This is a remix album of the largest caliber. Wrongtom, after voluntarily coming up with a dub version of Roots Manuva’s “Buff Nuff,” was commissioned to remix anything and everything from that standout British MC’s entire catalog of four albums. The result is Duppy Writer — whose Tom McDermott-created cover brings to mind classic albums from the likes of Mad Professor. Wrongtom does justice to the originals by maintaining Roots Manuva’s stellar rhyming skills and singular delivery. What he brings to Roots is a re-imagining of his tracks: it’s as if they were created in another time on an island in the Caribbean. As such, we don’t receive a bunch of vague rehashing, but some fresh, authentic dub and reggae beats and vibes. In keeping with this, Wrongtom renames the tracks, giving them more reggae-ish titles. One of the only original tracks, featuring toaster Ricky Ranking, is “Jah Warriors”, which is a particular standout, as is the militant “Rebuff” — which was the first track Wrongtom re-did voluntarily. Roots’s lyrics and style have never been paid this much respect.

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Andreya Triana has gainfully been trying to make her voice heard as guest vocalist on records by Flying Lotus, Theo Parrish, and Mr. Scruff. It is Bonobo’s Simon Green, however, who decided to shine the spotlight on this soul torch singer by producing her debut, Lost Where I Belong. Green brings modern day trippy touches to Belong, but it is Triana’s beleaguered character and expert songwriting that is its draw. Husky delivery and bearing lyrics set Triana apart from soul artists who keep their innermost feelings hidden. Triana takes cues from some greats: Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Nina Simone, and Billie Holiday. But rather than imitating, she allows their styles inform hers by developing something all her own that owes as much to jazz as it does to soul. Triana’s songs have a haven’t-I-heard-this-song-before quality to them — the sign of a hit. Front-loading Belong are a couple of stellar tracks, the painful ripper “Draw The Stars” and the revealing title track. Shuffling beats and Portishead-esque cracking tones keep Triana — and the listener — on the brink of tears on “Daydreamers”. The only drawback of Belong may be that it doesn’t explore Triana’s varied vocal styles as much as it could.

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Buy this at Other Music or iTunes. After the jump, check out the video for “A Town Called Obsolete”.
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Chilly Gonzales is the Philip Glass of the iPad set. But that might be selling the pianist-cum-rapper-cum-producer-cum-actor with the cartoon-character name very short. Gonzales’ latest full-length, Ivory Tower, is the soundtrack to a film of the same name, in which he stars alongside Peaches and Tiga in a chess-battling love triangle. Ivory’s primarily instrumental piano compositions alternate between jumping, swing-y, saucy grooves, aggressive belligerence, and inquisitive suspense. However, it is live where Gonzales really shines, as I recently caught him at Café Largo, in Los Angeles. Touring under the marquee “Piano Talk Show”, Gonzales mans a beat-up old upright piano, whose innards are exposed with the front panel ripped and worn off. Gonzales plays emotively. Fingers fly over the keys, sometimes with such speed that one can’t actually see his digits. Looking like a rabbi in a dressing gown and slippers, Gonzales’ stage presence is commanding, and hilarious. The self-aggrandizing virtuoso claims himself as such, but does so with tongue firmly planted in cheek, and you forgive him for it because you know that he is, in fact, an absolute musical genius.
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“Hallo?” Jahmek Power shouts into his mobile phone, the sounds of a raging party drowning out his valiant attempts at being heard. “I’m at a pahty. I’m going to leave the building because it’s way too loud.” Once outside, the situation gets worse as party-goers start asking the artist known as Jammer for directions. “This is the pahty here. I’m doing an interview bruvva,” he says as his patience wears thin. “Because I’ve come outside, they think I work here or somefink.”
     Contrary to what it might sound like, Jammer is in fact an extremely professional fellow — particularly when compared to his fellow grime masters, like Dizzee Rascal, Wiley, and Tinchy Stryder. Grime superstars (and unknowns) are notoriously unreliable, notoriously competitive, notoriously antagonistic. Jammer is none of these things. “A lot of people didn’t expect to be in the situation they are in,” Jammer says of the grime mentality. “They had a talent. They loved music. They done it and didn’t know they were going to get that much interest. I don’t think they was really ready for it. I’ve been doing this for ten years. I have an understanding of how things work and how necessary it is to let people know about what’s happening.”

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This Portland, Oregon, threesome is known for its free-form experimental style of progressive rock. Electronic instrumentation and vocals that sound like discount Damon Albarn have resulted in Menomena being filed in the indie slot. On its fourth full-length, Mines, the trio have created a scaffold upon which to arrange its wandering jams. Not losing its exploratory tendencies or curbing its quality musicianship, Menomena has used this framework to create defined songs instead of dense, meandering sounds. More emotional than before, the unfortunately named “Oh Pretty Boy, You’re Such A Big Boy” offers honking horns and measured organ stabs that speak straight from the heart. Theatrical to the extreme, the chorus of “Five Little Rooms” blasts against tethered piano and thunderous drum work. While these two are the standouts on Mines the album has a solid hold on melody that has eluded Menomena in the past. The band is developing a distinct song structure without losing any musical chops in the process — the best of both worlds.

