A strange place to start, when talking about rocking our world, as you couldn't really go further away from "Rocking" if you tried.If you wanted to have a musical definition of fragile, this would be it. A gentle, melancholy acoustic guitar backing the soft voice of Sam Beam, who is basically Iron and Wine. The Jesus in question is indeed a Mexican boy, and a subversive tale is told, in contrast to the re-assuring gentle melody, about the narrator, Jesus, and his sister. Sex, Religion and Florida Folk – what more could you ask for. Check it out at Iron and Wine

 

The music is finally beginning to live up to Mark Lanegan’s extraordinary voice. His latest album, Bubblegum, is a triumph that’s been long waited for. It says something about the authority of Lanegan’s voice, that, despite having an all star cast, including Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri of QOTSA, PJ Harvey, Greg Dulli, and ex Guns n’Roses members Izzy Stradlin and Duff McKagan, the album sounds united throughout. This particular track is one of the gentler tracks, with Lanegan exhaling “There is no morphine, I’m only sleeping” as he waits for a ship to come in. Hypnotic.

 

Another tremendous return to form, in the person of Nick Cave, and the Bad Seeds. Nobody does what Cave does, including himself if you were to listen to his last couple of albums. This starts off with a punk/folk riff that leans drunkenly towards the Waterboys We will not be lovers meeting the Dirty Three. It’s poetic, frantic, epic and verging on the ridiculous, all wrapped up in a chorus of “Hey ho, Oh baby, don’t you go all supernatural on me”. Nothing short of brilliant.

 

It shouldn’t be necessary to highlight, but following a recent conversation with a 21-year-old aspiring singer, who, though music mad, had never heard this, the monkeys feel duty bound to sing the Queen of Soul’s praises. This track alone, taken from her Atlantic Records debut in 1967, redeems her from her various pop mistakes in the 80s and 90s. Smooth, seductive and subversive, and with a voice that, to be fair, Dionne Warwick could only wish for.

 

 

This is dirty. There’s no two ways about it. Puritans worldwide will shift uncomfortably when hearing this ode to passion, and no doubt the defibrillators will be called for by some when Dara croons “your lips are Juuuuuuuuuuuuicy”. It’s a beautiful, and sassy song. Dara, one of the jazz world’s leading trumpeters, and incidentally the father of hip hop star Nas, is not only a gifted trumpeter but also a damn fine singer. File under seductive music with an edge.

 

A tarantella, is a folk dance from the south of Italy. Driven by a hypnotic rhythm it gives music to the crazed dance that people were traditionally thought to be thrown into when bitten by a tarantula. The other folk name is Il Ballo di San Vito or St. Vitus Dance. This is Capossella’s take on it, reclaiming ‘dance’ music from the electronic brigade. The music is traditional, the lyrics are of a man on the edge, driven mad by the warm Mediterranean winds at the end of the earth. Sinister, emphatic and irresistible, this is a song to put on at two in the morning to get a tired party dancing again.

 

It’s nigh on impossible to describe this heady brew of instantly loveable big beat dance music. It’s a mish mash of different styles. They’ve been described variously as cut ‘n’ paste hip-hop, melodic 60s-themed cinerama, discordant white noise and funk-flecked electro. In reality, they’re vibrant living proof of the futility of applying labels in relation to the music. There’s real joy and energy bouncing around the walls with this one. Destined to be huge, if there’s any justice in the world.