Recent sound waves to tickle my ossicles

Or, to use more grammatically incorrect parlance: new tunes what I been listening to:

Dobotsu Bancho, Alexanders Dark Band (DC Recordings)

Perusing Bleep.com one day (curse them and their ever-growing catalogue of innovative, eclectic independent music!) I clicked a random album cover from the "featured" section. I scanned the track-list until my gaze fell upon the song title "Space Donkeys On Crack". "I'm fucking havin' that," I thought. The brainchild of Jonathan Saul Kane (Depth Charge, Octagon Man) Alexanders Dark Band layer farty bass lines and quirky melodies over crunchy breakbeats. The end result is a whole lot of funky electronic fun, eccentric yet accessible. Anybody who enjoys their electronica with a healthy dollop of humour will get a blast from this album. And it's got a track on it called "Space Donkeys on Crack" - what more do you want?

Foley Room, Amon Tobin (Ninja Tune)

I hate Amon Tobin. I hate him because I listen to his stuff and think, "I am never going to produce anything this good. How the hell does he do that?" I know in theory how he does it. His previous albums have been produced by deconstructing lots of old jazz, funk, soul, bossanova records and rebuilding them into entirely new pieces of music. And what wondrous, beautiful music it is. For his latest album, however, he tried a new method of working: going out into the world with a bunch of microphones and recording anything that had percussive potential from factory machines to tigers, motor engines to insects. Add to that contributions from guest musicians (including Kronos Quartet) and Amon created a new palette of sounds to play with. The result is predictably (and infuriatingly) gorgeous. Walking down the street and listening to the track "The Killer's Vanilla" on my MP3 player I found myself on the verge of weeping with joy that, despite all the hate and stupidity and mediocrity in the world, there are human beings capable of producing truly beautiful music such as this. Amon Tobin's music genuinely makes me glad to be alive.

Having said that, there are a couple of tracks on the album such as "The Kitchen Sink" and "Foley Room" that feel more like exercises in percussive sound design rather than complete pieces of music and, while interesting, I can't imagine that I will return to them often. That is but a minor criticism when we are talking about an album that contains the utterly wonderful "Bloodstone", "Esther's", "The Killer's Vanilla", "Big Furry Head", "Always" and "At The End Of The Day". A bloody brilliant album.

Rediscovery Of The Month: Living Colour

I first heard of Living Colour when the Soulpower Mix of "Love Rears Its Ugly Head" found its way into the singles chart in 1990. I didn't actually realise at the time that they were a metal band, albeit a metal band flavoured with funk, soul and hip-hop. I've finally replaced my copies of Time's Up and Stain and - dagnabbit - they are class albums: excellent musicianship, intelligent lyrics laced with a pleasing black humour, Corey Glover's powerful yet soulful vocals and plenty of heavy guitar riffage (heavier than I remember, come to think of it). Basically, Living Colour rock like a muddy-funster and you can stick yer whiny emo cobblers up yer proverbial.