T12:32:00.000+01:00

Sadly, when many people think of Ukraine, one of the first things that comes to mind is prostitution - along with Moldova the country is Europe's leading exporter of exploited women. Yet, as the government runs constant TV and press campaigns reminding the nation that "lyudna ne tovar'" (people are not merchandise), one girl seems actively determined to keep putting the "ho" in "hohol".

Katya "Stereoliza" Shalayeva appears to have learned English primarily from Foxy Brown and Lil' Kim records much in the way that Japanese children were reported to have picked it up from John Wayne films in the 1950s. Although the tunes on her debut album X-amine Your Zippa are good on their own, half the pleasure comes from her idiosyncratic use of language, whether gloriously stating "i radiate pomp" on Rough or asking "sweet fucking Jesus, who's the dirty bitch man?" with heavy accent on the scatological and ridiculously addictive X.Y.Z. The latter was a bit of a breakthrough hit in Poland, although you can imagine daytime airplay might have been limited.

Stereoliza - Rough

Stereoliza - X.Y.Z

2006-08-28T16:10:00.000+01:00

Tina Karol has a fair way to go before she catches Ruslana in the national icon stakes but her willingness to sing pa-Russki and profess love for her "Rashan boy" haven't prevented the Maidan stallholders from doing a brisk trade in her t-shirts. As you can see, they're primarily intended for the army of rake-thin Slavic girls but, luckily, having to survive on Ukrainian food meant i had no problem fitting in to one.

Eurovision is a serious business in Ukraine and anyone representing the country is going to generate a fair amount of loyalty, especially if they do it with bravura displays like Karol's in Athens. She remains an endearing performer despite her tendency to ham it up rather bizarrely, like an aged 1930s starlet hallucinating a vast adoring crowd throwing bouquets of roses at her, in the slower songs. Vishe Oblakov displays her stridant voice over a Tatu-esque electro backing.

Tina Karol - Vishe Oblakov

2006-08-28T13:53:00.000+01:00

Hello

Sorry for the lack of updates, i've been in the beautiful city of Kyiv celebrating fifteen years of independence from Russia. I brought back about eighty albums so if you don't like Ukrainian / Russian pop, you may want to look away for the next few months. The centrepiece of the festivities was a concert in Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) showcasing some of Ukraine's finest pop talent, including the almighty Ruslana Lyzhychko.

With power neatly divided up between rival factions of oligarchs and Russia apparently determined not to relax its hold over the "near abroad" you could be forgiven for thinking that a celebration of fifteen years of democracy might be as futile an exercise as that of the Liverpool fans in town for the game against Maccabi Haifa handing out leaflets to bemused Ukrainians telling them not to buy The Sun newspaper. Anything as carefully stage managed as the Orange Revolution™ was bound to end in disappointment and few have emerged from the farcical aftermath with their reputations intact. President Viktor Yushchenko has stumbled from one crisis to another, reinforcing the belief that his pre-election facial disfigurement had more to do with the long-term effects of alcoholism than secret Soviet-style poison plots. Viktor Yanukovych, the man credited with stealing power through massive voting fraud has been quietly installed as Prime Minister and the only signs of the existence of the photogenic self-styled folk heroine Yulia Timoshenko, who legend has it went from selling bootleg porn tapes out of the back of a van to being one of the richest women in the word with an estimated personal fortune well in excess of $10bn over the course of the 1990s, comes with the handful of diehard nationalists selling t-shirts from market stalls in the Maidan (the Tina Karol ones shift faster).

Under the circumstances, if Ruslana didn't exist, it would probably be necessary to invent her. Untainted by political corruption, naturally Ukrainian-speaking, internationally recognised and able to effortlessly combine modernity with respect for the agrarian, semi-pagan traditions that still hold sway in much of the country, she makes the perfect figurehead for the nationalist movement. Timoshenko may fancy herself as a Hohol Joan of Arc but it's Ruslana that embodies the spirit of the revolution better than anyone else.

Emerging in a hail of Hutsul drumming, and immediately launching into a bilingual Diki Tantsi / Wild Dances, it's clear that even if you stripped away all of the external cultural significance she'd still be one of the era's truly great pop stars. She's energetic, physically powerful and as strong vocally in the flesh as she is on record. She also has the ability to drop lines as Carpathians-fabulous as "i'm not going to cry / i stay in the woods / when my heart is breaking / i dance with the wolves" without them sounding as daft as they look on paper.

Most of the Diki Tantsi album got an airing, interspersed with patriotic speeches that saw her almost overcome with emotion, exhortations for the crowd to chant "U-KRA-I-NA!" and an inevitable call-and-response session of "hey!" "hey! hey!". Kolomyika had the thousands packed in to the square bouncing to such a degree that it raised fears we were all going to plunge into the newly built (and rather swish) shopping mall underneath -which would be ironic given the manner in which rampant capitalism has undermined the foundations of the independence it's named after.

