Two weeks ago the Brit band Cornershop dropped its latest, “Wop the Groove.” The album accompanies a movie of the same name:

Written for the film of the same name by Mr Cornershop himself, Tjinder Singh, about London’s independent music industry, Wop The Groove had several musical makeovers before the finished composition. Rowetta, ex Happy Mondays and X Factor fame recorded her distinct vocals before her brush with tv fame, and the groove is built around her all powering voice. Cornershop’s first release in four years, it’s structure doesn’t deviate much from being one long chorus but it has enough chirpy funk and drive to keep the limbs twitching for several minutes. [Link]

The album features some notable collaborations and I think it includes a 2004 promo single titled “Topknot” with MIA.

…There’s no beating around the bush with this one, a quality track with a heavy duty riff, featuring Rowetta (ex Happy Mondays) on top form – written & produced by Tjinder Singh, also known as the national debt – recorded at Sassi P. Studio, Vatican City. The Factory Records stable have always given solid support to the Cornershop firmament, and it was this connection that led to this collaboration.

Cornershop were personally invited onto the Rough Trade label by Geoff Travis, on which they have released Topknot featuring Bubbley Kaur (“So good it sounds like Singh has found a fitting heir to Asha Bhosle” 4/5 The Mirror) & the much sought after promo mix featuring M.I.A. In between time they have been turning down TV & Film acting requests including some from Bollywood, and refusing international live gig appearances. They did do a remix for Quincy Jones called Valeurs Personnelles, a political track about value judgements, in the French language.

After immersing themselves in the deep gospel of Savoy Records and the sitar strength of Rai Gupta the band have spent the last six months airing a Sunday morning, cross denominational, religious radio programme, over the WorldWideWeb. A new Cornershop album is shaping up as another corker. In addition work has begun on a full album featuring Bubbley Kaur and also expected to drop this year.[Link]

Here are two more tracks:

Battle of New Orleans (Peel Show)

Continue reading →

Yesterday my favorite Canadian blogger posted about a pretty hot German-based band with a lead singer who shares a couple similarities with you-know-who but, in my humble opinion, may in fact be better. The band is Jahcoozi:

This hype Berlin-based trio is made up of MC and singer Sasha Perera (London), bassman Oren Gerlitz (Tel Aviv) and Robot Koch (Berlin) on laptop and drums. From their My Space page: “Blip hop, ragga-tech, RnB punk, click pop illectronica? Pop? A Shakespeare’s Sister – Neptunes collabo?!!” Definitely a band of roughians to watch out for. ‘Half [Pure] Breed Mongrel’ comes as a surprise to me because I didn’t know what to expect on first listen, my only previous experience being Sacha Perera’s appearance on the Modeselektor album (on ‘Silikon’). This new platter has some crazy fire on it that can clearly translate into big things on a live stage. While the beats are supremely dancefloor-friendly the ‘tude is not for the pop-hearted. It reeks satire from the first track (‘Black Barbie’) which makes the album a blast to listen to. ‘Asian Bride Magazine’ is deffo a personal fav (how could it not be?) and had me grinning from ear to ear: “Thank you, L’Oréal, now there’s products for us/Daily use gonna help us to pretend that we’re high caste/ Bleach our skin, lighten our moustache.”

Perera is Londoner of Sri Lankan origin and yes she does do the whole raggamuffin bit with her voice but the comparison to M.I.A. ends there. Unlike Mizz Maya (‘Sunshowers’ chorus anyone?), this lady can really sing. Though the Modeselektor track made it hard to avoid drawing similarities, with this album it becomes clear that Perera is in a league of her own when it comes to her wonderfully husky vocal capability. More like the other major ‘M’ in my life, Missy, in sound. Jahcoozi has made a great debut both in the full-length world and in my hungry ears (I know it came out last year, smartass). [Link]

Like Neha, my favorite track on Pure Breed Mongrel was also Asian Bride Magazine. I am sure many of our female readers will dig the lyrics as well. I also liked the song The Bouncer Who Turned Good for its name alone (in my head I just substituted “blogger” for “bouncer”). The best way to describe Sasha’s voice is to imagine if Tricky and M.I.A. had a lovechild. You can listen to most of Jahcoozi’s Pure Breed Mongrel album by clicking on the songs in the left-hand column here.

Continue reading →

The Village Voice’s “Pazz & Jop” supplement is out this week. It’s the only annual music survey that counts; tallying votes from 795 critics, it’s a clear statement of the prevailing wisdom in US pop criticism. Online you can check out each critic’s list, and search to see how your favorite grime, electroclash, nerd-hop or screamo fared. So, how about the desis?

Albums
2 – M.I.A., Arular
149 – Kronos Quartet f/ Asha Bhosle [thanks Sajit]
231 – Anoushka Shankar, Rise
Songs
29 – M.I.A, “Galang”
30 (tie) – M.I.A., “Bucky Done Gun”
61 (tie) – M.I.A., “Sunshowers”
313 (tie) – M.I.A., “Bingo”

And, unless you count Devendra Banhart (album: 90; song: 313) as an honorary desi (ahem), thatÂ’s it.

ItÂ’s also interesting to search for desis among the critics. Gauging by name, I found only two: Nikhil Swaminathan of Creative Loafing, the Atlanta weekly, and Joseph Patel of MTV. I donÂ’t know either cat; for all I know Joseph may be Trini or Guyanese. He placed M.I.A. on his list of mainly Black music; Nikhil is an indie-rock cat who didn’t find room for a sista. [UPDATE: Also Geeta Dayal! My bad. Thanks, Neha.] Continue reading →