Archive for July, 2007
The super nice nice folks at Nordic imprint Labrador Recrods are making their massive (and massively cool) Summer Sampler FREEly available. It’s 68 tracks in all, comprised of the best-of-the-best their roster has to offer, including Guide faves The Legends, Club 8 and Acid House Kings. Follow this link and then download the torrent. You’ll need a bittorrent client (like Xtorrent for the Mac) to actually get the goods.
There’s nothing better than beating the heat with cool tunes!
July 29th, 2007
The long awaited, oft-delayed solo debut of former Olive lead singer, Ruth Ann Boyle, is finally here!! I made a post about it back in 2005, pretty much at the start of Guide. Arriving with little fanfare, this collection of songs produced with long-time collaborator and one man band Enigma, Michael Cretu, is available only at iTunes Music Stores. Overall, I’m impressed with the songs with the standouts being the title track “What About Us” and “Dancing Into Hell” in my opinion. Most of the songs are dark, foreboding and smack of the same kind of sound we’re already accustomed to hearing when it comes to Ruth Ann guesting on Enigma tracks. WHAT ABOUT US is essentially a nice companion piece (or sequel) to Olive’s “TRICKLE” disc from 2000; It’s pretty downbeat but well-produced and ultimately very listenable. What’s missing is any of the 4 seemingly brilliant Jens Gad tracks mentioned in my post from two years ago (samples of which are no longer available on his site sadly). I am literally shocked that these tracks are not included. I can only hope and pray that these eventually see the light of day, possibly as b-sides in the very near future? Are you listening Ruth Ann/Jens Gad?? What about us?!
But for fans of Olive (and possibly Enigma), this album definitely does not disappoint. Click here to be taken to the iTMS to get “WHAT ABOUT US”.
July 9th, 2007
It’s with a little bit of sadness that I report Mercedes-Benz is wrapping up its always fantastic Mixed Tape compilation series with this last installment, Vol. 18. The latest is literally a “latest and greatest” featuring its most popular tracks from the previous seventeen editions. Each volume of the Mixed Tapes has been consistently featured over the life of my Guide and I’ve discovered many terrific tracks and new artists; Alice Russell’s “All Over Now” immediately comes to mind. I’ll be sorry to see it go but we’re assured in the first track by the curator Sven that Mercedes will be producing more projects like Mixed Tape – just not any more Mixed Tapes. We can only hope that whatever is next carries on it the fine tradition of its predecessor.
Get it before it’s gone for good.
By the way, at one point I had found a blog that archived all the Mixed Tape volumes for download. After some googling, I was unable to find it. If anyone knows of such a thing, please drop me a line. I’d like to post it here.
UPDATE:
Guide reader Torben came to my rescue with this link for a MB Mixed Tape archive.
July 8th, 2007