It's music review time again, boys and girls!Fairlywell has sent me another fabulous CD. Read and be jealous:

1. Malcolm Little : �JESUS�
Fairly says this is a demo track made by someone she used to work with who�s trying to get a career in Christian rap off the ground. This is one of my favorite tracks, ever. This guy worked at my last office, and is trying to start a career of Christian rap. The first time I listened to this, I was a little sensitive to the subject matter. I�d just returned from an unavoidable trip to H0bby L0bby where I�d been subjected to stealth recordings of hymns disguised as other things and had had to park next to a van with a bumper sticker with a picture of the Darwin fish inside a circle with a diagonal line across it. But the steel drums drew me in. AJ likes all the spelling. You can check out some of his other tracks on his myspace page, if you can get it to load. If you search for him, try � �Malcolm Little� rap� because, of course, Malcolm Little will turn up a lot of Malcolm X sites.

2. Art Brut: �Emily Kane�
I have to say that I�m a little bit in love with Art Brut. That is, I would be if he were a guy and not a band, which I thought he/it was the first time I heard �Good Weekend� on fairlywell�s last gift mix. Another hilarious song, this time about pining for a high school girlfriend in kind of a scary stalkerish way, but also in a way that�s probably at least a little uncomfortably familiar for many of us. And it rocks. And unlike �Good Weekend,� it�s AJ safe.

3. Plastilina Mosh: �Millionaire�
A great fusion of rap, reggae and house electronica. I have no idea what half the words are, although I�m pretty sure some are in Spanish, which at least gets me off the hook. There is one fabulous rhyme, though, of millionaire with prayer with Tony Blair. I can�t understand the rest of the words, though, so I have no idea what connects them together. More�s the pity.

4. The Dears � This is a Broadcast. I love this one for its additive opening. It starts of with this rough-edged, asymmetric punky guitar lick that leads me to expect something like Sleater-Kinney. But wait! The next part comes in. Are those�strings? And twinkly tambourines and cymbals? Maybe it�s punk muzak. But no, there�s more. A really poppy lick on a retro organ. What is this? Then the vocals come in. A classic alternavoice croons a tune worthy of Sinatra, a tune. This is as eclectic as they come and I like it. I also like how all the parts are a little uncomfortable together, sometimes a little dissonant. And I love when the croony melody comes back in the raucous opening guitar timbre. It�s pleasantly incongruous.

5.Mint Royale � Show Me. This has a rap set over a women�s chorus (is it South African? It kind of sounds like it, although someone�s having fun with his equalizer, so it�s a little hard to tell) with backing drum machine. There�s a break in the middle where it sounds like it�s about to go into an orchestral version of Brahms� lullaby (no, I am not joking) before the chorus rises back up through the texture. It�s a very catchy, happy tune.

6. The Winechuggers: �Long Circuitous Path�
The first line of the song begins, �If Chicago has the balls�� kind of puts it out there. But it�s a lovely tune. But be warned: this is a total earworm. I actually downloaded this a week or two ago, after fairly wrote an entry about it and I went to listen to it online. I could tell it was a winner, so I downloaded it right away and now I can never seem to quite get it out of my head. Nice mix of bass and piano under the vocals. This would be a nice song to start a mix for driving � I used to make a lot of those, back when I used to run grooves in the pavement between Massachusetts and Indiana.

7. The Veils � The Tide That Left and Never Came Back
I have to admit I was predisposed to like this song because of its appealing title. It sounds like a fable or a fairy tale. Plus, as fairlywell pointed out, there is a perfect spot for a steering wheel drum solo. I�ve just got to try not to honk my horn next time. AJ likes this one too (except for the horn honking). He decided it was called �Small Town.� After the repeating line, �It�s a small town and it misses you, my love.�

8. Jem: �They�
This is one of the tunes I already had. It was one of the free downloads on iTunes a while back. I find the opening pseudo-chorus a little precious (although maybe it�s just because I played this song a lot when I first got it and now I�m a little tired of it), but I still love the groove in the back half of the song.

9. Danko Jones: Lovercall
I love this song. It has a fantastic bass opening that is kind of like Peter Gunn on acid. And Jones� voice comes in sounding a little Bad to the Bone. He talks through large chunks of the text rather than sings, but he�s got a phenomenal control and sells it a hundred and ten percent. It doesn�t sound like rap. It sounds like good acting. Fairly says, �I love Danko Jones because at shows he yells "My heart gets stronger, my skin gets thicker, my mouth gets louder." A good mantra, I think.� A good mantra indeed.

10. Hawksley Workman: Jealous of Your Cigarette
If someone were actually to speak the words of this song to me I�d probably either punch him in the nose or back away slowly making no sudden moves. That said, I love this song. It�s a perfect singalong (which was, after all, the theme of the mix). Although I skip singing some key lines when AJ�s in the car. Even though he�s oblivious to the implications of the lyrics, I can�t bring myself to do it. It opens with a pretty and tame sounding piano solo and then explodes when the vocals come in. Totally infectious.

