Oh god, the Arabic Rap comp is the Bodega Pop comp yet - it still could a bit of a trimming, more just because it's unwieldy at 90 minutes than a lack of quality, though the mostly English Arabian Knightz song is a bit of bummer, or at least its guitar solo is, but everything else is class, and there's real variety, too.
 
The problem with binging on a genre, or group of genres, especially if you know little about their history, is how hard it becomes to describe the albums: this Chaloemphon Malakham album is a perfect example - it's Thai, and it's good, and there's synth? But beyond that I got nothing.

Now here's something I can describe! Ndeye Marie Ndiaye Gawlo's Beeta Fella has synth and both drum machines and traditional percussion and what I hear as gospel influence - the vocals are really impassioned and the songs are catchy as heck! But but but it does dip over into overproduction and too-much-going-on on a few tracks - but pretty much every time the tempo picks up, you're in for a treat.

So Ahouzar Phone Presents Abdelâziz Ahouzar... the sad thing about this album is that the best comparison my brain can muster is to that Mahmoud Awad that become a meme a few years ago, the one that was supposed to be from like 2076 or summat but was basically just a bunch of Arabic pop songs sent through the fx wringer in Audacity? I actually loved that album and I'd say I've been on a search for the music that inspired it ever since, but, nah, I've been listening to tech thrash. Anyway, this comes the closest of any other thing I've heard to sounding like it. To give another hyper-Western super-ignorant example, imagine if I said to combine Nass El Ghiwane and Abdel Halim Hafez. Sound good, right? But imagine that you're perverse enough to think "yeah, that's okay, but what that hybrid really needs is autotune." Boom, this album was born. It's Western, it's very non-Western, it's traditional, it's futuristic, it's pop music but three out of five tracks are ten minutes long and only one is under eight. It's weird, in other words. The album has audience applause scattered throughout, but it's hard to believe it's actually live, because it seems hard to believe this music could actually exist like this in meatspace: it really does sound like music of the future, being piped through speakers in a satellite lightyears away from us. Spread this around, and the vaporwave kids'll replace their appropriated Japanese characters with Tamazight.

The Num Phuthai album I have is apparently entitled Tam Nan Phin Amata, Vol. 5; Bang Fai Saen (Phanom Phrai) Phuthai Ralai Lan (phew!) and, uh, it's basically a guitar solo? There's rhythm in the background, but you basically get two twenty-plus-minute slabs of a dude just playing the same melodies on his guitar over and over - is it Thai minimalism? Is it some sort of religious ritual trance music? According to my source, it's music for, uh, rocket-judging contests? That would explain the firework noises.

I was tricked into hearing Stan Getz' Focus by an avant-garde jazz tag on RYM, but, as inaccurate as that label is, it wasn't a totally lost cause. Just as the word that that Melodia album conjured up was "professional," the keyword for Focus is "tasteful." But wait, that's not an insult! Third stream experiments are rarely as inspired as this, even if the arrangements aren't exactly Penderecki, or even classical at all. Visions of Stan Kenton's City of Glass danced in my head, but they were mere phantoms, as I haven't heard that album in years, and I remember it being much stranger than this. I know that the thought of the guy that did "Girl from Ipanema" covering a Disney song over pizzicato strings and floppy jazz drumming might not sound super appealing, but "I'm Late, I'm Late" really is great fun for all eight minutes. And with "Her," those vague Kenton visions were replaced with dreams of dream sequences from MGM musicals - it's very evocative, long-walk-in-the-rain-in-the-big-city-after-your-girlfriend-leaves-you-and-also-you're-wearing-a-trenchcoat-for-some-reason music, not exactly revelatory in a post-Ornette world, but miles better than anything "dark jazz." The rest continues in similar fashion, with only slightly diminished returns, mostly because of faint overtones of the first Moody Blues album, something not helped by the presence of a song called "A Summer Afternoon." I never expected to enjoy Stan Getz with Strings, but, hey, I ain't complaining.

Oh no something is wrong! I'm listening to a soukous album and not enjoying it! Soukous Machine by Tchico Thicaya & Kilimandjaro just feels off somehow. Maybe the problem is with me? I don't know, but I don't think I can finish this right now, or rate it. Maybe I've listened to too much music today?

