UK duo Psapp (Carim Classmann and Galia Durant) have continued to solidify themselves as child musicians in adult bodies with their unique brand of toytronica. The esoteric clicks, the otherworldly blips, the raucous bangs of child’s play are all simply instruments in the minds of Classmann and Durant. And the kitsch doesn’t stop there; the two have an odd obsession with cats, which pops up everywhere on their albums and on stage (they thrown handmade cats into the crowd).

And so, after making some noise (pun intended) in the electropop genre, Psapp has gone back to the old hard drives and dug up some of their earlier cuts and whatnot for Early Cats and Tracks Volume II. Truthfully, these tracks are not too unlike those on Tiger, My Friend.  “Northdown C” seems to have taken the rain from the beginning of “Tiger, My Friend” and given it new life with a hand drum beat and the bright tinkle of a plaything in the distance. “Happy Lamb” sounds like a typewriter bred with an organ and had children proficient in the marimba. Though many of the tracks on here appeared on earlier EPs or Psapp’s debut Japanese-only release Northdown, the true highlight of this EP is “Who Knows My Ohs”, featuring Durant’s sultry sweet alto vocals laced craftily over a strumming guitar and the frenetic plucking of a toy.

by Carl Sandburg Visits Me In A Dream
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Tracklist:
1. "Feel the Fur"                   3:58
2. "Dad's Breakdown"        3:04
3. "Scissory"                         4:09
4. "Northdown C"                4:38
5. "Happy Lamb"                 3:53
6. "Whores"                          2:24
7. "How Things Turn Up"   4:57
8. "Who Knows My Ohs"    3:47

It feels like a bit of a cheat to kick off a review by quoting someone else, but this particular quote is rather apt. David Harrington, the Kronos' artistic director and founder, once said, ''I've always wanted the string quartet to be vital, and energetic, and alive, and cool, and not afraid to kick ass… But it has to be expressive of life. To tell the story with grace and humour and depth''. With Floodplain, the Kronos Quartet has done all the above. Once again, they've pushed boundaries to produce a disc that stretches, excites and inspires the senses.

The album title refers to the fertile, flood-prone strips of land bordering rivers. The idea is that floodplains experience new life after the catastrophe of flooding, just as cultures that undergo great difficulty will experience creative fertility. Certainly, the countries represented here, from the Middle East, South Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe, have all endured more than their fair share of hardship, and the music frequently reflects this. Emotion is at its most raw; one senses anger, sorrow and wounds not yet healed, and this is certainly true for the disc’s two newly commissioned works. The first of these, the edgy, unsettled Tashweesh, is by the Palestinian hip hop group, Ramallah Underground, who David Harrington discovered through myspaceIran. The second, Serbian composer Aleksandra Vrebalovs ''…hold me, neighbor, in this storm… '', is a dignified, contemplative hymn that whips itself up into an angry, whirling climactic frenzy. There are also traditional arrangements of works from Lebanon, Turkey and Iran, contemporary interpretations of classical music from Azerbaijan and India, and popular music from 1940s Egypt and 1970s Iraq. The quartet are joined in a hauntingly beautiful performance of the Azerbaijani folkloric love song, Getme, Getme, by one of Azerbaijan's most celebrated performers of the country’s improvisational mugham singing, Alim Qasimov, and his ensemble.

Full marks to the Kronos Quartet for championing countries more known in the West for their instability than for their rich musical cultures. It’s the vibrant musical performances though, saturated with humanity, pathos and soul, which give this disc its edge.