The new songs sounded wonderful too. Sadly she didn't bring her flamethrower with her for the "SHOUT FIRE!" bits in Heart On Fire (as anyone who saw the interval performance at Eurovision 2005 can attest, it's the coolest fucking thing ever) but the tune itself is terrific. Perhaps even better is the absolutely insane recent single Dika Energiya, which comes with an optional fantasy novel, and saw her smothered by bat-winged backing dancers.

Ruslana - Dika Energiya

Someone get Girls Aloud on the phone!

2006-08-15T12:45:00.000+01:00

There's an obscure Eurovision song just crying out to be covered. Boom Boom Boomerang, by Schmetterlinge, was Austria's Eurovision entry in 1977. It came, er, second last. But it is brilliant.

10 Reasons Girls Aloud should cover Boom Boom Boomerang:

It would be the crowning glory on their soon-to-be-finished-if-we-believe-the-rumours career.
It has a staccato mixmash-up structure, much like their song Biology.
It has a choir-like opening, much like their song Wild Horses.
It references Big Brother, much like their song Big Brother.
Inter-pop-textuality is always a good idea.
The choir-like opening queries pop existentialism: love or money? This would keep schmindie critics happy.
The lines "Boom Boom Boomerang, Snadderydang, Kangaroo, Boogaloo, Didgeridoo" are just ace.
Shouty bits
They can do comedy-run-around dance routines during the jaunty chase music sections.
The fade out says "who" with emphasis on the "ooh". As we know, Cheryl Cole is a mistress of "ooh".

Failing Girls Aloud, who has Pay TV's number?

Download: Schmetterlinge - Boom Boom Boomerang

2006-08-05T11:50:00.000+01:00

In the days before the MP3 blog, fanzines were one of the best ways to keep in touch with music being ignored by the mainstream and alternative press. Quite a few spawned other projects - from bands like Shampoo to record labels like Org. The latter was an institution in the mid-90s British indie scene, pumping out dozens of completely terrible records that sold about six copies each, seemingly kept going by nothing but passion and a punk D.I.Y spirit. The one exception to their fairly awful roster was Charlie's Angels - a proto-Pipettes produced by Nick Coler, later of Xenomania. They were an adorable mix of jangly indie and girl-group pop but sadly followed their label-mates into obscurity. Who knows? Maybe they'll get lucky and Frank will cover It's Never Gonna Happen To Me.

Charlie's Angels - It's Never Gonna Happen To Me

2006-07-22T09:28:00.000+01:00

Apologies for the lack of updates recently. I'm moving house today and all my CDs are sealed neatly into bin bags. The only loose ones i can find are Speak by Lindsay Lohan and The Carnival by Wyclef Jean.

Japan's ability to co-opt cutting-edge culture from across the world is legendary. It seems perfectly natural for Japanese girls like Tigarah to be making their own baile funk records before the Brazilian ones even get to the UK. Perhaps the only genuinely surprising Japanese invasion in recent years has been in the world of dancehall. Not content to simply play to audiences in Tokyo, the Mighty Crown sound system stunned Jamaica by taking the World Cup Sound Clash title in 1999, beating the best the island had to offer. Even that pales in comparison to achievement of the remarkable Junko "Bashment" Kudo though.

Jamaica's clubs are dominated by its fearsome female dancers - famed for their hair extensions, skintight lycra, fierce attitude and, above all, their ability to pull off extraordinarily acrobatic /pornographic routines in platform heels. In 2002, Kudo (who apparently moonlights as a song-writer for J-pop star Namie Amuro) waltzed away with the title of Dancehall Queen. Well, not exactly "waltzed". I wouldn't necessarily suggest that you watch this at work.

Here's the aforementioned Tigarah's brilliant new song Roppongi-Dori which, in true carioca style, sounds rather similar to all her other ones.

Tigarah - Roppongi-Dori

How Exciting Part II

2006-07-16T09:59:00.000+01:00

The mysterious other half of the Contact machine, Enrique Ponce, has recently started an MP3 blog of his own, tied in to his excellent club night Meat Raffle. It's great.

16 oz

2006-07-16T09:16:00.000+01:00

Metric's debut album, Old World Underground, Where Are You?, trod a fine line between the endearing and the slightly embarrassing. Despite Emily Haines' lovely cracked purr, the clunky lyrics ("subtract my age from the mileage on my speeding heart") don't particularly help the clunky indie rock they're combined with. But, when they nail it, they really nail it. The superb Dead Disco attacks like a synthed-up Yeah Yeah Yeahs. You might not normally associate part-time members of Broken Social Scene with dancefloor-friendly electro-punk but it works exceptionally well.

