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The title above is a very good description of MIA’s music by Matthew Cooke. Ⅰ had heard about Ⅿ.I.A. first at a special show of austria’s FM4 radio station about this year’s Sonar Festival (Link to pics at flickr) in Barcelona, Spain; where she was one of the hyped newcomer acts or so. And she is – hyped but not overhyped. Her stuff is cool, new, fresh and refreshing. But then Ⅰ am not so much in favor of the whole album… it hasn’t grown on me yet. But nevertheless: if you ever considered doing something good for your musical horizon, if you like tribal folk ‚lectro hip hop. Check her out.

Pink’s new album has me hooked. It is full of good tracks with awesome beats, great words and other than that: a huge temptation to just start dancing. Even the slower songs have great rhythm – groovy. Ⅰ suppose my neighbors and whoever is watching into my windows is wondering what cool music Ⅰ am dancing to

An amazing set of tango-esque dance music. You still hear and feel the tangos, but there is always a driving beat that makes you move in completely different ways than a pure tango ever would. TangoFusionClub like. Funny, of the many electro-tango CDs out there in the last year or two this is probably one of the best. And not because it sounds so completely new because it isn’t. Of course you hear known tangos in those songs, but there is always more, more than just a remix of an old tango – and that makes it so great. You can feel at home inside the music, you feel like you always knew that a cross between Tango and Chill-Out would sound like this.

Also check out Volume 2

Sound samples can be found at musicline.de

Ⅰ have written a short review before. The second installment of this series now just arrived in my mailbox some weeks ago and Ⅰ have been playing it on my iPod since then. At first Ⅰ was quite surprised how different yet similar the albums are… but more on that later. In fact Ⅰ have listened to the songs so often now Ⅰ can hardly remember if they are from Volume 1 or 2 without checking the track listings

The first track (which is a remix of the last track of the album) „Abasto Sunset“ by G-Spliff is a dark, melancholic instrumental song, that does introduce the album, but does not foreshadow its mood at all. But in its own way this short intro is very intriguing, very deep and very fascinating, if it were just longer. The second version of this track, namely the „original“ version of „Abasto Sunset“ is far less powerful. Nevertheless it leaves you with some sort of an aftertaste wanting you to start the album all over again.

The second track (Tango Tripping Project – El Exilio del Tango) reminds me very much more of the various TangoFusion/Electronic Tango CDs that were out in the first wave of new tango music 1–2 years ago. It is then where you realize this album will definitely follow in Volume 1’s footsteps. And Ⅰ could just go on praising almost every single track on the compilation. The tracks meld into each other as if they were meant to be on that compilation. Definitely an album that has a permanent place in my iPod.

But then Ⅰ would prefer you to go out and listen to it yourself.

A side note for tango dancers: this album is very much danceable, although it is a lot slower than Volume 1 – but Ⅰ think you might actually prefer Vol. 2 for dancing.