Cinqo De Friday Music

Right, so let’s get the cinqo de mayo tie-in out of the way first, for those of you so inclined: Here’s another track from filmmaker Robert Rodriguez’ band: Chingon – “El Rey De Los Chingones” Roughly translated: “King of the Badasses.”

Discovered a new artist from UK this past week, and I’m loving her stuff so much that I’m going to feature two of her songs. This first track is her lead single, an ode to London, built around a sample from “Shake Senora”. This song just screams “Summertime”, and I’m sure that, in the UK at least, this is going to get played to death over the coming months. Lily Allen – “LDN.” (site doesn’t allow hot-linking, so it will take you to an interim page, where you can click the link…or, just copy-and-paste from here.)

The second Lily Allen track is a hilarious anthem for anyone who has ever been cornered in a bar by an unwanted chat-up. As she sings in the refrain: “You can’t knock ’em out, you can’t walk away, you try desperately to think about the nicest way to say — just get out my face, just leave me alone…and no you can’t have my number, ‘cuz I lost my phone.” The song is filled with this cheeky semi-rap about bad bar encounters that I think most everybody can sympathize with. Lily Allen – “Knock ‘Em Out.” (same site, same restrictions as above)

There’s a scene in the film “High Fidelity” (if you haven’t seen it, you must — go rent the DVD. I’ll wait here), where John Cusack’s character, Rob, the owner of “Quality Vinyl” (a record store) says to one of his employees: “I will now sell five copies of ‘The 3 E.P.s’ by The Beta Band.” He puts the album on, and sure enough, we see five of the customers in the store stop what they’re doing, listen to the song that plays, and obviously start to get sold on it. Here is the song in question: The Beta Band – “Dry The Rain.”

One of the best dark-electronica collections of the past few years has been the soundtrack to the movie “Pi.” I’m not going to begin to try to describe the film, suffice to say that it’s very, very dark and very very strange. Here’s one of my favorite tracks from the soundtrack: Clint Mansell – “We Got The Gun.”

I’ve posted tracks by Roisin Murphy a few times. She’s now solo, but used to be the vocalist for the Dublin-based group Moloko. I discovered Murphy when she launched her solo career, and so I’m only now starting to check out the stuff she did with Moloko, and all I can say is WOW. The same kind of jazzy-electronic-pop stuff that she now does solo….which I love. Here’s a track from the 2003 album, Statues, which makes me want to dance: Moloko – “Come On.”

Speaking of jazz, here’s some acid jazz built around sample loops and original instrumentation, from the French electronica musician Ludovic Navarre, AKA St. Germain. His stuff is innovative enough that famed jazz label Blue Note picked him up and release his albums, eclectic mixes of electronics, jazz, blues, and ambient. Another track that gets your head bobbing – St. Germain – “Rose Rouge.”

One of my favorite downtempo/chill electronica groups, Zero 7, is about to release their long-awaited third album. This is the first track from the album, which sounds for all the world like Crosby Stills and Nash meets Moby. If the rest of the album is this good, I will be a very happy fan. Zero 7 – “Futures (feat. Jose Gonzalez)” (another track from the site mentioned above — either follow the link, or copy-and-paste).

There you go folks. Enjoy.

3 Replies to “Cinqo De Friday Music”

  1. Not meaning to jump you but I think the store in ‘High Fidelity’ was called Championship Vinyl iirc.

    have a good weekend!

  2. I think we’ve only met a couple of times through Star, but I wanted to say I really appreciate these posts. You’re single-handedly responsible for expanding my musical options this year. Thank you!

  3. Clint Mansell has done some really great tracks – and is in the process of doing some more I’m pleased to report. I’ve been a massive fan of Clint’s ever since his days in Pop Will Eat Itself – a band I loved inmmy youth and was delighted to catch at the beginning of last year when they played a three-date reunion tour here in the UK.

    Hoping to see Zero 7 in a few weeks too. If I do I’ll let you know how they are live (probably via a gig write-up in my LJ – but hey, that’s better than nothing…) :)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.