Rober Awards

This month’s sinphonola opens with what could easily become the revelation of the year: Janelle Monae’s career to date included some early roles in musicals like “The Wizard Of Oz”, until Outkast’s Big Boi provided the young star with her first break as a guest vocalist in some of the tracks of the duo’s “Idlewild” soundtrack. The tepid reception to that album may have come in Janelle’s way to superstardom, but this could be just about to change with the release of her debut ” Metropolis Suite I: The Chase”, in which the Nona Hendryx lookalike adopts the role of alien cybergirl Cindi Mayweather’s, narrating her misadventures to save mankind, in a world where love is prosecuted. Her first single “Violet Stars Happy Hunting” is without doubt one of the most infectious and unique tracks we have heard this year. If all the album is like that Janelle will be seen at this year’s Rober Awards.

Listen to “Violet Stars Happy Hunting”

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El presidente de la Academia, dejando de lado su devota y exclusiva dedicación al mundo del entretenimiento, se tomo unos bien merecidos días de vacaciones para explorar, entre otras cosas, la rica herencia musical cubana y los efectos sociales, económicos y culturales de la Revolución en tierras de Fidel. Los desventuras de su viaje, una montaña rusa de sensaciones únicas, incluyendo exploraciones naturales de increíble belleza; el asedio por parte de múltiples redes de timadores; ritmos afro-cubanos como banda sonora y el continuo escapar de unas condiciones climáticas un tanto hostiles se relatan a continuación. Agárrense los machos!!!

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This art-rock trio from Portland, Oregon, packed the cosy top Floor at Camden’s legendary rock bar “Barfly” with an excellent set comprising most of their critically aclaimed latest work “Friend or Foe”. Their name, Menomena, taken from “Manna Manna”, a timeless classic made popular among others by The Muppets and one-flop wonder girlband Vanilla, was the subject of a continuous sing-along by members of the audience.
Support came from The Wallbirds, whose show we unfortunately missed, and the incredibly energetic Hillbilly-Goth- Punk combo O’Death.

See their latest video “Rotten hell”
See a short film for Wet and Rusting

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Waves of excitement shook the core of the Academy’s membership when the New Pornographers announced a tour to promote the release of “Challengers” on August the 28th, beginning with a three night stand, which were sold out weeks in advance, in different cosy venues through the UK capital, before their appearance at this year’s Glastonbury.

Even the president of the Academy had to resort to unusual measures not to miss the event, going undercover and becoming a “Friend of” the combo’s record label, while helping to collect email addresses for their mailing list. The effort was worth it. Our favourite Canadian indie supergroup gave a fantastic show, covering practically all their career’s highlights, from “Mass Romantic” to “Sing Me Spanish Techno”, interlaced with most of the new album. With a similar line-up than last time they played over, Neko Case and Dan Bejar got their own solo schedules and don’t tour with the band, but Katherin Calder from Immaculate Machine provided the female vocal parts with total brilliance.

Listen to new single “My Rights Versus Yours”
Listen to new album track “Myriad Harbour”

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The estival season is nearly here and the usual offensive to conquer dancefloors, beach clubs, terrazas and chiringuitos is taking shape in every single A&R department worth its salt. Here’s a look at the first contenders for that oh-so-dreaded and desired in equal measure Summer song title:

The first on arriving was Rihanna’s ultra-catchy “Umbrella”. She already counts with some Rober award nominations for dance anthems of the year (“Pon the replay”; “S.O.S”), this time getting a little -rather unneccesary- help from her record label’s big honcho Jay-Z; the former dancehall diva crosses the few bridges left to reach total mainstream in her third work “Good girl gone bad”. It strangely remind us to the singing style of ex-Cranberries leader Dolores O’ Riordan, must be all that eee-ela-eee-eee the Irish star made once popular. Sorry for the gratuitous commercial on the vid..but hey..Artist don’t sell millions of records anymore, so they have to earn the money for their swanky lifestyle somewhere.

One of “Umbrella”‘s remixes introduces who’s probably the soon-to-be youngest female star in contemporary hip-hop, Lil Mama. Her debut “Lipgloss” could do for the cosmetic industry what Kelis did for dairy refreshments with “Milkshake”.

What would it be of the summer without girls? The lovely Amerie is about to shake off that one hit wonder curse she earned with the Rober award winner classic “1 thing”, while carry on nicking the best songs from Beyonce’s repertoire right in front of her face. Her new album beats the Destiny’s Child effort by a long distance. After the Tropicalia infused “Take control”.(see video).”Gotta Work” with its classic soul intro, should confirm her as a huge star.

Too much RnB? Don’t leave just yet…

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NICK CAVE & GRINDERMAN-No Pussy Blues

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