Big Pun ft Joe - Still Not A Player

Sometimes I wish my life was a musical. Not because I have any particular fondness for chorus lines or hairspray (pun intended*), but just because I think it would be amazing if sometimes conversations were underscored by pop songs expressing the salient points.

This song, in particular, popped into my head as a banker was explaining his dating philosophy to me. I think the evening would have been much improved by a little bit of late-90's tongue-in-cheek slut-rap.

This is the finest work of Puerto Rico's first international superstar, and was one of the songs that filtered back to the island and kick-started the nascent reggaetón industry. Also probably one of the first international hits to have "boricua, morena" as its refrain.



* Seriously, did you think I could get through a piece about someone called "Big Pun" without making a pun? If so, you massively overestimate me. (Yeah, I know it's short for "Punisher"... don't spoil my fun.)

The Happy Nobodies - Excuse To Stay

If you don't like boasting, look away now, here it comes... I know the people who made this, and they're my friends and they're Bolivian and once they trekked through the jungle to find an plane which crashed decades ago. Seriously. I am not making any of this up. They are that awesome. (Also seriously good-looking. Just saying.)

Anyway, the song's radio-friendly swing jazz, with a video featuring my beloved La Paz, and it's worked itself onto half the mixtapes I made last year: it's a gem.

Submotion Orchestra - All Yours

Oh my days, the things this girl does with her voice on the chorus. This is really old school acoustic, 1920's style, big sweeping melodies and brass. And she has a delicate, perfectly tuned voice, switching effortlessly between breathiness and pure tones. Lush.

I also really like this track, which sounds like slow acoustic UK garage or melodic trip-hop - wait for the drums to drop. It's not emotive, but it's beautiful in a cold, clinical way.

There are some spacey remixes of All Yours on their soundcloud, and lots of tour info and shizzle on their website.

Lykke Li - Sadness Is A Blessing

Lykke Li has the kind of reedy voice that is normally like nails on a blackboard to me, but against this lush rich instrumentation, it sounds incredibly expressive.

The lyrics are gorgeous, and the tune sounds like an old jazz standard somehow.

Since Lykke Li has the knack of sounding like the girl next door, it comes across as the most incredibly personal song - you can imagine this pale Swedish girl standing up in a karaoke bar in New York, and pelting out this standard in her thin little voice, drink in her hand and tears in her eyes.

She's got an immensely varied range of material on her soundcloud. Some of it sounds like revamp of Moloko, but less funky, more jazzy. She's also collaborated with interesting people - Tyler the Creator (of OFWGKTA) did an amazing, brutal, remix of Follow Rivers.

Sadness Is a Blessing by LykkeLi

Kid Frost - La Raza

Late-80's gangsta rap, in pure Spanglish. Also with added saxaphone riff, and a rock-solid bassline. I love the video as well - all those 80's camera angles.

Some of the lines in this are really slick: "you're so cool I'ma call you a culo"... nice little bilingual pun there.

Los Negretes - Puta Ciudad

More guitars, but the trumpet's what makes this one for me. The trumpet and the tambourine. I think they give it that tropical swing-band feel. But it's got a rock-and-roll aesthetic, right down to trashing the double bass and falling off the roof.

The band's Mexican, singing in Spanish, about "this damn city". I love how it sounds like something you might hear played in a cantina, only better. Much better.

The stunning video is from the ever-astounding Blogotheque series

Bomb The Music Industry - Saddr Weirdr

Oh Yes. Here are the promised guitars. This is absolutely one of my favourite songs. Bitter, weird lyrics, pure soul, and it has a tune.

My friend Jess played me this song on a broken-stringed guitar, one afternoon in Nicaragua, a place so devilishly hot that you'll break into a sweat if your facial expressions are too energetic. I thought he was going to die of heat exhaustion before the song ended (he had a dangerously insulatory beard, which was so thick and dark that the Nicaraguans nicknamed him "Taliban"). He didn't die, so the song has no negative connotations at all, it just reminds me of sweat-soaked days and rum-soaked nights.

Anti-Pop Consortium - What Am I?

I was fully intending to serve up some music-with-guitars tonight, maybe with a side of acoustic folk. Honestly, that was the menu plan.

But then I listened to this, and it's pretty irrepressible: there's more variety in this one track than there is in most albums. Seriously. You can kinda tell they met at a poetry jam, but the beats on this are incredible too. I especially like the intro - sounds like someone jumping on an enormous magic xylophone. On the moon.

