Dorance Lorza/Sexteto Cafe: Salsa Pa' Ti

I like this. Vibes-based covers (a la Joe Cuba) of older salsa songs, often ending up with a very different sound than the originals.

George Delgado: Mi Ritmo Llego

I'm a little disappointed with this one. It's not bad, but there's something about it I'm not clicking with. Like the one above, it's a little outside of mainstream commercial salsa.

Enzo Avitabile & Bottari: Save the World

This one is interesting. I'm a little disappointed with the fact that the rhythms of the exotically rustic traditional Italian percussion provided by the Bottari sound so similar from track to track. But it has a lot of good guest appearances, including some by rai singer Khaled and oudist/violinst virtuoso Simon Shaheen.

On many of these songs they sound to me like a cross between The Animals, ? and the Mysterians and early Jefferson Airplane, embellished with weird "electric jug" noises. On the rough side, but I like a lot of the tracks. I understand that they were influential in the early folk/rock fusion bands and that many credit them with coining the word "psychedelic."

I read their lead singer lost his mind for some time, which was pretty much the end of the band.

Coral Egan's 2nd album, which imho, is sublime: 'My favorite distraction'.

Fiery Furnaces - EP. Nice. Modern day art-rock I suppose. I have to admit that I though it sounds like a lot of other things though.

Lately I've been pulling some old lps of mine that I haven't played in a long time. It's fun to rediscover old favourites. At times I think "Wow, this still sound great" and at others, "What was I thinking?". Still great? The Kalahari Surfers (anti-apartheid South African outfit fronted by Warrick Sony. Hard to describe their music as it can feature tape effects, township rhythms, dub, free improvations and cover tunes...sometimes all in the same song), Penguin Cafe Orchestra (charming oddball chamber music), Julee Cruise (wraithlike and evocative) and non-embarassing prog rockers Van Der Graaf Generator. The latter has a new album this month.

I'm impressed.

I've been listening to The Strokes' album "Room on Fire," which I must say I love. They have a really good sound. I'm also trying to like Tori Amos (I never cared for her stuff in college when all my friends listened to it). I like a few of her songs. Have also been listening to some Sarah McLachlan, REM, and U2. Oh, and some van Halen. And I just purchased some Cocteau Twins on eBay! Yee ha, can't wait to get it.

William Parker: Luc's Lantern

Disappointing to me, because closer to straightahead jazz than what I prefer. Of course, I had read it described as being unusually mainstream for William Parker, but the audio clips left me curious. I do like at least a couple tracks.

Fripp & Eno: Equatorial Stars

Fripp sounds good. As I'd feared, it can't really live up to comparison to the two old Fripp & Eno collaborations, but I can't resist making that comparison.

Yousef Shamoun: Taneh Wu Raneh

I like this a lot. (Goofy-looking cover, I know.) Syrian folkloric music (or at least music rooted in folkloric music), but with some pop touches. I love these rhythms, and Shamoun is a good singer.

Abraham Salman: Saltana

Salman is an Iraqi-born Jew who emigrated to Israel in the 1950s (I assume not entirely by choice, but the liner notes don't say). He plays the kanun, a great otherwordly-sounding middle eastern instrument with

Jimmy Bosch: El Avion de la Salsa

I was expected to like this more, but I really am not into it much. I find the whole contemporary New York "salsa dura" purist school a little boring at this point.

Tito Puente: Exitos Eternos

Late career material. So-so, but some cuts I wanted. (The song with Tony Vega is incredible.)

Pink Floyd: Meddle. Not my usual thing, but I think it's good. (Weird how much a couple of the songs remind me of specific Beatles songs though.)

John Cale: Paris 1919. Pretty much ditto the above.

The Sex Pistols: Never Mind the Bollocks. I am happy to find out I don't need to buy this. "Pretty Vacant" is about all I want to keep around from this (and probably from the Sex Pistols in general).

The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds. Sorry, but I cannot even make it all the way through this. Mostly: bleah.

A bunch of loose mp3s of this and that, mostly old things I liked: the odd song by Sonic Youth or the Archies or XTC or Deep Purple.

Bought:

Sonora Poncena: New Heights. Very good Puerto Rican salsa.

King Bongo: Salsa y Descarga. Pretty bad current Colombian salsa.

Laure Daccache: L'Age D'or du Chant Arabe. Somewhat obscure old Syrian-born Egyptian singer and composer. (There haven't been many female composers in Arabic music, and she's the real deal in the sense that I don't hear her as merely a copy of anyone else's style.) A little too dreary for me right now.

I just put on a compilation of Syrian music last night and liked it very much. Catchy stuff. Thanks, LaRue!

And I finally heard Bjork's Medúlla, which I need to listen to more carefully. It's definitely adventuresome, but I don't think I really like her straightforward singing on it. (It's all vocals, so there are a lot of other vocal things going on.)

The Rough Guide to the Music of Ethiopia (This should be pretty good, as it culls from a whole series of Ethiopian reissues. Some of it very funk-influenced stuff.)
" Thailand
Afghanistan Untouched (recorded in 1968)
a collection of folkloric type recordings from Egypt
Maqams of Iraq (A maqam is basically a mode, roughly the same idea as "ragga" in Indian music. Sometimes it means a whole program of more than one style of music.)