by Charlotte Gardner
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Tracklist :
1.     "Ya Habibi Ta'ala (My Love, Come Quickly)" (Egypt; Midhat Assem, arr. Osvaldo Golijov & Kronos Quartet)     2:57
2.     "Tashweesh (Interference)" (Palestine; Ramallah Underground, arr. Kronos Quartet & Jacob Garchik)     3:22
3.     "Wa Habibi (Beloved)" (Lebanon; Traditional, arr. Stephen Prutsman)     3:11
4.     "Getme, Getme (Don't Leave, Don't Leave)" (Azerbaijan; Said Rustamov, arr. Alim Quasimov, string arr. Jacob Garchik)     12:05
5.     "Raga Mishra Bhairavi: Alap" (India; Ram Narayan, arr. Kronos Quartet, transc. Ljova)     7:13
6.     "Oh Mother, the Handsome Man Tortures Me" (Iraq; Unknown, arr. Ljova & Kronos Quartet)     3:01
7.     "Mugam Beyati Shiraz" (Azerbaijan; Rahman Asadollahi, arr. Kronos Quartet, transc. Ljova)     9:23
8.     "Lullaby" (Iran; Traditional, arr. Kronos Quartet & Jacob Garchik)     4:09
9.     "Nihavent Sirto" (Turkey; Tanburi Cemil Bey, arr. Stephen Prutsman)     3:17
10.     "Kara Kemir" (Kazakhstan; Kuat Shildebaev, arr. Kronos Quartet)     4:24
11.     "Tèw semagn hagèré (Listen to Me, My Fellow Countrymen)" (Ethiopia; Alèmu Aga, arr. Jacob Garchik)     4:03
12.     "...hold me, neighbor, in this storm..." (Serbia; Aleksandra Vrebalov)     21:46

From Official Myspace :
Tomando prestado el titulo de un poema de Walt Whitman como nombre de la banda, Hola a todo el mundo nace en la primavera del año 2006. Ensayando en casa, rodeados de instrumentos, dan forma a sus primeras composiciones. Canciones largas, llenas de diferentes pasajes, que como un viaje progresan de forma cambiante para nunca volver atrás. "Un luz que nos guía para encontrar la única verdad del espíritu", como ellos mismos explican en sus letras, un tanto proféticas, mezcla de fabulas o cuentos agoreros. En el año 2007 graban su primera maqueta en los estudios Heatroom de Madrid. Y un año mas tarde debutan en la Sala Sol como teloneros del grupo sueco Club 8. Comienza así su andadura en directo, tocando, con tal solo un puñado de canciones en myspace, en el Festival de Otoño de la Comunidad de Madrid, en el Wintercase 2008, o en el Primavera Sound 2009, entre otros. En abril de 2009 fueron elegidos por la revista Mondo Sonoro como una de las tres mejores bandas madrileñas debutantes. Ese mismo año fueron galardonados por los premios Pop-Eye 2009 como mejor grupo Folk del año. Desde Noviembre 2009, Hola a todo el mundo cuentan con oficina propia, Producciones Disonantes, con quien han cerrado acuerdos de representación, contratación, y producción de conciertos. El 8 de Marzo de este año saldrá a la venta su esperado primer disco, producido por Luca Petricca en Reno Studios (Madrid). Autoeditado en su propio sello, HATEM Prayer Team, y distribuido por Popstock.

Tracklist :
01 - Choose your own Adventure Part 1
02 - A movement between these two
03 - Hatem prayer team
04 - Making your num your best friend
05 - Choose your own Adventure Part 2
06 - Amor fati
07 - Current road
08 - Inuit
09 - The past and the son
10 - Golden sound

From Official Myspace :
"Hippie vermin" hisses the bank employee who still thinks of himself as a punk. He’s sitting next to me as we’re watching the Kammerflimmer Kollektief playing. He says it because he doesn’t understand. In fact, he doesn’t understand anything. He sees them play, but he does not listen.

I wonder: Does the word "play" suffice? Maybe the members of the Kammerflimmer Kollektief even perform. I am not sure. The presentation is authentic, but it’s still a presentation. You see people, you hear their souls but no one exposes him/herself mindlessly. No one makes a fool of him/herself. No one plays the stick-in-the-mud. No one disengages him/herself. Three people who play music.

Heike Aumüller sits on the floor, making music, singing in a type of English which can only be understood by people who listen. Those who look, who want to see music, do not see anything at all. And they feel nothing. Johannes Frisch fondles his double bass like Kate Bush did in her video to "Babooshka". But while Kate Bush didn’t play, Frisch does while simultaneously playing around with it, winding himself around the instrument – 1:0 for the venerably aged jazzer. On the other side sits Thomas Weber, bent over his guitar, occasionally operating the electronics in front of him, while his other hand is being played by the guitar. Again and again, it drags the other hand towards the instrument – it’s as simple as that. The audience has to want to listen and not only see. Those who can see, see the art of Heike Aumüller which graces the cover. What one sees there is vulnerable and strong at the same time. Anyone who has ever watched a Bruce Willis action movie will know the sentence that Willis – suddenly more than just muscles and smiles – utters to the obligatory child (or woman, anyway, something to rescue): "Of course I’m afraid." What do we learn from this? Those who make themselves vulnerable become strong. The Kammerflimmer Kollektief has made itself strong, had made itself strong even before it merged into a band and then as a band, is grew even stronger. And more vulnerable. Where the music used to be beautiful, it now became powerful and momentous. Dietmar Dath speaks the truth when he suggests that one should listen to the music loud – because thus it gains even more depth.

