Tag: Manu Chao

If you thought the days of the supergroup were over, Boygenius would like to have a word or three.

No pan flute, no washes of synthesizer textures, just Olivia Jean doing her best impression of a land-bound siren and kicking up the octane in the Enya original to unsafe levels. It’s a hot summer so far, with lots of great releases crowding the older stuff out of the playlist, and it shows no sign of letting up. There’s a new album from the Boo Radleys (it’s been a while!), and I am obsessing over motorik sounds from Orange Drink and Motor!k. It’s far more than will fit on a single cassette, unless you get one of those ultra-long ones that your car deck will eventually eat up.

You might think Juanes is some sort of reference to a collective of people named Juan, but it is actually a single Juan, more accurately a Colombian named Juan Esteban Aristizábal Vásquez. Here he is singing along to Elvis Costello and the Attractions as part of the fascinating Spanish Model project.

The luthier adjusted the direction control of the four-legged arachnoform lumbering above the forest of Oro Bay. The spherical contraption had been difficult at first, but proved to be intuitive in guiding the transport’s spindly hissing legs across the varied terrain. Behind the padded seat, the cartographer consulted screens and printouts. The purple spruce should be visible soon. A single trunk would yield over a hundred cello bows, worth millions in the underground market. They were there to make sure it remained just another tree.

The keypad beeped softly as the astronomer keyed in the coordinates. It was deepest darkest night on the altiplano, the stars above an unfamiliar configuration for those born to northern skies. The physicist tapped their pencil against their favorite clipboard (the metal one), the coffee-stained papers clipped to it showing the revised calculations for the Hole In The Sky. Over the tinny intercom, hacked because both had forgotten to bring a speaker, a particularly ironic song choice began to play, making them instinctively share a knowing glance.

Funky urban hip hop and soul is not something you expect to come from North of the Border, but here we have Grand Analog, who does it all and does it well.