P'taahI promised myself couple of weeks ago that I would not be buying music for the rest of the year. I managed to keep my promise for only two weeks. (Although I did cheat a little during the first week since I received the Saint-Germain-de-Prés nujazz compilations I had ordered earlier on that week.) Then I made the mistake of looking into my last.fm recommendations and decided to look further into those artists with the combination of Google, Amazon and iTMS. After couple of hours I noticed that I had (more or less) accidentially bought five albums and one EP from iTMS. Anyway, here are the purchases for week 49 of 2005:
Two albums and one EP from Austrian duo dZihan & Kamien. Very good combination of jazz, funk, trip-hop and lounge, with some middle eastern elements and hints of soul and funk. Higly recommended. Cover on their debut album Freaks & Icons is pretty high on my personal list of most awful album covers of all times, but don’t let it bother – the album itself is great. Their second album Gran Riserva is even better than it’s predecessor. Probably jazzier of the two albums, with more mature and interesting material. Early EP Tearoom 2004, is quite ok as well, but perhaps the most forgettable one of the bunch.
If you have not heard Plej, it’s probably easiest to compare them with Röyksopp. Electronic Music From The Swedish Leftcoast contains melodic electronic music with soul and ambience, with some jazz influences. Much better than e.g. The Understanding was. If you have to choose, buy this one instead of the latest Röyksopp.
Another last.fm recommendation was P'taah. Probably classifiable as something in lines of electronic-nujazz-downtempo-funk. (I just love music classifications!) Decompressed contains remixes from artist’s debut album. Staring at the Sun is his second ’real’ album. Highly recommended and probably the best purchase of the week along with Plej.
Two albums and one EP from Austrian duo dZihan & Kamien. Very good combination of jazz, funk, trip-hop and lounge, with some middle eastern elements and hints of soul and funk. Higly recommended. Cover on their debut album Freaks & Icons is pretty high on my personal list of most awful album covers of all times, but don’t let it bother – the album itself is great. Their second album Gran Riserva is even better than it’s predecessor. Probably jazzier of the two albums, with more mature and interesting material. Early EP Tearoom 2004, is quite ok as well, but perhaps the most forgettable one of the bunch.
If you have not heard Plej, it’s probably easiest to compare them with Röyksopp. Electronic Music From The Swedish Leftcoast contains melodic electronic music with soul and ambience, with some jazz influences. Much better than e.g. The Understanding was. If you have to choose, buy this one instead of the latest Röyksopp.
Another last.fm recommendation was P'taah. Probably classifiable as something in lines of electronic-nujazz-downtempo-funk. (I just love music classifications!) Decompressed contains remixes from artist’s debut album. Staring at the Sun is his second ’real’ album. Highly recommended and probably the best purchase of the week along with Plej.