The Kammerflimmer Kollektief is emotive and impassioned. It is also as lucid and precise as those moods which Robert Musil (who is above suspicion of a being a romanticist) called "daylight mysticism". The lyrics and the music want to be heard, they want to be explored, even suffered. Sound builds songs which are made of sounds, and yet they’ re no longer songs.

"Wildling" is the trio’s strongest and most vulnerable album to date. It is a solipsist, which floats solitary in its own space, somewhere between the orbits of jazz, krautrock, pop and hell. This space is an earthly heaven, which we are permitted to inhabit – if we only can hear, with our ears as well as our heads.

by Jörg Sundermeier

Tracklist :
1. Move Right In (Drums - Christopher Brunner)
2. Silver Chords (Saxophone - Dietrich Foth)
3. Aum A Go-Go (Drums, Xylophone - Christopher Brunner)
4. In Transition (Version)
5. Spookin' The Horse (Drums - Christopher Brunner, Saxophone - Dietrich Foth)
6. Blind
7. Rotwelsch
8. Time Is The Fire In Which We Burn
9. Cry Tuff
10. We Paint The Town Beige (Drums - Christopher Brunner)
11. There's A Crack In Everything
12. Milte Hi Ankhen (aka Bird In Hand) (Written By - Lee Perry)

Dans la sélection très intellote et expérimentale des 3ème Qwartz Awards, qui ont eu lieu à Paris cette année pour récompenser les musiques dites "nouvelles", se trouvait l'album "Tijuana sessions vol.3" des mexicains du Nortec Collective, nominé dans plusieurs catégories, notamment la catégorie "dance-floor"... Sélection inespérée, malheureusement passée totalement inaperçue parmi une ribambelle d'opus obscures et chiants.

Tijuana, cette ville de la côté Ouest mexicaine, frontalière de la Californie, réputée pour son industrie électronique, est une plaque tournante des cultures américaines, qu'elles viennent du Sud ou du Nord. Et c'est là que le Nortec Collective s'est formé, incluant toute une bande de musiciens et de DJ's au background varié, qui ont l'air de s'être beaucoup éclaté à l'enregistrement de ces sessions electro-acoustiques.

Démarrant par les excellents "Tengo la voz" et "Tijuana makes me happy", qui vous donne l'irrémédiable envie de bouger, alternant tropicalisme bon esprit, dub à l'accordéon roots, trompettes mariachis sur rythmiques electro incendiaires, l'album de nos amis est une véritable petite mine de bonne humeur et de jovialité, comme les images de ce Mexique métissé pouvaient le laisser présager... Le groupe Calexico, l'un des fervents défenseur des hybridations musicales Nord-Sud, accompagne même le collectif sur "Esa banda en dub" pour une ritournelle plus atmosphérique aux allures de vieille mélodie de cow-boy, à fredonner le brin de paille aux lèvres, le chapeau bien vissé sur la tête pour éviter les coups de soleil en plein désert.

Je vous rassure quand même : l'album est bien ancré dans l'actualité et pourrait très bien se trouver une place sur vos étagères, pas très loin du projet "Electric Gypsyland", de Suba ou même de Transglobal Undeground ; autant de références qui savent nous faire voyager à travers le monde et découvrir des musiques aux accents surprenants et d'une ouverture d'esprit toute réjouissante.

par Guillaume
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Tracklist :
1. Tengo la voz
2. Tijuana makes me happy
3. Funky Tamazula
4. Doon loope
5. Olvidela compa
6. Autobanda
7. Dandy del sur
8. Almada
9. Coolorado
10. Narcothéque
11. Esa banda en dub (feat. Calexico)
12. Bar inferno
13. Revu rockers
14. Tijuana bass
15. El fracaso