music

Plastic Beach is the third studio album by British virtual band Gorillaz. It was released on 3 March 2010 by Parlophone internationally and by Virgin Records in the United States. Conceived from an unfinished project called Carousel, the album was recorded from June 2008 to November 2009, and was produced primarily by group co-creator Damon Albarn. It features guest appearances by such artists as Snoop Dogg, Gruff Rhys, De La Soul, Bobby Womack, Mos Def, Lou Reed, Mark E. Smith, Bashy, Kano and Little Dragon.

Pilon combined searing estilo Krioulu drumming and the hybrid ColaZouk style with blissful synth work and rugged guitar licks, creating a stripped-down, addictive sound that masterfully straddled two worlds, a seductive electro-Funaná carnival born from the first few sips of hot milk.

Guts was first known for being one of France’s cornerstone beatmakers, laying the soundtrack for artists such as Alliance Ethnik, Big Red or Svinkels before releasing “Le Bienheureux” in 2007, his first solo album under the Guts alias.

Hank Mobley with Donald Byrd and Lee Morgan (also known as Hank Mobley Sextet) is an album by jazz saxophonist Hank Mobley released on the Blue Note label in 1957 as BLP 1540. It was recorded on November 25, 1956 and features Mobley, Donald Byrd, Lee Morgan, Horace Silver, Paul Chambers and Charlie Persip.

In 1960, when Hank Mobley laid down his classic album Soul Station, the tenor saxophone was the sovereign instrument on the jazz bandstand, rivaled only by the trumpet. What Mobley brought to the tenor saxophone was his deep-bodied, melodic soul. On Soul Station, Mobley enlisted an all-star rhythm section comprised of Blakey as well as bassist Paul Chambers and pianist Wynton Kelly, both in Miles Davis’s classic ‘50s band. They supply the swing and groove to the six tunes on the album—two standards that open and close the collection with four lyrical Mobley originals in the middle—while the tenor saxophonist flows and glows effortlessly through the lyricism that embodies all the music here.

Hochono House is a re-imagining of Hosono’s 1973 solo debut album Hosono House. Recorded 45 years after The Band-like sessions that produced the rootsy Japanese Americana classic, Hochono House is an entirely solo affair, with Hosono himself handling all the recording, engineering, programming, arrangements, instruments, and singing. It’s a perfect distillation of the various styles Hosono has cultivated over his 50 year career, from his folky beginnings through his techno-pop era, to putting his own spin on the music of his youth. Rather than it being an exercise in nostalgia, Hochono House instead sees Hosono pushing forward as always, acknowledging his past while hinting at another brand new phase of his career.

A brief glance at a high-profile second-hand vinyl website confirms that original copies of Henry Wenceslas Thenard's obscure 1985 zouk cut "Ne Dis Pas Cela" (or, as we say in English, "Don't Say That") are not only incredibly hard to come by, but also change hands for extortionate amounts. This reissue, then, is rather handy for those without super-sized record-buying budgets.