11. The Gray Kid � Lonely Love
This has a remarkably different sound than TGK�s �Ole,� which fairly included on her last mix. The whole opening is not rapped but sung in a high register. The tune is quite pretty and delicate, but there�s something holding it down. Maybe it�s the oversampling at different pitch registers of the vocals in different parts. I can�t understand most of the words � pretty much the title of the song and �okay.� But I like the electronic background to this song. At the end of the rap sections, there is this wild repeat that sounds like a record skipping. It�s startlingly rhythmic. This is a song about small scale repetitions � short phrases repeat and eventually disintegrate into repeated pitches.

12. Pink Martini: �Una Notte a Napoli�
It�s in Italian and it has a sexy, salsa-like beat. What�s not to love? The opening, with a low-voiced woman speaking in Italian over piano and mandolin is an Italian clich�, but one sweep of the harp and you�re dancing on Mediterranean shores.

13. Destroyer � Looters' Follies
AJ likes the way this one starts with a line from the Big Bad Wolf. But he got bored � it�s too slow for him. Speech-singing over guitar, piano and drums in a live acoustic. It sounds like a high school gym after the dance.

14. The Detroit Cobras: �Can't Do Without You�
I�d forgotten that fairly said she likes to sing back-up doo-wop girl to this one until I found myself doing the same thing. With choreography. While driving down the highway. This is a great tune. Even if the lyrics do consist of a guy threatening his woman with suicide (in some fairly specific ways) if she doesn�t promise to go steady with him. This song was the clear winner of the disk for AJ, who, after first hearing it, insisted on listening to it six times in a row. He would have gone for more, but I put the kibosh on it because it was bedtime. Not only that, but he insisted on listening to it by himself in his room, dismissing me with a �may I have some privacy?� which means he wants to dance as crazy as he wants and he doesn�t want anyone to laugh at him.

15. Joel Plaskett � Mystery and Crime
Plaskett�s slightly adenoidal voice reminds me a little of Jonathan Richman. It�s a little darker though. A simple, peppy tune with a chorus of �murder, murder, murder, murder.� Oh, come on. It�s fun to say. You try it.

16. The Small Faces � Hey Girl
The opening reminds me a little of The Who�s �Magic Bus,� which came out a couple of years later (I think � this song dates from 1966. I looked it up, because I couldn�t quite place this tune. It sounded vaguely familiar). But it�s lightened by something of the sound of �Twist and Shout (Beatles, of course; 1962? 3? Somewhere in there). "Hey! Hey! It's alright!" is the chorus.

17. The Mountain Goats � Adair
This begins and ends with an aural homage to the LP, a sound that carries through the tune by its strange miking. The effect is that you are sitting next to the guitarist listening to the singer on the car radio of a broken down Chevy. It�s a pretty song, but not a pretty voice. Simple and direct.

18. Voxtrot � Trouble
I had to look this song up too, not because I recognized it but because the beginning sounded so 1980s, but 80s in a way that was almost a little too studied. The elements were there, but didn�t come together in a genuine way. Moreover, it degenerated into something that sounded more influenced by 60s bands like The Small Faces. I was right to be suspicious � this song came out in November. I�m not familiar with the Austin-based band, but they�ve been getting a lot of press. I�ll have to keep my eyes (and ears) out for more.

19. Leeroy Stagger � Just in Case
Fairly�s notes about this one made me laugh: �it�s about a suicide attempt. Still, it has handclaps.� (I had to wonder if this was a comment on the mix I made her, which, I realized after the fact, had an unusually high count of songs with handclaps). Stagger won me over with the line, �Everybody in this town needs to shut up.� And you should never underestimate a good handclap. The piano lick (once this gets going) and the groove are very similar to The Dears� �This is a Broadcast� (once it gets going). The tempo is nearly identical.

20. Beth Orton � Sweetest Decline
I�ve been hearing about Beth Orton for years, but have never gotten around to tracking her down. I love her languid nostalgia and her impressive instrumentals. The guitar has a tremendous tone - sounds like Pat Metheny. She has a slightly jazzy vocal delivery which I love. Her tuneful meanderings are a pleasure to follow. The perfect song for lounging in a hammock with an ice cold bottle of beer on a hot summer day.

21. The Chordettes � Lollipop
What singalong CD would be complete without this one? This song was on the very first CD I made for AJ and was an instant hit. He likes it even more now that he has learned how to pop his cheek, a skill that eluded him until fairly recently.
[There's a new entry at AJ's Clubhouse that I think I forgot to mention. Go there and make me feel useful!]

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