Metric - Dead Disco

2006-07-13T08:24:00.000+01:00

Oh dear. My computer at home has exploded so i have to come into work early to post songs. Never mind.

The amazing Cansei de Ser Sexy (Tired Of Being Sexy) released their first single in the US on Monday. They're a D-I-Y electro-pop group from Brazil who may well be the first genuinely great act to have risen to international fame on the back of Youtube (and its Brazilian counterpart). Their commitment to file-sharing and the free flow of music led them to give away a blank CD-R with copies of their album so that people could burn it for their friends. The influence that things like MySpace and Youtube will have on the music industry may have been slightly overstated in some sections of the press but there's something really quite thrilling about technology that allows a band that would probably have still been playing parties in their friends' houses in Sao Paolo to win fans (and record deals) thousands of miles away.

The music itself is exceptional - messy Tom-Tom Club style disco-funk with song titles like Let's Make Love And Listen To Death From Above.

Cansei de Ser Sexy - Let's Make Love And Listen To Death From Above

2006-07-08T13:04:00.000+01:00

Two of the world's great disco nations will be battling it out for the biggest prize in sport tomorrow evening. In tribute to them, here are Scotch's Italo classic (complete with percussive coughing fits) Disco Band and Sheila & B.Devotion's French disco masterpiece Spacer. Alcazar fans will no doubt recognise the latter - it was borrowed wholesale for Crying At The Discotheque.

Scotch - Disco Band

Sheila & B.Devotion - Spacer

2006-07-08T12:09:00.000+01:00

One of the key things that contributed to Cristina's debut being one of the greatest pop records of the Eighties was the perfect disco backdrop she was lent by August Darnell, known in his day job as Kid Creole. Any mention of Kid Creole & The Coconuts will almost certainly bring to mind Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy, with one of the most brilliantly poisonous lines in music history - "you see, if i was in your blood, then you wouldn't be so ugly". It's a song that deserves more than to just sit alongside dross like 10cc's Dreadlock Holiday in the list of records to play on Radio 2 when the weather's nice.

Aside from his work with Monet, his finest moment might well have been Machine's There But For The Grace Of God - one of the most exceptional records of the disco era. The message, that socially conservative parents who move out of the Bronx to find somewhere "with no blacks, no Jews and no gays" will inevitably end up raising an overweight, drug-addled strumpet is quite fun too.

Machine - There But For The Grace Of God

2006-07-05T22:24:00.000+01:00

The new Nouvelle Vague album came out in England this week. As most of you will know, the debut saw a dozen classic post-punk / new wave songs given a bossa nova makeover by a handful of sultry "nouvelle scene Français " chanteuses. Far more than a novelty item, it was one of the most brilliantly realised pop records of recent years. Sadly, the follow-up, Bande A Part, never really hits the same heights. Despite apparently being influenced more by the Caribbean than Brazil this time, it sounds almost exactly the same and, as a result, a little predictable. The lack of the remarkable Camille doesn't help matters either. That said, it is still all rather lovely. An eerie Fade To Grey (Visage) and a charming interpretation of The Killing Moon (Echo & The Bunnymen) are two of the highlights.

Nouvelle Vague - The Killing Moon

One of the men behind the group is Olivier Libaux, a superb songwriter himself and a leading light in the NSF. His extremely odd concept album / musical about murder in a small town, L'Héroïne Au Bain, featured contributions from the almighty Lio and her little sister Helena Noguerra. The gorgeous xylophone-led title-track is a duet between the latter and her long-time collaborator Philippe Katerine. Think early Cardigans but French and stuck in a Miss Marple novel.

Olivier Libaux ft. Helena & Katerine - L'Héroïne Au Bain

As a bonus, having just watched Les Bleus beat Helena's native Portugal, i could hardly pass up the chance to post the magnificent Euro 2004. Philippe gives Noguerra a test on star players which she resolutely fails ("Thierry? Kluivert! Beckham? Pavel!") until she gets to Zizou. It was originally posted a long time ago on the awesome Blow-Up Doll.

Katerine & Helena - Euro 2004

2006-07-02T22:12:00.000+01:00

Lio may well have been the greatest act on the legendary mutant disco label Ze but Cristina Monet is rapidly becoming the most critically-acclaimed. Widely dismissed at the time as a vanity project of the wife of Ze's founder, Mothercare heir Michael Zilkha, her two wonderfully idiosyncratic albums Cristina and Sleep It Off have taken twenty years to find much of an appreciative audience. Although chart success would have been deserved (an often repeated quote suggested that "in a zestier, brighter, funnier world, Cristina would have been Madonna"), it's easy to see how a new wave scene in the early eighties that prided itself on being sharper, more stylish and more intelligent than either punk or mainstream pop might have felt intimidated by a Harvard-educated, fabulously acidic model clearly smarter and more chic than any of their idols. Perhaps that's why she attracted so many vituperative comments about being a wealthy dilettante playing at being a pop star.

