Tagged: bestofthemonth

To give you all as much exposure to new music as possible, we linked up with the good folks over at the CyberGorillas.com Hip Hop and R&B site to bring you a new monthly series! At the end of each month, we'll head over to each other's sites, choose our favorites from the past month, [...]

If you're too lazy to listen to everything posted on Basement Fever then you're in luck. Monthly we'll be posting a mix of our favourite tracks that have been blogged at the end of each month on 8tracks. Check out our July selection below. We've even linked to all the related blog posts so you can go and download the stuff you like the most. 1. The Cherry Smash - Airport Girl 2. Dolfinz - Coral Reefer 3. Hookworms - Medicine Cabinet [...]

Leave it to Rhymesayers to lead the charge in putting off the obsolescence of physical music. Last year, we made a bit of adoring noise about the very cool packaging of P.O.S.'s Never Better (in additional to naming it one of the Best Hip-Hop Albums of 2009, So Far and the 49th Best Album of the Year.. So Far ), but this year, whoever's running design over at Rhymesayers has absolutely outdone her- or himself. Freeway & Jake One's The Stimulus Package [...]

In a few days, the wait is over for fans of Stile Antico, the phenomenal vocal ensemble who specialize in Tudor and Renaissance choral music (and high-profile side projects with Sting .) They release " Media Vita ," a selection of works by the sixteenth century composer John Sheppard. Less well-known than Thomas Tallis , Sheppard's fame has spread slowly, because his compositions only made it to the twentieth century in manuscript form and many of them are incomplete. What survives bears all the hallmarks of greatness. This recording [...]

By the time the European avant garde had advanced to breaking china and blowing train whistles, Swiss composer Othmar Schoeck was deemed "too accessible." Their loss, as " Notturno ," op. 47, (1931-1933) is a post-romantic chamber gem. Poems by Nikolaus Lenau, scored for string quartet and baritone are given a new reading on an ECM recording featuring the rock-solid, Rosamunde Quartet, with Christian Gerhaher. This is attractive, meaty, but agile musicianship, showing a wonderful dynamic range. Extra props go to Herr Gerhaher for his beautiful tone, and impeccable diction. – Hugo Munday [...]

This album was released in February, so we had almost a full year containing some excellent recordings in which to check our judgment and yes, this is the best disc in the classical canon for 2009. Bernarda Fink as contralto soloist with Petra Müllejans directing her and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, offer three Bach cantatas "Geist und Seele wird verwirret," BWV 35, "Gott soll allein mein Herze haben," BWV 169, and "Vernugte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust" BWV 170. All are from a minor fault-line in Bach's output, coming after three years of composing, rehearsing and performing a [...]

It may feel a little early for this sort of thing, but we on the Amazon music team have pooled our collective knowledge and taste to determine the best music of 2009. We spent 2009 soothed by Neko Case 's wail, moved to dance by Yeah Yeah Yeahs ' turn towards big beats, intrigued by Somali hip-hop Troubadour K'naan, and ready to hear three key words from neo-twangsters the Avett Brothers . On the songs side, French popsters Phoenix went nutty for a composer and [...]

Sometimes, when the world feels like it's too much, you need to stop, breathe, and find a way to regroup. There are many forms of rejuvenation--I've always found mine in yoga, martial arts, or meditation. And I've increasingly found that the right music soothes my frayed nerves like nothing else. But finding the right music can be tricky, and most new age music is too airy-fairy for my taste. It's thin and whispery, like cotton candy, and I need something solid and whole and grounding. New age music also tends to scare people by conjuring images of [...]

Now that the '80s music revival in full swing, those of us who were lucky enough to experience the original decade, and who were sad to see its musical demise, have a lot to be thankful for--and nobody has re-imagined the clean, danceable pop of the '80s for the new millennium better than British synthophiles La Roux . Sporting artistic influences of the highest order, including Prince 's dark electro funk, Eurythmics ' shocking visual and melodic style, and a heavy dose of the sharp songwriting and synthtastic sounds of Yaz (or Yazoo [...]

David Gray has come full circle back to his roots on his latest release, Draw the Line , which is significant given the fact that he could have easily succumb to the many distractions of success. Long-time fans of David Gray, like myself, who gravitated to his earlier releases including A Century Ends , Flesh , and Sell, Sell, Sell will be happy [...]

