What's your latest "Discovery"

The Daktari's Soul Explosion is a great set of Afrofunk tunes in the James Brown via Fela vein. Basically a group of Brooklyn session guys with fake Nigerian names but the music works great...big, fat bass lines and great horn work. Has that authentic retro, swimmy, fat-bottomed 70s funk sound. On permanent rotation on the car CD player.

Volebeats:Country Favorites (subtitled Detroit, Michigan). A great sounding alt.country cd with fine vocals and guitar work. Runs the gamut from hard honky tonk to grunge country to pop rock to bluesy stuff. For once a cd without at least 6 songs of filler. It's Buddy Holly meets REM meets the Beach Boys meets 60s garage. Fun cd.

Drive By Truckers:Dirty South. Another great sounding alt.country cd with good vocals and triple guitar attacks. It's the Outlaws meets REM. Absolutely first rate lyrics. A good one to crank up the audio rig.

Siliab - I've loved the Daktaris disk ever since I stumbled across it a few years back, but I've never heard that backstory about who was responsible. In fact, not only does the jacket list all those African-sounding names of the players, but also specifies it as having been recorded in Lagos, Nigeria. Although it states it was mixed in NYC by the same guy (who doesn't have an African name) credited as recording producer, I kind of wondered - since the topic isn't addressed elsewhere - whether this really was supposed to mean remastered for CD. But there were more seeds of doubt: not all the players' names sound genuinely African or even real, no year of recording or original release is listed, and the liner notes and cover photo of a lion with vultures chowing down a kill on the savanna seem a bit arch and fakey. And why don't I see the Daktaris on any Afro-funk comps? But the sound - how could that deliciously dirty voodoo soul stew (to quote one of the song titles) not be authentic? It fairly screams 'vintage'. Could that have been achieved synthetically? And the tunes are too great not to strike me as being the real deal straight outta mother Africa. But at the end of the day the record's just so damn good I decided not to worry about where it really might have come from and simply enjoy it. Still somewhat of a mystery, but I heartily second the recommendation.

Counting Crows - "Hard Candy"

Performance ****1/2 (of 5*)
Sonics ****1/2 (of 5*)

Great band! Great CD! As good as if not better than "August and Everything After"

Highly recommended!!

Carla Bruni