A combination of Brecht and Kid Creole & The Coconuts might not sound too appealing but Monet sold it so well. One of the highlights of her debut would have been a lyrically customised version of Peggy Lee's Is That All There Is? Sadly Lieber and Stoller didn't see the amusing side of lines like "I remember when i was a little girl, my mother set the house on fire. She was like that." or "and then i fell in love with the most wonderful boy in Manhatten....he'd beat me black and blue and i loved it" so set the lawyers on her.

Cristina - Is That All There Is?

Her second album, with Don Was, is arguably even better - fuelled by his unconventional arrangements and her increasingly cutting lyrics. "My life is in a turmoil /My thighs are black and blue / My sheets are stained, so is my brain / Oh, what's a girl to do?". Apparently, there was talk of Gwen Stefani covering What's A Girl To Do on L.A.M.B. Twenty years have passed but evidently, the mainstream still isn't quite ready.

Cristina - What's A Girl To Do

There's a great article about her by Elisabeth Vincentelli here.

2006-07-02T15:26:00.000+01:00

It's unbearably hot in London this afternoon. On days like this, it's impossible to listen to anything too energetic. Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herren band sound much more appropriate. Despite looking like they should be making skate-punk or nu-metal, the group from Tromso, Norway have a very pleasing line in loungey, Sixties-influenced, Hammond pop. Narrowly avoiding all-out kitsch (they are named after Russ Meyer's cameraman), it's the kind of music you imagine louche DJs playing at impossibly sophisticated discos. Naturally, Casino got a near-weekly outing at Contact.

Ralph Myerz & The Jack Herren Band - Casino

It's probably fair to say that Sukia had no problems with all-out kitch. Taking their title, and much of their inspiration, from a Mexican comic about a lesbian vampire with a rugged assistant called Gary Super Macho, the quartet from LA found brief acclaim in the summer of 1996 with their album Contacto Espacial Con El Tercer Sexo, a sleazy blend of Theremins, Moogs and samples which rarely worked better than on the single The Dream Machine. Should Joss Whedon ever get around to doing a spin-off about El Diablo Robotica, it would be criminal if he didn't get Sukia to soundtrack it.

Sukia - The Dream Machine

Of course, no mention of either lesbian vampires or lounge records would be complete without reference to the almighty Jess Franco - the Spanish director whose films, when rediscovered, triggered the mid-90s boom in musical "exotica". Franco, described by no less an authority than the Pope as one of the most dangerous men in film, could easily churn out a dozen pictures a year to feed Europe's growing exploitation market at the end of the Sixties. Some were good, some were terrible but all were stamped with his unique style. It's impossible to watch a Franco film and not know who it's by (just look out for the zoom shots). Unquestionably, the two finest works in his vast library are Vampyros Lesbos and She Killed In Ecstasy - each a genuinely brilliant (and, believe it or not, rather moving) marriage of arthouse and grindhouse film-making starring the ill-fated Portuguese starlet Soledad Miranda. While the movies may have a limited appeal, the soundtrack sold in vast numbers when reissued by the cult German label Crippled Dick Hot Wax. It's not hard to see why.

Manfred Hubler & Siegfried Schwab - There Is No Satisfaction

Ten years on, the demand for exotic "easy listening" music has almost disappeared, subsumed by the all-conquering "chillout" market. The Hotel Costes series, mixed by French DJ Stéphane Pompougnac and inspired by the eponymous arsey Parisian boutique / bar is easy to deride but they do come up with the occasional decent song. Trinity FM's SOS is a rather nice update of Sound Of Silence.

Trinity FM -SOS

How Exciting!

2006-06-28T21:33:00.000+01:00

The ever-wonderful Jessica of Into The Groove and Dirrrty Pop fame has started a messageboard where we can discuss Euro (and non-Euro) pop from Diskoteka Avariya to Utada Hikaru.

Come and join in!

2006-06-28T20:57:00.000+01:00

Elena Paparizou, Hellas' favourite daughter, will be familiar to millions from her Eurovision win of 2005 and string of rather decent solo singles, culminating with the superb Mambo last year. Born in Gothenburg, Sweden, she made her debut at the tender age of seventeen as lead singer of the enormously underrated Scandi-Greek pop duo Antique. Although the lyrics did switch between English and Greek, their exuberant pop owed much more to the land of her birth than that of her parents. Paparizou herself has even suggested that she was never all that fond of traditional Greek music growing up, regarding it as a bit anachronistic. My fellow superstar DJ at Contact, Adrian, recently introduced me to the Bouzouki-tastic M'aggaliazi To Skotadi from her Protereotita solo album which indicates that she had a change of heart to go along with her change of nationality though. Anyone in the British capital inspired to seek out more old-fashioned Hellenic pop might like to give London Greek Radio (103.3) a try. I stumbled onto it by accident last week while trying to avoid Chris Moyles and thought it was quite good fun.