Whenever I need to cleanse my brain or make it stop for a while, it's always a safe bet that some Peter Cusack will do the trick. It's not music, but it's more primal than that - it's a celebration of the very concept of sound, a panegyric to hearing. Sounds from Dangerous Places is a harrowing listen because it highlights the perils that rampant industrialization and pollution has not on semi-abstract concepts like "the environment" but on actual human beings - not that one need be so anthropocentric, but the sheer toll that these things take on people is often overlooked and even without speaking the language, listening to a Ukrainian woman from a radioactive town sing "Oh My Beloved Village" is heart-wrenching. Perhaps because of this, I can only album listen to the album in 5-7 song chunks.   

Oh also I revisited that soukous album, and, yeah, it just sucks. :3

Going from one supposedly surefire hit genre to another, Cumbias Solo Cumbias Vol. 2 actually is a hit! And what a hit it is! I'm especially fond of A. Lenes' "Dos Puntas" but every track owns and if there was any remaining trace of Selena's "Techno Cumbia" in my mouth or mind, it's now been thoroughly flushed out.

Well, Soul Jazz has won me over to their side again - virtually none of the criticisms I had of the first three Dynamite comps applies to their Studio One Groups. It even did the impossible by including a Mob Barley and the Whalers track that I actually enjoyed! 

Lqalb Lmeskun is easily the worst of the three Jil Jilala albums I've sampled lately - it's not terrible, but it's making me realize that gnawa is a genre that can be kinda' boring when it's not gobsmackingly amazing.

Soukous, on the other hand, is pretty much never not amazing, or at least one of the most inherently appealing genres I know of, and Orchestra le Peup's Tia Tibi Tia Yala is no exception: the third track, in particular, has some exquisite horn bits. 

About a third of In the Heights gives me that thrill that can only come from a damn good showtune - spliced with hip hop and salsa, to boot. But there's just a few too many, uh, modern-showtune-sounding showtunes - a little too Rent, y'know? But when those aforementioned influences come to the fore, it's fucking ecstatic! The first third in particular is just great, great music. Too bad about the adult contemporary shit.

Returning to Bodega Pop, the Hoàng Oanh comp really hits a sweet spot sometimes - a few tracks go on too long, but I'm coming to realize that I'm nearly as big of a sucker for vocals in Vietnamese as I am for those in Thai, my favorite language to hear people sing in, and honestly they sound very similar to me. The later tracks tend to be my favorite, particularly the ones tinged with psych rock and the tango one.

Remember what I just said about Thai? My reaction to Rock Khong Khoi's Sieow Woi is a perfect example of just how much I love the language and music of that country - it's synth-pop, but it's not really synth-pop, dig? It's pop music that happens to use synths, and fairly cheap sounding ones at that, but the melodies and rhythms seem much older and more traditional than that and it sounds like a picnic on a beautiful spring day with your best friends in the world. There's not a thing I would change and yet it doesn't seem exceptional in any way except quality - it's gorgeous and endlessly listenable.

But hooooooooooooooooooly fuck, if that album is a breezy day in the park, Chinnakon Klong Yao by Chinnakon Krailat starts off like a tornado made of orgasms - it's more traditional in instrumentation, and the Western elements are more, uh, Bing Crosby than Stock, Aitken and Waterman, but when Chinnakon yodels it's like an explosion of rainbows in your very soul. If every track was like the first two, it would be on the shortlist for five stars on a second listen.

But now we're back to the synthetic stuff with a Phimpha Phonsiri album and ugh I'm still just beyond smitten with this entire country's music - well, the "Entro (sic) to Thai Pop" playlist I've been perusing on Spotify shows that there's tons of completely uncharming generic Westernized pop blah coming from the country nowadays, but molam and luk thung are, and this is almost impossible to believe, possibly even more rewarding than Sublime Frequencies comps had led me to believe.

Moving from Thailand to Cote d'Ivoire, Zagazougou's Zagazougou Coup is mostly percussion, vox and accordion, but who needs more than that? 

 Bozi Boziana & L'Orchestre Anti-Choc use more than that on Bana Saint-Gabriel but it's not nearly as charming - it's thoroughly modern African music in very nearly the most pejorative sense of "modern." There's enough soukous influence on a few tracks that it's not a total wash but s'not for me, let's leave it at that.

On the "and now for something completely different" tip, T.E.F.'s Symptomatic Harbinger is some of the most enjoyable noise I've encountered in a while, though it seems weirdly masochistic to refer to music that gave me a headache and ear pain "enjoyable."