Wow manny, I have not heard anyone talk about this Canadian band (with prog rock leanings) in a looooong time. You will be happy to learn that all three of their albums are available on CD.
Ric

Anthony Blea y Su Charanga*: Virgen de la Caridad. I don't like that much charanga, but despite not liking some of the timbres used in this, I think it's a real standout recording, and I like some of it. In particular, I like the title track and "Tumba Randy." "Virgen de la Caridad" begins with a fairly traditional charanga feel, but moves into some surprising and very nice horn parts, incorporates a samba feel, and arrives at a timba-like montuno** section. These different strands don't seem slapped together at all. Rather, they are melded into an aesthetic unity. "Tumba Randy" begins with (well known--at least within Latin music) violinist Alfredo de La Fe playing a "call" of the sort that rumba songs typically begin with, but normally that's done by a vocalist. Anthony Blea and de La Fe (both on violin) perform a smoking duet.

It's a pretty inventive recording, overall, a lot fresher than what I'm hearing out of New York. (Blea is based on the West Coast.)

*Charanga - A Cuban dance orchestra consisting of flute backed by fiddles, piano, bass, and timbales. Charangas tended to play different dances from the Afro-Cuban conjuntos, the most characteristic being the danzon. Charangas ranged from large society units to small street-bands. Modern charangas use bongo and conga in the rhythm section and have taken on many more Afro-Cuban elements than their predecessors.

**Montuno Section - A vehicle for improvisation in Cuban and Salsa numbers, based on a two or three-chord pattern repeated ad-lib under the instrumental or vocal improvisations. The piano often maintains a repeated vamp of guajeos, a process known as montuneando.

Bought:

Cadaver Exquisito: En Vivo Desde Terraza Del Ateneo. I need to listen to this more, but this is a live recording, with an intimate feeling (but very good sound) from a Venezuelan band. The main vocalist (a female) has a really strong sound.

Orquesta Mulenze: Desde El Principio. Solid Puerto Rican salsa from the 80s. I'm not crazy about some of the keyboard parts, but on a couple casual listens it seems pretty good.

Also, I have been listening to some recordings by Stelios Kazantzidis and Kazantzidis Marinella (who worked with Stelios Kazantzidis--talk about confusing!), a fantastic Greek singer (who goes back to the 50s at least). I think this will be the year I finally begin investigating Greek music more. (I guess I can put Arabic music on the back burner for now.) I've always liked Greek music (well, since about 1992, when I first heard a bunch of it), and it has some of the qualities of Arabic music, but with touches of western harmony that is lacking in traditional Arabic music.

I went to Tower and they had some CDs on sale I'd been wanting to supplant vinyl versions, so ... I got Devo's "Are We Not Men?" Elvis Costello's "Almost Blue" (with bonus CD mostly live and demos) and Bob Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde." I'm happy!

This album contains their hits "Baby Blue" and "Day After Day" which
were/are terrific pop tunes, and the main reason I bought this disc. I guess
that I was little surprised as to how well the album as a whole has aged,
but this may have less to do with Badfinger's quality and more to do with
the current stagnation of rock. Bonus tracks include otherwise unreleased
songs drawn from the sessions for a proposed second album as well as the
U.S. single mix of Baby Blue.

John Fahey & his Orchestra - Old Fashioned Love

The cd starts with three intricate duets with guitarist Woodrow Mann, two
solos in his American Primitive style and three with an old-timey ten piece
jazz orchestra. I prefer this material to his avant-noise projects.

Lee "Scratch" Perry - Jamaican E.T.

This one is from 2002 I think...or perhaps from another dimension. The
vocals are multitracked on every song which gives the effect of three or
four Perry(s) talking at cross-purposes. You know that scene in Being John
Malkovich where he goes inside his own head and ends up in that restaurant?
It's like that.

Henry Flynt - Purified By The Fire

Recorded December 14, 1981 and features Flynt on electric violin with C.C.
Hennix on Pandit Pran Nath tambura. Like most everything else that has been
released from Flynt's audio archive, this is a critical listen and purchase.
No one can take the audience on a journey quite like Flynt.

Jandek - Glasgow Sunday

Accompanied by Richard Young on bass and Alex Neilson on drums, Jandek [who
is probably a fellow named Sterling R. Smith] surprised the world by
actually performing live at The Arches on October 17, 2004. Who would have
predicted that? Not me that's a certainty. If you love Jandek's music,
you'll love this, if you hate his music...well, you know. Jandek, like Flynt
or perhaps Perry, are only understandable in reference to themselves and
their own music. They are singular talents and that is why I enjoy their
music.

Just so you know...I have nothing to do with the label. Just a fan.

I finally got to hear Eddie Palmieri's Lucumi Macumba Voodoo, which is pretty good, if a bit of a mixed bag. A couple songs borrow from disco. (This came out in 1978.) Others go off on long, not very pop sounding, piano tangents. The horn section sometimes sounds funk-like somehow, even when the rhythmic framework is salsa.

From the same year, the self-titled Guarare is also good, though it has a little too much of a charanga sound for me, at times.

Also finally got to hear The Return of the Durutti Column, and I like it. This is all instrumental exept one track, I think. I've always liked his guitar sound, though I'm not crazy about his singing.

The sound quality is better than what I've heard on most of his pre-80s recordings (and in fact, a bit better than one I've heard from 1981).