Antique - Time To Say Goodbye

Elena Paparizou - M'aggaliazi To Skotadi

2006-06-21T19:33:00.000+01:00

As a kindly old babushka once told me, Spring is a wonderful time to be in Moscow. The sun is shining, the green leaves are coming through and the snow finally melts so the police can find all the corpses that have been dumped in the woods over the Winter. Dozens of songs inspired by the season are released every year, the best of 2006 has come from Gorod 312, one of the biggest new bands in Russia. Enormously popular, their sprightly pop-rock reminds me of the terrific Chicherina.

Gorod 312 - Vesna

Del'fin don't sound nearly so thrilled about it all. Perhaps they suffer from hayfever. They're easily one of the best groups in Russia though. Vesna's the finest of their singles, a beautiful, brooding electro-rock song with a rather lovely video stitched together from footage from the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Del'fin - Vesna

2006-06-17T12:38:00.000+01:00

The Czech Republic take on Ghana later this afternoon. Despite not having existed for a good thirteen years, you can bet there'll be a couple of references in the commentary and analysis to "Czechoslovakia". Although legend has it that the EU only admitted Slovakia to the club because of the prohibitive cost of building a giant wall around it instead, and despite the fact it seems to be populated entirely by nasty old ladies, the less fashionable half of the partnership is quite a nice place. Bratislava may not be able to boast the architecture or culture of Prague but it does have one excellent pop star - Misha. The bouncy Náladu Mi Dvíhaš was one of the highlights of her debut album Colors In My Life.

Misha - Náladu Mi Dvíhaš

2006-06-17T12:15:00.000+01:00

France's footballers may be looking a bit creaky but the nation's pop scene still seems quite strong. One of the most promising new stars of last year was the French-Moroccan-Egyptian chanteuse Najoua Belyzel. Her debut album has just been released and, while it sadly doesn't all follow the same path as the slightly gothic, Mylene-influenced, electro-pop brilliance of Gabriel, it's entertaining none the less. Aside from the lead single, at first listen the highlights of Entre Deux Mondes are Je Ferme Les Yeux and Stella - arguably Gabriel v.2 and Gabriel v.3 but it's a winning formula.

Najoua Belyzel - Gabriel

Najoua Belyzel - Stella

2006-06-16T23:04:00.000+01:00

It took 83 minutes and a blatant foul for England to break down the valiant Soca Warriors' defence. Now i'll have to hope T&T beat Paraguay and the cheating, hair-pulling bastards stick a few past Sweden on Tuesday. Despite the fact that my mother's from the Alexis Strum-tastic Chingford, supporting England will be something of a novelty for me. For a similar break with convention, i'll post two English songs.

Bloc Party are one of the best of the current crop of British indie bands in as much as they don't appear to want to sound exactly like The Jam in 1977. Their clever, angular guitar pop often sounds better in a remixed form though. The Weird Science mix of Helicopter is absolutely terrific - adding a great electro-funk bassline and a guest appearance from the mighty Peaches to Kele Okereke's strangled yelps.

Bloc Party ft Peaches - Helicopter (Weird Science Remix)

When it comes to British remixers, there can be few better than Richard X at the moment. Typically, he doesn't do anything particularly fancy, he just makes songs sound like they should have done in the first place. His retooling of Freeform Five's already excellent No More Conversations was the highlight of the reissued version of their Strangest Things album.

Freeform Five - No More Conversations (Richard X Remix)

2006-06-14T22:40:00.000+01:00

Poor Ukraine. To lose 4-0 on your World Cup debut is bad enough, to lose 4-0 to Spain, a country which is notoriously terrible at major competitions (perhaps because half their players could rather be appearing for the Basque Country) is shocking. Still it's not all bad news (and how often do you get to say that about Ukraine?) , one of their greatest pop stars is back. Anna Sedokova, leading light in V.I.A Gra, has returned under the name Annabell. In truth, the single Moe Serdtse is little more than pleasant but the relatively expensive-looking video suggests that she has proper record-label backing so we should be able to expect an album fairly soon. A wonderful vocalist with charisma to spare, she's capable of outshining almost anyone in the world if she has a couple of decent writers to work with. It's probably too much to hope that one of them will be Konstantin Meladze who allegedly kicked her out of the mighty V.I.A Gra when she married Dinamo Kiev captain Valentin Belkevich (who may be thankful he's Belarussian today). Meladze's brother Valerii is a ridiculously over-the-top singer who lends an almost cartoonish air to everything he takes part in. Balance him out with Sedokova and a choir and the results can be terrific though.