The mighty Verdi Requiem has long been a staple of both the huge orchestra and huge opera singer. Set from the catholic funeral mass, the practical use in an actual funeral is somehow secondary to the intense drama, which storms down with the full force of a John Martin canvas, on us miserable listeners. The last 50 years have given us several notable recordings which are joined this month by a new rendition , offered by EMI. Produced from a series of live concerts in Rome, Antonio Poppano conducts the orchestra and chorus of [...]

Robert Glasper is a man of many talents. Certainly, he's both an inarguably accomplished jazz pianist and a first-rate composer. But what Glasper does best is pick drummers . With 2007's In My Element , he provided Damion Reid with a platform to record nothing less than the drum performance of the year. For his newest album, Double Booked (Blue Note), Glasper teams up with Chris Dave, and the results are astonishing. It's a concept album, sort of. The first half features Glasper, Dave, and [...]

Things come in clusters, suddenly, when you haven't thought about them in years. A few weeks back, watching the funeral cortege for Teddy Kennedy, " A Simple Song " from the opening of Bernstein's Mass , popped into my head. Amazon.com Widgets Commissioned by Jackie Kennedy to open the Kennedy Center in DC, the whole thing bursts out like new in this Naxos release from the Baltimore Symphony, conducted by Marin Alsop and featuring the radiant Jubilant Sykes, as Celebrant. Time is hard on [...]

J.S. Bach published his collected Partitas in 1731. He was 46 years old and had been the cantor at Leipzig's Thomaskirche for eight years. He had already composed two of the most important choral works; the St. Matthew and St. John passions. Bach probably attached significance to keyboard works by publishing them as his Opus #1, and they've come to be appreciated as the pinnacle of a form that was soon to fall out of fashion, in favor of other frameworks such as the sonata. In late August ECM New Series put out a live recording of the [...]

John Eccles, composer for court, church and stage, in the late 1600s and a contemporary of, and collaborator with, one of this years birthday greats, Henry Purcell. In 1700 Eccles, along with colleagues, Daniel Purcell (youngest brother of Henry), John Weldon and Gottfreid Finger entered a competition to see who could compose the best English version of " The Judgment of Paris ." Move over Susan Boyle, this is the original " Britain's Got Talent ." This "Paris" is special because it shows Eccles trying to shunt musical theater [...]

Just because it's only July doesn't mean it's too early for us to pass judgment on 2009's song and album offerings. Below, discover not only our favorite music of the year, but also Amazon MP3 customers' favorite songs of the year. We voted with our opinions-- they voted with their wallets. Please hit the comments to let us know where we got it right and/or tell us what morons we are for leaving off your favorite album. Editors' Picks: The Best Albums of 2009, So Far 1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's [...]

*A word of explanation about this list: while the majority of my picks can be called world music, a couple of them (Emmy the Great, Little Boots) are imports which don't necessarily fall into the world music category. I'm including them here because: 1) they've been released in another country (in this case, England), and 2) I couldn't resist sharing them (seriously, they're that good).p But keep in mind that you probably won't find either of these artists categorized under world music in our music por [...]

We're halfway through the year already, so it's time to present half of a Top 10 list for our Best of the Year So Far. The following top 5 picks are the stand-outs in the ever-growing Americana genre that intermingles within all brands of alt country, bluegrass, folk, and blues music. Each of the following titles fall somewhere in that spectrum, if not covering all of them in some cases. p Song Up In Her Head [...]

1. Amesoeurs - Amesoeurs With equal parts Lush -inspired poppy shoegaze, black metal brutality, and epic atmospherics that bring to mind bands like Explosions in the Sky and Godspeed You Black Emperor! , France's Amesoeurs' self-titled debut album (and swan song) could very well be my favorite album of the year . Unable to determine a direction for the band, they decided to call it quits before the album was even released, and it's a real shame. True, the album is a bit schizophrenic--it's completely sung [...]

D.Folks - Jupiter D.Folks' self-released album Jupiter doesn't stay in one place very long, moving seamlessly between organic, '80s-indebted, uptempo pop and contemporary loverman R&B in a way that's more refreshing than schizophrenic. Jupiter is an album that both parents and kids will enjoy, but would probably never enjoy together as a family. Songs like "Superficial World" bring to mind not only the golden era of his fellow Virginians the Neptunes' production career, but also their label signee Robin Thicke. "Falling In Love Again," on the other hand sounds almost [...]