Tanya Stephens - These Streets

This is a nice acoustic burner from Tanya Stephens - not a conventional voice, but an addictive one.

It's a metaphor-strewn rejection of gangsterism, with some of the most brilliantly filthy lyrics: "I wish you woulda treat me like ya glock//I woulda love it if you keep me on cock//I wish you woulda treat me like ya yacht//keep me wet while the waves them a rock".

Released in 2006, it's a challenge to all crack-selling rap boasts, and it evidently resounded with people all over the Caribbean, where her album sold out on release



(Incidentally, that 50 Cent track is actually pretty good - got a kinda funky bassline going on and a gorgeous female vocal, and Fiddy's straight-up 4-line verses do pack a punch.)

Skinnyman - Eye Of The Tiger Freestyle

Nice tough piece of old-school UK hip-hop from Finsbury's finest: Skinnyman. He has the most extraordinary lyrical ability, and his energy is phenomenal. I also really like the "humble pie" bars - he snatches a metaphor back into reality. (Turns out humble pie was actually once a type of pie. Who knew?)

It would have been nice if they didn't shoot it in what sounds like the bottom of an empty swimming pool... Almost certainly the Worst Acoustics Ever. Still a rock-solid performance.

Moufy - In Your Dorm Room

It's probably illegal to like this song, since the kid who wrote it is only about 19, and it's the most seductively graphic thing I've heard this week.

There's a fine tradition in RnB and blues of explicit detail: Muddy Waters released this paean to sex in 1954, and in 1973 Marvin Gaye released the classic Let's Get It On... Moufy's track is a fine representation of that tradition. And you can cite that when someone calls it dirty.

It's up for free download, so go put it on your sexiest playlist.

Munga - My Style (Bus Stop Riddim)

Feel-good summer music. It might only be February, but today was the first day that I didn't think my fingernails were going to fall off, frozen into little frosty chips, on the way to work. And that is the definition of British summer: the absence of frostbite.

This track goes refreshingly light on the Autotune, which has been making dancehall grate on my eardrums lately, and Munga's voice isn't too whiny. The beat (the incredible Bus Stop riddim) is infectious, and I love those hush-hush handclaps in the background.



All credit is due to my absolute favourite dancehall blog, ShimmyShimmy, for drawing my attention to this goodness.

Tyler The Creator - Yonkers

This is the most spectacularly dark and twisted thing I've heard in a while. Tyler's getting lots of hype from important people, who are far more articulate than I.

Suffice to say, you'll have to give it a few listens to desensitize yourself to the video. But then the lyrics are something else: he promises to "stab Bruno Mars in his goddamn oesophagus". Which, although cruel, would definitely make the Grammys more interesting.

He's only 19: could he be the new hardcore Kanye?

Hobbie Stuart - What's My Name? (Rihanna Cover)

This is a pretty special cover: he does a bit of harmony on the vocals, and it sounds so much less whiny than the original: Drake's voice is just too nasal for me. I know that's a bit rich, given how much I love Ghetts, who seems to have mastered the art of rapping entirely through his nose, and could probably perform with his mouth duct-taped shut. But Ghetts is a phenomenon lyrically, and Drake is just meh-meh-mediocre.

And I would like Rihanna so much more if she wasn't naked 24/7. Not that I don't like her naked, just that I get a bit dubious as to whether it's necessary to take all your clothes off in order to sing properly. I don't know, I'm no singer, but I just pray that Pavarotti and Susan Boyle don't adopt the Rihanna technique in the hope of improving upon their lovely voices.

Ghetto - I'm Ghetts

This came up on shuffle as I was walking to work this morning and, as always, I embarrassed myself: it is impossible to listen this without putting on a screwface and nodding along, and I'm a little white girl in office clothes. It looks like I have silent Tourette's.

Still, it was worth it. This is classic Ghetts, a showcase of the kind of lyrics that got people excited about grime. The internal rhymes alone are incredible.

Field Mob ft Ciara - So What?

Got a bit of a soft spot for this summer song. It's not the apotheosis of music achievement, but it's a nice throwback to soft-core 90s Rap'n'B (Montell Jordan being the archetype)

Also, the video's got gorgeous colours, and the hook actually has a tune. And I definitely love Ciara.

Blu ft Freddie Gibbs & Homeboy Sandman - In

This is a fairly feisty instrumental, something like jazz with a subwoofer, and a foghorn. There's nothing in there to distract from the lyrics, and Blu, Freddie and Homeboy Sandman (in that order) go hard on the verses.