V.I.A Gra ft Valerii Meladze - Okean I Tri Reki

The video's rather cute too:

You can see the video for Moe Serdtse on Sedokova's website too if you feel like it.

Anna Sedokova Official Site

2006-06-14T19:42:00.000+01:00

Brazil's performance in their first match of the 2006 World Cup promised much but largely failed to take off. Much the same could be said, especially if you were really desperate for a link, of Baile Funk (or Carioca if you prefer). Like Reggaeton, Carioca, a blend of funk, samba, hip-hop and Miami booty bass, was hailed as the next big thing last summer but ultimately petered out. Whether it was the foreign lyrics or the fact that most of the songs sounded almost exactly the same, we'll never know. It was, of course, an absolutely enormous influence on M.I.A's awesome Arular though.

Bonde do Tigrão's O Baile Todo may have been mistaken by a friend of mine for a Portuguese cover of Who Let The Dogs Out? but it's a terrific example of the genre.

Bonde do Tigrão - O Baile Todo

Here are a few more:

MC Pe de Pano e o Bonde do Bogdov - Retorno de Jedi

Deise - Sadomasoquista

Hyuk Hyuk Hyuk

2006-06-14T19:02:00.000+01:00

It sounds like i missed an entertaining game yesterday afternoon. Togo took an early lead but South Korea ran out 2-1 winners. And what better way to celebrate Koreans coming from behind than a Jang Woo-Hyuk cover version of Flip Reverse? Jang, a former member of the inky gayo boyband H.O.T, is (according to his Wikipedia page) the most popular Korean male solo star in China and Taiwan. That said, the article goes on to describe Kenzie from Blazin' Squad as "a top composer" so i'd take that with a pinch of salt.

Jang Woo-Hyuk - Flip Reverse

2006-06-13T19:56:00.000+01:00

Hmmm.....Australia vs Japan on the same day Kylie Minogue returned to the stage.....what can i pick?

Towa Tei & Kylie Minogue - German Bold Italic

2006-06-13T19:35:00.000+01:00

There's something slightly perverse about seeing the brilliant Pavel Nedved making his World Cup debut at 33 against Kasey Keller, 36, appearing for the fourth time, but i've got a lot of affection for the former Spurs keeper. I'm clearly not alone. Songs about football are generally terrible, as anyone casting a glance at the British chart can tell you, but there are rare exceptions. Kasey Keller by Barcelona is one. It's sweet indie-synth-pop tribute to the night a bravura display from the American, apparently saving 30 shots on goal, saw Team USA beat Brazil 1-0. Of course, he couldn't stop them being pasted by the Czechs though.

Barcelona - Kasey Keller

2006-06-13T19:21:00.000+01:00

Ingmar Bergman, August Strindberg, King Gustav III, Björn Ulvaeus...your boys took one hell of a beating. Of course, strictly speaking, it wasn't a beating but it certainly felt like victory for T&T. A glorious performance from the Soca Warriors probably did more to put the twin island republic on the map than anything since independence. The sharp-eared may have heard the pocket of Trini fans in the crowd singing our unofficial anthem - Fighter by Maximus Dan. Sadly, i don't have an MP3 but you can listen to it here:

Maximus Dan - Fighter (streaming)

2006-06-10T08:20:00.000+01:00

Although i tend to stick up for all the countries i've had girlfriends from (which makes the Olympics quite tiring), Poland has always been particularly special. Most of my work involves Polish schools and universities and i try to visit on holiday at least once a year. It was sad to see them totally outclassed and out-thought by a team who pick up the vast majority of their good results because the opposition can't breathe properly at 9300ft above sea level. Still, that's what you get for playing with only one striker. It was quite amusing to see the Polish manager say, "unfortunately, the first goal destroyed our tactical considerations right from the start". Evidently, the possibility of the other team scoring isn't something that can be predicted in advance.

I'm a sucker for girls with guitars, i've even got a mild and infrequently-admitted affection for Avril Lavigne. None of the angsty teens crowding the market in recent years can possibly compare to the magnificent Kaja Paschalska though. I suppose you could make a deeply unflattering comparison in style with Amy Studt but Kaja's slightly darker and vastly superior. Her brilliant second album, the unimaginatively-titled Kaja 2, didn't fare well in the charts and can now be bought from www.fan.pl for about £1.30. Nie Ma Miłości is probably the finest song on the record. Incidentally, she has just returned after three years away as a guest star on rapper Funky Filon's single Mała Chinka - the picture on the left is what she looked like when she made Kaja 2, the picture below is apparently what she looks like now. Ah, they grow up so fast.....

