New Music Tuesday
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Back with a vengeance, Ratatat absolutely destroy on their just-released third album, LP3. The electronic beats and screaming guitars that defined their previous work are now joined by a motley crew of instruments (piano, tabla, flamenco guitar, and what sounds like a dulcimer) and a richly evolved sense of songwriting, influenced heavily by progressive rock and world music. Recorded entirely in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, LP3 shows the duo perfectly at ease with their own style yet still curious enough to incorporate new ones. It's definitely their tightest work yet, and from start to finish a spectacular listen.
One of the biggest bands in the '90s ska-punk era, Reel Big Fish are a ton of fun on stage, and this is honestly about as good as live albums get. The sound quality is extraordinary, the banter is hilarious, and the music is stellar. AbsolutePunk.net, scoring the album 96%, said that "Reel Big Fish seize each quality that makes their live performance unique, refreshing, and unforgettable... Without a doubt one of the strongest, most well-rounded albums the world has ever laid eyes upon."
Listening to Architecture in Helsinki's 2007 album Places Like This, you can't deny that this Australian sextet is "a deeply weird and original band that likes to have a lot of fun" (PopMatters). The album features the band shouting, screaming, chanting, and moaning over colorful synths, percussion, and horns. Like It Or Not is the third single from Places Like This and features the first-ever studio recorded versions of "One Heavy February" and "Beef In Box," as well as a remix by blog darling El Guincho. Go ahead, put a little weird in your diet!
On their debut album, Second To The Last Frontier, Feral Children enlist producer Scott Colburn (Animal Collective, Arcade Fire) to make a record that Seattle newspaper The Stranger calls "fascinating, beautifully narrated work." The group began when junior high school friends Jim Cotton and Jeff Keenan started playing acoustic grunge music around their neighborhood. Years later (and now with a drummer), the group is getting major airplay on KEXP, Seattle's influential indie rock radio, and a high-profile slot in the station's holiday concert alongside Yeasayer and Dead Confederate.
Call him George Foreman, cause he's sellin' everybody grills. Paul Wall is the only successful rapper who actually sells the jewelry he wears, sporting flashy diamond fronts from his own store in Houston, TX. He's even visited Sierra Leone to speak to local jewelers about the problem of blood diamonds, appearing in a VH1 documentary about jewelry, war, and hip hop. Already Famous is a collection of previously unreleased remixes from his 2004 debut Chick Magnet, featuring Mike Jones, Bun B, and Killer Mike, and of course the King of Grills himself.
In 2006, Clara Lofaro beat over 450 entrants to win Toronto's Indie Week Competition for unsigned artists. Since then, she's gone on to open sold-out shows for Emerson Hart, Stevie Nicks, OAR, Edwin McCain, Kimberly Locke and Alexa Ray Joel. With the release of her third album, Perfekt World, she's poised to take her career to new heights, enlisting producer Mark Turrigiano (Ingrid Michaelson's Boys and Girls) to help create an album of well-crafted "freedom-pop," as Lofaro calls it. For this album, she has teamed up with international charity Action Against Hunger, and will be donating 20 percent of proceeds from all album sales to the organization.