The Sandman even coins some nice slang "I was holding confetti: little paper". And Freddie, as always, sounds like he speaks in verse naturally.

Tego Calderon - Cosa Buena

And for Valentine's Day... a classic piece of over-sexed reggaeton. Definitely more fun than a card and flowers.

This is a beauty of its type: there's that unmistakable reggaeton rhythm, and a little bit of backing brass. Tego's on top form, with some lyrics exalting himself, women, and dancing, in his typical slangy slurred delivery. It's good. Also, the video makes me homesick for Central America, which isn't even really home, so it must be doing something right.

La'Mier - Politsei (El Mayonesa Remix)

I am very fond of Estonia. I know exactly one Estonian, and she's amazing and makes delicious cakes, so extrapolating from that, Estonia is basically paradise.

That said, I don't normally go a bundle on Eastern European drum 'n' bass: it's too relentless and formulaeic. But this little number by La'Mier, coming straight outta Estonia, is gorgeous.

It has some really nice off-beat timpani, and a 5-note slow vocal, which make it sound a bit dancehall. In a really really good way.

La' Mier - Politsei / Elmayonesa by La' Mier

Ciara - Like A Boy

Remember this one? Long before Beyonce jumped on her own gender-equality track, Ciara released this classic slice of RnB: there's violins, a frenetic snare, and a killer tune.

For good measure, there's also a military drum break. And some thunder. And she sings harmony to her own bassline on the breakdown. There's no denying she's good.

Also, she's the most beautiful woman alive, and the dancing in this is something else.

Tabi Bonney ft Lykke Li - Where We Gonna Go

I am pretty besotted with the new Tabi Bonney album. This track covers a killer Kings of Leon track on the intro, and only gets better. I like all that echo and reverb - this may be the song that rescues rap-rock from the musical hinterland to which it was banished courtesy of Fred Durst.

You can get the whole album for free at Tabi's website. It's lush: there's some skweee in there, and one of the sexiest songs I've heard this week.

11 Where We Gonna Go ft Lykke Li (prod by Smiles Davis) by welovenice

Talib Kweli ft Jean Grae - Uh Oh

Jean Grae absolutely scorches this track, which is off the (apparently mediocre) new Talib Kweli album.

She opens up with Aaliyah/Timbaland's catchiest line ever. And the murder-murder line is a straight reference to Freddie Gibbs' "they don't really want that murder-murder". Seriously, no-one else has said "murder-murder" since about 1999. True fact: I googled it.

La Factoria - Amiga

This is pure cheese. But it's good cheese. It has all of the essentials: catchy tune, bizarre instrumentation (is that a flute?), ridiculous lyrics, and deeply weird costumes. Oh, and boobs. Lots of boobs. Seriously, I defy you to not slightly enjoy this.

La Factoria are a duo straight out of Panama (current spiritual home of melodic reggaeton). The song's a duet, in which one of them apologises for having slept with the other one's husband. It's a musical catfight. It's awesome. The lyrics are a joy, and some kind soul has even translated them (really really badly... But you can get the gist. It's not complicated. It's a catfight.)

When I saw them live, one of them had left the band, and so the other one had to play both parts. It was the most brilliantly schizophrenic performance I have ever seen. Worthy of the Tate Modern or something.

Mo Fire - Muito Bom (Copia Doble Remix)

This song is basically The Sex. I know I've said this before, but how often do you get a jizz-in-your-pants bassline and trumpets and a man intoning "muito bom" in the sleaziest voice ever? Not every day. At least not in my neck of the woods.

I love baile funk, probably in part because my Portugese is terrible and my propensity for dancing inappropriately even more so. This is funk carioca with an amazing 70's Knightrider-feel to the bassline. Excellent - check out Copia Doble for more Southern-style goodness (technically, it's made in Denmark, but they do have a six-month summer, so it's practically tropical, right?)

Mo Fire - Muito Bom (Copia Doble Remix) by COPIA DOBLE SYSTEMA

Copia Doble vs Major Lazer - Colegiala Pon De Floor (Copyflex Mashup)

I have a secret passion for accordion music. No joke. I seriously love a bit of cumbia. For the unintiated, cumbia is basically Latin two-step, so it's a bit like Andean garage. How could you not love that?

And this is a mash-up of some delicious cumbia sounds, and Major Lazer's massive hit, slowed down to make it more amenable to trotting back and forth. The architects of such wonder are a duo from Demnark, of all places.