Kaja Paschalska - Nie Ma Miłości

The transformation of Monika Brodka from giggling schoolgirl winner of Poland's Pop Idol to slick, ultra-professional superstar is remarkable for both its speed and the fact that her charm remains completely undiminished. It's obvious that she was simply born to be a pop star - she has the kind of charisma and talent that can't be learned or manufactured. I posted Ten a few months ago and suggested that her debut album might have been slightly disappointing. In retrospect, i think this was unfair. She owns the numerous cover songs in a way that few, if any, TV Idols can. The new songs, in Polish, are excellent too. Dziewczyna Mojego Chłopaka never failed to get the Polish girls at Contact singing along.

Brodka - Dziewczyna Mojego Chłopaka

As great as Monika Brodka and Kaja Paschalska are, my favourite Polish pop star remains the elusive Kasia Stankiewicz. It took a while for me to fully appreciate her album, Extrapop, but i now regard it as one of the best records released in the last ten years. Rarely has the mixture of rock, pop and electro been done to such spellbinding effect. She seems to have disappeared off the map since 2003, i believe she recently had a second child, but internet rumours suggest that she's planning to return in 2007. Francuzeczka was one of the first songs i ever posted, i hope you'll forgive me doing it again for the benefit of those who missed it the first time. It's one of the best singles i've ever heard. When i DJ, i find myself playing Pani Muzyka even more though.

Kasia Stankiewicz - Francuzeczka

Kasia Stankiewicz - Pani Muzyka

Now, if you'll excuse me, i'm off to find Ecuador! by Sash.....

2006-06-09T22:12:00.000+01:00

I had wanted to put up a schlagertastic song by an Austrian girl called Doris Russo whose name, when put into Google, returns a spectacular 834 hits (just 724,174 less than Demis Roussos) and who may well have the honour of being the only person alive to have covered two Lisa Scott-Lee songs but the CD won't work. Never mind.

Having given you something by Boytronic, i thought it only fair to also mention the other Eighties boyband dusted off for the new millenium. The Twins who, like the adorable HK pop group of the same name, clearly aren't even related to each other, apparently had a brief flurry of popularity around 1983 and were more or less forgotten until twenty years later when Hell, chief International DeeJay Gigolo, decided that he'd re-release their hit Face To Face on what was, during the summer of Electroclash, the coolest record label in the world.

The Twins - Face To Face

Naturally, no round-up of German music, however brief, would be complete without mention of the almighty Rammstein. Germany's biggest export in recent years (Scooter aside) are admirable on a number of levels, not least for their refusal to play in venues where the health and safety regulations preclude them from setting themselves on fire. You can tell from their dedication to showmanship, their enormously catchy tunes and the fact that Moskau, from their album Reise Reise, was clearly written with a Tatu collaboration in mind (only stymied by Yulia's pregnancy), they're a proper pop group. Getting the Pet Shop Boys to remix Mein Teil was just the icing on the cake.

Rammstein - Mein Teil (Pet Shop Boys Remix)

There's a case for saying that electro-rock pioneers Laibach are a one-trick-pony but there's no denying that it's an incredibly amusing trick. The Slovene band brilliantly emphasise the slightly disturbing totalitarian trappings of "classic" stadium rock - the baying crowds having simple messages repeatedly drummed into their heads - turning things like Queen's One Vision or The Beatles' Get Back into stomping, jackbooted anthems for dictators-in-waiting. This is their hilarious assault on the former.

Laibach - Geburt Einer Nation

As a bonus, here's Mina Harker of Melodrom and Milan Fras of Laibach singing Ohne Dich by Rammstein - it's staggeringly beautiful if you like this sort of thing.

Mina Harker - Ohne Dich

Klose To Perfection

2006-06-09T19:21:00.000+01:00

Well, that was exciting wasn't it? A great opening match with Germany running out 4-2 winners. Before Poland vs Ecuador, a few more songs.

Rather sweetly, when you put the CD of Ragazzi's Friday in your computer, the track names are replaced with helpful living suggestions like "eat more vegetables" and "rediscuss Communism". They're an electro-pop group from Berlin with a sense of humour and an enormous amount of charm. Sex & Money is about waking up on the floor of a kebab shop with chips stuck to your back.

Ragazzi - Sex & Money

Make no mistake, Louie Austen is a creepy old man. A Viennese bar singer in the mould of a cut-price Frank Sinatra, he was unleashed on a new generation by Kitty Yo Records and Patrick "I'm A Disco Dancer" Pulsinger to make the sort of lewd advances that would normally find a gentleman of his age placed on some kind of government register. On the subtly-titled Grab My Shaft, he meets his match in Peaches.

Louie Austen - Grab My Shaft (ft. Peaches)

2006-06-08T20:56:00.000+01:00

As promised, more from Germany and something by Wir Sind Helden (We Are Heroes). As with Klee, there doesn't seem to be anything particularly fascinating to write about them, they just make sweet, catchy indie-pop records. Von Hier An Blind is the title-track from their chart-topping second album which gets extra points for its Tintin-In-Tibet-inspired cover art.

