Rob Dougan – Furious Angels
If you’ve ever heard the Matrix OST, tell me if you remember this track called Clubbed To Death. It starts off with gentle strings borrowed from Elgar’s Enigma Variations, and then metamorphoses into a catchy orchestral beat-fest – with a piano solo interlude worth dying for. The gentleman who composed this piece was Rob D, D for Dougan – and Furious Angels is the album on which this song appears, along with a number of other vocal and instrumental pieces. Dougan’s growling, raspy vocals, chunky beats, the swirling orchestral sounds create an ambience hard to describe – it’s completely electronica one moment, making you bop your head to the rhythm, and then forces you to stop doing whatever it is you were doing and listen to a calm solo the next instant. Rousing stuff.

Mùm – Finally We Are No One

I learnt of this Icelandic band when I was out searching for resources about my favourite Icelandic artiste. A search for articles on Salon.com brought up an interesting piece about this band, and a free mp3. Got myself an album soon after, and boy oh boy, was it good or what. Two guys, two girls – the boys with interesting hardware and a weird aural signature, and the girls with cherubic voices, Mùm makes music that gives me goosepimples. “Liquid electronica” is a phrase I’ve heard somewhere about their music, and it’s so bloody appropriate. Bursts of static, crackling loops that sound like they have been sampled from ancient vinyl albums, dreamy tunes, and the voices, my man, the voices. And it’s not like you can listen to one song in a loop – it has to be the album, from beginning to end, that has to be heard again. And again.

This is where you can download some tracks ( I really haven’t checked if they are samples or full tracks) by Mùm.

Architecture In Helsinki – Fingers Crossed

I honestly do not know how I got this album. One fine day, I notice this folder on my harddisk and enqueue the songs on Winamp, and wham! I am hooked. I asked my Finnish friend at the office about the band – obviously, any band with “Helsinki” in it has to be from Finland – and he said ( after a bit of googling) that it was an Australian band. Weird. But yeah, he was hooked too. Fingers Crossed is one album that defies description of any sort; other than the word “joyous”, I can’t think of anything at all to say what the music makes me feel. Maybe the last album that gave me this euphoric feeling was Cake’s Motorcade of Generosity, with its catchy guitars and brass sections. Yes, brass section – AiH is one of the bands that uses woodwinds to superb effect, along with the oddest instrumental accompaniments. I think I need to share one of the songs with you guys, because I am running out of words here. So here you go – you know what to do, right?

Rage Against The Machine – Renegades

I have been a fan of Rage Against The Machine ever since Neo put the phone down and flew out of the phonebooth, to the mind-smashing intro riffs of ‘Wake Up’. I bought the cassette of Renegades the day I saw it at the music store, though I was a penniless student then. It was their last studio album, because they broke up right after, with Zach de La Rocha going solo and the rest of the band teaming up with Chris Cornell to form Audioslave. What I didn’t know then was that the album featured covers of punk, hip-hop and rock songs. Four years later, I put on the album again, and discovered that I now knew the originals too, and the contrast is stunning. Songs by Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, the MC5, Afrika Bambaata, The Rolling Stones – some already angst-ridden in their original versions, others quiet and unassuming – they are all given a perspective that’s uniquely Rage Against The Machine. But some things remain unchanged – four years ago, I loved the quiet menace of the drumless, bassless Beautiful World most of all, and today, it still makes me smile.