Copia Doble vs Major Lazer - Colegiala Pon De Floor (Copyflex Mixup) by COPIA DOBLE SYSTEMA

Crystal Fighters - Swallow

Upbeat blues? Is that an oxymoron? Doesn't matter, it sounds ace. I like all those pure-tone bells against a gravelly voice. I like contrasting textures at the moment. Not sure I like the massive break into dubstep in the middle, but I'm waiting for it to grow on me.

Anyway, my internet is going slower than Burmese democratisation tonight, so I had to wait about a million years for this to stream. Definitely worth it.

Krafty Kuts - Fresh Kuts Vol 1 Dj Mix

This just made my day. Brace yourself for the good news: Mr Krafty Kuts, DJ-extraordinaire, has released a bunch of free hour-long mixes.

If you're reading this paragraph, you didn't collapse into a little puddle of orgasmic ecstasy when you read the last paragraph, which can only mean that you've never heard Krafty Kuts. I will explain. The mixes are this incredible blend of songs familiar, songs unexpected, and songs which just give you deja-vu in the middle of the dancefloor. This is like an acid trip down memory lane. Seriously, these mixes will take you to a good place.

It's jump-up party music which makes you smile. Anyone can dance to this. (It's also good for exercise purposes, for those of you trying to stave off death with sweat.) I am getting so ancient/suburban that I now also have "cooking music" and this definitely makes the cut.

Krafty Kuts - Fresh Kuts Vol 1 DJ Mix by KraftyKuts

Love and Light - The Light We Bring

Allow the so-hippy-it-makes-me-sicky band name: this is hot. There's a 1920's jazz sample, some heavy synth action, and a gloopy bassline. I'm not entirely convinced by the intro, but it warms up to be a lot of fun.

Plus, they're not even famous yet, so you can be well ahead of the trends. You can buy their album or listen to their soundcloud, and wear a spacesuit, because breatheable air was sooo last millennium. (Guess the hippy vibe has rubbed off on me. Damn.)

The Light We Bring by Love and Light

Salva - Complex Housing (Album)

Let's get one thing clear: I never intend to finish the night stumbling around the dancefloor in a state of drunken ecstasy, blissing out on techno. That's really not a good look for me.

But this is the kind of music that makes humiliation worthwile. It's got flavours of hip-hop, house and funk: all that good stuff. FACTmag did a really articulate review, basically rendering my babbling redundant. So, over and out.

Salva: Complex Housing by factmag

Andreya Triana - Lost Where I Belong

I love how her voice varies in texture, sometimes it's so rich and then it goes all feeble and pure and transparent. It's all so perfectly controlled and restrained, and so pregnant with emotion. Bonobo on the buttons, and Ms. Triana herself on lyrics and vocals. Killer.

James Blake - The Wilhelm Scream

Minimalist glitch-step heart-broken love song, anyone? I have slobbered over James Blake and his creations before. But this merits further adoration. The soundscape is incredibly textured, and the vocal is exquisite. Also, he's proper fit.

The Wilhelm Scream is apparently the name of a sound effect used in Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and various other blockbusters. The Wikipedia article about it is interesting, if you don't mind filling your mind with useless knowledge that will never even come up in a pub quiz.

Plastician - Round The World Girls (Remix)

I have a friend called Dieter. He's very charming, and today at lunch he pleaded very movingly (tears in his eyes, panini trembling in his hand) for me to make him a guide to dubstep. So the next three posts are going to explain dubstep, in so far as I understand it.

Basically dubstep has 2 main elements: quivering, intense basslines and sub-bass, and quieter high-pitched fast drums. There may or may not be a vocal sample or some lasers or something juicy like that.

It's party music, even though it's often in a minor key. The sub-bass makes the floor shake, and it's a straightforward 4-4 rhythm to dance too. So first up, a party song: Plastician's remix of the utterly classic Round The World Girls

Plastician - Digidesign / Round The World Girls by mantequilla

Skream - Midnight Request Line

Dubstep has permeated pop pretty well - just listen to the heavy sub-bassline and skippy drums in Pass Out. So you already know more about dubstep than you thought you did!

(This is a bit like one of those many French lessons in which Mlle. Parente tried to convince us that we could speak French: "Oui mes filles, you can speak already the French - do you not say rendez-vous, entente cordiale, croissant, patisserie, tete-a-tete, et bete noir?!". Sadly, the only one of those I had ever heard of was the croissant, and I knew that it was pronounced crow-saint. That's how they said it in the shop. To this day I do not speak French in public, or in France.)