Wir Sind Helden - Von Hier An Blind

Acrobat-turned-soap-star Jeanette Biedermann ranks alongside Kate Ryan and compatriot Sarah Connor as one the the great, truly mediocre, Euro-pop singers. Her name's quite well known in discerning pop circles but i can't imagine many people outside of Germany could name one of her songs. There's nothing terrible about her, she's just slightly dull. That said, How It's Got To Be, from her album Delicious, is rather good. Of course, pinching your tunes from Tchaikovsky helps.

Jeanette - How It's Got To Be

Hamburg's Boytronic were one of the biggest German synth groups of the 80s. Enormously camp, they worked with Bobby Orlando, dressed up as sailors and danced like idiots, just as all good eighties pop groups should. They continued with a limited degree of success into the mid-90s and then disappeared for seven years. In 2002 they returned with the stunning Autotunes - adding incredible layers of depth and gravitas to the sharp electro-pop tunes. This is what all boybands should sound like after a spell in the wilderness. I over-use the word "anthemic" but it's rarely more appropriate than when applied to A Song For The Lonely.

Boytronic - A Song For The Lonely

It was a beautiful summer day in London yeasterday. I couldn't decide what to listen to while walking home so i set my MP3 player to random and ended up with Faking The Books by Lali Puna. It fitted perfectly. A lot of people regard the kind of studious, glitchy electronica that Germany leads the world in as music to be analysed and admired, almost in laboratory conditions - too clever and too cold to fully lose yourself in. I've always seen it as capable of producing some of the most spellbinding, immediate pop you're likely to hear. Perhaps no song illustrates this better than Der Augenblick by the remarkable Barbara Morgenstern, from the album Fjorden.

Barbara Morgenstern - Der Augenblick

Anna Vissi-on

2006-06-06T17:12:00.000+01:00

Anna Vissi is a Greek superstar. She represented Greece in this year's Eurovision but has a career spanning over 20 years behind her. Her Eurovision performance was wonderfully over-the-top with hair flying everywhere and a wind machine set to tempest.

I saw her play London's Royal Albert Hall a week later and she was magnificent. She joked along with the crowd (who were mostly Greek or Cypriot). Anna had them in the palm of her hand, and even went out among the audience to sing what sounded very much like a traditional Greek song.

The two songs for download are A Beautiful Night and Call Me. A Beautiful Night is an unsuccessful song from this year's Greek Eurovision selection (and the song I am going to play whenever Contact returns to a glamorous London venue). If you have eagle-ears you may recognise Call Me from the closing ceremony of the Athens Olympics two years ago at which Anna performed.

A Beautiful Night

Call Me

2006-06-05T19:03:00.000+01:00

Despite the fact that i'll be supporting a team that has a good claim to being the worst to make the finals since Zaire in 1974, i'm incredibly excited about the forthcoming World Cup. I had intended to post a song a day from the host nation but decided it was probably too much bother so i'll lump a bunch of them into two or three posts.

I confess, i don't know a huge amount about Köln band Klee. In fact, i frequently get them confused with Wir Sind Helden (who we may be seeing more of later). Their album Jelängerjelieber is rather lovely though. They've been compared to The Cardigans in the past but i find their attempts to combine dreamy pop with modern rock and electro influences much more successful than the Swedish group's recent efforts. Gold has another of those great disco basslines i like so much.

Klee - Gold

Of course, everyone knows Nena. She has been unfairly written off by the majority of the world as a one-hit-wonder but can boast a career spanning the best part of twenty-five years in Germany and Austria. Admittedly, that twenty-five year career has only produced three good songs, but i won't hold that against her. The Brits might like to laugh at American cultural isolationism but it's worth pointing out that the legendary 99 Red Balloons was a number one hit in the US charts in the original German. It was only translated for the benefit of the UK. Nur Getraumt was arguably even better - a catchy new wave classic.

Nena - Nur Getraumt

As a bonus (of sorts) i've added the ludicrous Blumchen cover version as well. She was a one-woman Scooter from the mid-90s, making hidously addictive, totally brainless rave-pop. The videos were always good fun - as it's not humanly possible to dance as fast as the music they inevitably degenerated into random arm-flapping and slow-motion jumping about.

Blumchen - Nur Getraumt

German hip-hop is ever-present on the country's music TV stations but i've never actually met anyone who'll admit to liking it. The most popular stuff (like Aggro Berlin) tends to be stupid, brutal and basic but it's not all bad. The one Deutsche-rap song i've always loved is Dünya Dönüyor by the German-Turkish star Eko Fresh (Ekrem Bora). I've been meaning to buy his Ich Bin Jung Und Brauche Das Geld album for a while. The single's a perfect blend of Eastern strings and rolling beats. It's quite brilliant.

Eko Fresh - Dünya Dönüyor