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Angela McCluskey’s mother promised her that one day she would look like a Christmas tree. And she does. Depending on when you catch her and what your mood is, McCluskey could be a haphazardly-but-enthusiastically-decorated-by-the-kids tree. Or she could be a candle-lit, comfort-bringing, anticipation-ridden, pine-scented tree. Most of the time, McCluskey is both.
     It is this combination that attracts young and old, famous and infamous, rich and poor to McCluskey’s side. At her 17th anniversary party with husband Paul Cantelon, McCluskey’s home is bursting. The cross-section of guests represent the Los Angeles melting pot, which one rarely sees gathered in the same place. Star-studded, but not glittering, McCluskey has a way of humanizing everyone that comes into contact with her. There is no distinction between McCluskey’s goddaughter, Riley Keough — Elvis’ granddaughter — or Alison Owen, the mother of McCluskey’s other goddaughter, Lily Allen.
     McCluskey brings the notable and the obscure together, breaking down the reserve of the former and bringing up the assurance of the latter. Within her inner circle, which McCluskey calls the “Ring Of Fire”, there is a core of seven girls who serve as each other’s security blankets.

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The Global Peace Initiative will be unveiling its second Peace Monument in the city of Liverpool, UK, on October 9, 2010. This monument has special significance on numerous levels. The location is chosen specifically as the place where John Lennon’s spirit was born. Its unveiling will occur on the day of Lennon’s birth, when he would have turned 70. It also coincides with the start of a two-month-long citywide festival celebrating Lennon and his spirit. The festival ends on December 9, 2010, 30 years, to the day, after Lennon’s assassination. (December 8, 1980 if you were stateside, December 9, 1980 if you were in Europe.)
     The vision of venerable art aficionado Ben Valenty, the California-based Global Peace Initiative was launched in 2003. The idea is to create seven monuments, one for each continent. The first, in Asia, was erected in Singapore in 2005. For the European installment, Valenty discovered and subsequently commissioned 19-year-old art prodigy Lauren Voiers of Ohio. Specializing in surrealist and cubist styles using oils, Voiers started by creating renderings of the monument. These renderings are transferred to three-dimensional representations and created in pieces. Voiers will then be hand-painting the 18-foot structure, which she has titled Peace and Harmony.
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Jazz — African style — is Ethiopia’s Mulatu Astatke’s specialty. The veteran musician first reached Western ears with the domestic release of his work with the Heliocentrics, the third installment in the Inspiration Information series. On Mulatu Steps Ahead, the listener is exposed to Astatke’s work across time and space. Collecting together compositions written in the East Coast of the United States all the way to the South of France, it draws from Astatke’s thirty-plus years of musical experience. Mulatu Steps Ahead is a lot more structured than the Inspiration Information collaboration. This can best be attributed to the jazz scaffold that the album is built upon; Mulatu Steps Ahead has strung the Afro-jazz thread throughout. Like the soundtrack to a Discovery Channel program on lions, exotic, hollow woodwind sounds mingle with noodly, self-involved jazz passages, creating a dusty, calming blend. One can almost smell the shimmering heat rising from the ground on “Assosa” while the moodiness of the aptly titled “Mulatu’s Mood” is palpable. Jazz en Afrique.

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Buy this at iTunes. After the jump, check out a video in which Mulatu Astatke discusses the making of his first album in over two decades.
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Everything about Massive Attack feels contradictory. The core members, Robert “3D” Del Naja and Grant “Daddy G” Marshall, are polar opposites. The former: diminutive, fair, pointy, reserved yet articulate. The latter: oversized, dark, rounded, affable yet hesitant. Not since the collective’s second album, 1994’s Protection, have these two made music in the same room.
    Starting as a reggae sound system collective, the Wild Bunch, they represented an array of cultures, backgrounds, ethnicities, and traditions. This array drove the collective and gave birth to Massive Attack and the inimitable flavor it had — and has. “We were literally white straight through to black,” says Marshall amidst babysitting his three children in his Bristol, England, home as he placates them with a DVD of Up. “We spread from Italian culture through Spanish roots to Black culture. Coming from all walks of life, it was funny to have us all in one group.”
    What has been heard since Protection — on albums like Mezzanine (1998), 100th Window (2003), and their latest Heglioland — is the individual members working on their own, then bringing their ideas to each other, ready for a face-off. More often than not, it is Del Naja’s vision that bullies itself to the forefront. On 100th Window — which should have been billed as Del Naja’s solo album — there was no input from Marshall, and erstwhile third member, Andrew “Mushroom” Vowles, who had since departed.
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No one can accuse Caribou’s Dan Snaith of stagnation. The one man behind Caribou’s experimental operation delves into dance music deeper than ever before on his latest full-length, Swim. Looking back rather than forward, Swim re-imagines the rave sounds of the early ‘90s with ‘00s geek-chic style. Snaith’s signature psychedelic swirls oscillate in and out of the arrangements in varying volumes. This provides the backdrop for the minimal techno bumps and distorted vocals Snaith himself is providing. More than the passing reference to Hot Chip and Arthur Russell must be made, as Snaith borrows his ideas generously from Hot Chip’s nerd-electro and Russell’s fringe-disco. The scratchy plinks of “Hannibal” and falsetto-voiced “Leave House” are fodder for adult dance music. The ambient burps and messy synths of “Lalibela” make it sound like it’s being played backwards (if it weren’t for the incomprehensible vocals), where one can snatch a word or two here and there and realize this is the direction the song is meant to go. This is the type of dance music grownups can get with.

After the jump, check out the video for “Odessa”.
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