Current Greatest Hits Playing In My Room

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these lists…

1. Natacha Atlas - La Lil Khowf (featuring Clotaire K. and Sofiane Saidi) - From her 2006 album, Mishmaoul…  This is one incredible song.  Rock, rap and rai(?), with brilliant bluesy riffs and wonderful Arabic singing (in addition to the French raps and that opening English rap) and a great psychedelic-sounding accordian.   Or maybe the best thing about this is the “Dictaphone Poet” (as billed in the CD sleeve)…

2. Sussan Deyhim and Bill Laswell - Daylaman (Inextricable) - From a used CD I picked up at Etherea in the East Village…  I know Bill Laswell well enough; I have no knowledge of the other person and her prior projects.  And I took a rare gamble buying a CD I had never heard anything from before…  But it turned out to be very nice and is growing on me.  According to the CD notes: “‘Shy Angels’ is Bill Laswell’s reinterpretation of the entire ‘Madman of God’ album, in which Sussan Deyhim presents her uniquely personal reading of divine love poems by Rumi, Saadi and other Persian Sufi masters.”  But this particular song definitely has a jungle or drum ‘n’ bass quality, and the singing here (actually, in the whole CD, for that matter) curiously reminds me a lot of Lisa Gerrard from Dead Can Dance.  (Even the words remind me a lot of Lisa Gerrard…but I think these are real words.)

3. M.I.A. - Bird Flu - Yes, this has grown on me, too (as I knew it would).  This is M.I.A. gone Bollywood/bhangra (um, sort of…).  And it is great.    I was pleased to see from a couple of sources yesterday morning that M.I.A.’s second album, K.A.L.A., is finally coming out on June 26.  I’ll be very surprised if it isn’t the best album of the year, at least.

4. The Tabla are the Drums (Ravi Shankar in dub) - As the title  says (in the parentheses), and it is pretty good.  I found this on either mudd up! or wayne&wax (both on my blogroll - and they’re often referring mp3s to each other).  (Of course, I did this on somebody else’s computer - you know who you are ;)…but I may finally be able to do this sort of thing at home within the next month or so.) 

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P.S., April 22 - Yes, kind of late for a P.S., but I didn’t want to take up a whole post with this…  Just wanted to mention that the sales date for the new M.I.A. album has been delayed until August 21 (damn).  Also, contrary to prior reports, which listed the album title as an acronym (hence my listing above - that was not a proofreading mistake!), it appears now that it’s really just initial-capped, no periods:  Kala.  Anyway, I hope it isn’t delayed any longer; it’s just about the only album that I’m really looking forward to this year.