Returning to Africa, the Beat of Smanje Manje comp is some nice mostly instrumental jive from an important South African label, though it does get tiring right before the end. There's also an appearance by Mahlathini, who everyone should know. 

Synthesizers in African music aren't always bad news: ask City Boys Band, whose "Obiara te se onoa" opens the Kwae Anoma album with some sweet vintage analog synthwork - too bad that the music is kind of nondescript otherwise, with the keys, be they synth or organ, being the highlight. Highlife, it seems, isn't as sure a thing as soukous. 

Back to Zagazougou: le Confirmation is actually more enjoyable than the aforementioned, even if they share different versions of multiple songs. 

Sri Krug Brass' Banleng Sri Krung is pretty much kitsch, but it's good kitsch and it's Thai kitsch so it's got some elements that really transcend its kitschiness.

I am becoming, or perhaps have already become, a Bodega Pop addict. That blog legitimately has a little bit of everything, from pretty much everywhere. Internet global eclecticcore to a tee, and that's what I strive to be. They even have a twee pop tag, but I'm afraid to look at it for fear of reading about albums I Must Have and encountering dead download link after dead download link. But they also have self-curated exclusive comps, and that's where I've been focusing my attention today.

Albanian Sisters Swim to Freedom starts out fucking ecstatically excellent but I couldn't take over a CD's worth of the stuff (these comps are not beholden to 79: 57.) The coolest bits are the traditional instruments that sound like a cross between a hurdy-gurdy and a zorna. But I guess there's only so much Westernized synth-heavy slick mainstream pop I can take at one time regardless of country of origin.

The Vietrap comp, on the other hand, I enjoyed basically every minute of - this may have something to do with the inherent nature of hip hop (which isn't to say that it's not easily assimilated into flashy pop or can't be treacly) and also my preference of the sound of the Vietnamese language to Albanian. Or it could be the genuine pop skills of Mr. Dee and the Bells, who contribute 6 of the 21 songs. There's even a song that bites "I'll Be Watching/Missing You" and turns it listenable, some, though perhaps not enough, traditional Vietnamese music influence, such as on the 5 Dong Ke track and a lo-fi wonder in "Mot Ngay Khong Co Em" by Vpop.      

I was really excited for the Punk Islam comp, because who wouldn't be? But this is the one time that BP comes up tragically and frustratingly short. I've always said that the best punk is made by people who are a.) women, b.) Japanese or c.) queer, or, even better yet, a combination thereof. Wouldn't "Muslim" slot really well in that list? The problem I see with the BP comp is that it's just not punk enough, like at all, honestly. The Diacritical tracks sound like Clearchannel terrestrial radio rock with preachy lyrics and some kind of jazz rock with really really embarrassing rapping, respectively. Al-Thawra's "Gaza" has a bit of a sludge metal thing going for it, and "Hey Hey Hey Guantanamo Bay" by Secret Trial Five, the only track to feature female vocalists, is catchy, but they're sort of the only highlights, and far too much of the rest sounds like System of a Down, who I actually like, yeah yeah I know, but their debut is actually way more hardcore influenced that anything here and that's still not what I want in my Muslim punk comps. A track called "Rumi Was a Homo" should sound like Charming Hostess meets +HIRS+, not, well, SOAD.

Speaking of queers and punk, Fuckin' Dyke Bitches are fun, but not the second coming of Team Dresch by any means. "Boys Will Be Boys" seems to have a pro-trans woman message worded in one of the most cissexist ways possible and a fucking creepy-ass film sample at the end.

Kitten Forever are straight (boo) but they basically are the second coming of Bikini Kill. If you like bratpunk, Pressure will get the taste of last year's the Julie Ruin album out of your mouth and have you dreaming of 'zinier pastures. It's not quite Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah but it's probably legitimately better than Pussywhipped even if some bits sound to me more like Le Tigre with the electronic gimmick removed than BK proper. It's only problem, other than the straight thing, is length: split into two EPs, the first, at least, would easily be 4.5 stars. And the problem with the length is more a universal punk thing than their problem, and 13 tracks 1:30-2:00 tracks isn't a lot to ask, anyway.

I always thought Lunachicks were one of those femme-grunge bands that got lumped in with the good/legitimate riot grrrls, but, nah, at least on their self-titled EP they just add a touch of vintage hard rock to their punk attack, which is something I'm pretty sure only women can get away with - Theo Kogan, their vocalist, does a husky thing that couldn't be more at odds with the cheerleader chants that make up the genre's most memorable feature in popular consciousness. Straight or gay or whatever, they're basically the genre's bull dykes. As someone who always thought Girlschool were a zillion times cooler than Motorhead, I approve. PLUS, their related artists include bands named "Blare Bitch Project" and "Lez Zeppelin" so I mean how can you hate?   