Anyways, back to dubstep. You are indubitably more familiar with dubstep than I was with French, and best of all, there's no homework. So the next track is the one that started all the commotion: this got played on Radio 1 in 2005 and pushed dubstep into the mainstream.

It's not conjunctivitis-catchy, but listen to it three times and you'll be yearning for it again. This one's got a bit of a lighter touch than the last track, it's not so heavy on the bass.

Skream Midnight Request Line by ieseala

Mala - Level Nine

And finally, something at the cutting edge. This is by Mala, one of scene's most-adored producers at the moment.

This is again fairly easy on the sub-bass, and has a thinner, lighter sound than Round The World Girls. But all the bits are there: the frenetic drums, the soaring bassline, the lasers. This is a pretty technical track: not so catchy. If you'd prefer something that got stuck in your head all day, try the dubstep remix of Baby Got Back

Taio Cruz - I Can Be

I hate to admit that I like this song. Because Mr Cruz has his own brand of sunglasses, and I'm really skeptical of an English kid claiming to have a stong opinion on sunglasses when we wear them for less than seven days a year. You can smell the marketing a mile off.

But (atrocious hand-clapping rap interlude and awful sostenuto outro aside) this is delicious pop. There's a big catchy chorus and twiddly strings, and even a key-change mid-track. This is sample gold: I'm sure something will come out in about 2015 which uses that chorus.

Nas ft. Marsha Ambrosius - If I Ruled The World (2009 Refit)

If the original has Lauryn Hill on the vocals, and was Nas's first hit, back in 1996, it's a hard act to follow. But I like this refit: Marsha Ambrosius has a butter-smooth voice, and the electric bleepy instrumental is very 2009 (in a good way). It's also a change of tempo, faster than the original. Lyrics are still classic.

Calle 13 - La Jirafa

This one's like a mad cumbia, killing it on the accordion and the drums. Fittingly, the lyrics are a tongue-in-cheek love/lust song.

Fit video too: Calle 13 always manage to make Puerto Rico look like one of those dreams you don't want to wake up from.

Eero Johannes - We Could Be Skweeeroes

This is a little less mainstream perhaps: there's no vocal on it, and the slapped bass in the intro sounds a bit like a well-tuned burp. And some of the chirped melody appears to be being sung by mice breathing helium. For me, that's no bad thing: I like a few mammalian sounds in my elecronic music, even if they are eructatory.

And its creator, Eero Johannes, as well as having an astoundingly good name, is an illustrator. Now if only he were a website designer too, and maybe able to order complicated coffee from Starbucks without sounding like a tosser, he'd be the ultimate New-Millennial-Renaissance-Man.

Silkie - Brazil

This is only a radio rip, so skip the first minute if you don't want to hear the babble. But it's such a clean track, like weightless dubstep. None of the earthquake bass, just an amazing rhythm and careful structure. Not too complex to be a party tune, but never boring. Vocal sample's not bad either.

Beem ft. Peder - Color Separated

Can I get a groove? This is a funky little number, a little bedtime skweee, but with a disco flavour. And you can download it here, for the princely sum of absolutely nothing.

In fact the only thing I don't like about this track is the American spelling of colour. I prefer the British spelling. I struggled to position those extraneous vowels at school, and they say nothing good comes easy. So the British spelling is better.

Although I think it's safe to assume that before the century's out we will have done away with vowels entirely and just be abbreviating wantonly as we mash our communication devices with our thumbs (probably surgically adjusted at birth by removal of the thumbnail and trimming of the tip to a sharp point to facilitate use of otherwise-infeasibly-small-touch-screens). Or we will be pleading in Mandarin with our Chinese overlords. Or battling monsters made out of bark chippings and Tamagochis. Something like that.

See the effect this music has on me?

Beem - Color Separated (w. Peder from Deportees) by dance-department

Madvillain - All Caps

Oh yes. This is a collaboration between the genius musician Madlib and the original masked rapper MF Doom. And that, my loves, is a bona fide Good Thing.

It's got a complex instrumental, with echoes of a silent movie soundtrack (1:58) and big-band swing (0:52 - trumpets, anyone?). Yet somehow Madlib's made it sound totally fresh. The video's fun too.

Radiohead - House Of Cards

The video was made using stereotaxy. Which is more commonly used in brain surgery. And the opening shot makes Thom look like Beethoven. (That's probably not accidental.)

Song is intense: those slow backing strings lifting you up and the lyrics like a knife. Pretty much the real deal. Still not Ludwig , but coming close.