Sivuva's Putte & Sivuca pleases me because it features a bunch of samba classics that nobody can really fuck up and also because it's got hella clarinet, which I've never pretended doesn't always get me going. 

Hey guess what's happening? I'm listening to an album with some pretty blatant trtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrap percussion and fucking LOVING it - and it's not even cloud rap! AND it has a Kilo Kish guest spot and I'm still digging the fuck out of it. Also, there's only a couple of tracks with that sound but Vince Staples' Shyne Coldchain is maybe one of the best non-Lil B mixtapes I can think of off the top of my head due to street smart and streetwise lyrics and a runtime under thirty minutes, with thirteen tracks! But then it still... does that thing that hip-hop does. That thing that it does that glam metal and post-grunge also do pretty explicity, sure, but who the fuck listens to those? But yeah it does that a lot towards the end and kind of ruins the mood. Actually, I couldn't even finish the last two tracks. Yeah, something about tricking me into thinking that Vince might be an actually nice guy and then... he's a Nice Guy. And now I remember that the reason his name is familiar is because he's an Odd Future collaborator and it all makes sense. 

Speaking of albums under thirty minutes: Tony Metom's Bad World is really sweet highlife that warms the tummy of the ear and the soul of the ear and the heart of the ear. I like to imagine that the last song, "Mama Nanjee" is dedicated to his mother, because it just seems like that kind of music.

I really have so much trouble describing salsa albums - it's a genre where it really does all come down to whether I enjoyed it or not on a purely visceral level most of the time without knowledge of the genre's history and artists to help me intelectualify my opinion. But I can assure you that I much enjoyed the Latin Brothers' Suavecito, Apretaito, Yup, that's literally all you're getting from me on this one: "I much enjoyed it." They can't all be Lester Bangs meets Julia Serano.

The second album by Russian folk rock group Pesniary gives off an earthy, agrarian vibe from the song titles on down: we've got "What Is a Vegetable Garden For," "A Hill Here, A Hill There," "A Pussywillow Grows" and "The Lad Plows the Field," for goodness' sake. The music is full of flutes and vocal harmonies but it ultimately lacks any excitement, even when they throw in Free Design la-las over harpsichord.

Not to hyperbolize, but Les Loustics' Les Squelettes is the best album featuring French children singing I've heard since Le Monde Fabuleux Des Yamasuki, though obviously it's not as good as that. And actually I just remembered that Magma album with the children's choir, which is also better than this, so actually this is the worst full album I've ever heard sung by French children so yeah.

http://nanagrizol.bandcamp.com/album/nightlights-i-iii-tacoma-center-1600

hey look they're from the cool part of my state and the proceeds go to the Queer Undocumented Immigrants Project, which if you're not aware, is the best thing money could possibly go to and also the coolest combination of words possible and the coolest people possible. I'd prolly share this even if the music sucked but it's actually really nice and fun - there's just enough Elephant 6, indie pop and emo in their indie rock that I don't wanna' gag. Bandcamp is fulla wonder.

Gloria Gaynor's debut is that rarity of a disco album, or soul album, in that it has no obvious treacly ballad filler - not even Cheryl Lynn's first escaped that fate! That's not saying that the b-side doesn't still come across a bit thin after the smashing a, but it's still consistent and doesn't come close to wearing out its welcome.

Micky Adisa & His Original Fuji Londoners' Ka Tepa Mose is really lethargic until thirteen minutes into the first track when they get into a cowbell-laden groove and things really pick up. The second track is a little more energetic, but you'd be amazed at how soporific fuji can be.

Hector Lavoe's La Voz has some real filler for such a beloved album and doesn't really have much spark apart from "Rompe Saraguey"

Trae's Restless has one hell of an opening one-two punch but my track seven the production has become generic pre-trap post-90s gangsta shit, shit as a pejorative, and Trae doesn't have too much charisma - he's no Big Moe, that's for sure, or a Bun B on the skills front. But there's some good guest spots, at least, and I never say no to chipmunk soul production.

The Mohamed Adbel Wahab comp simply titled Collection is a perfectly acceptable slice of trad Arabic pop, but I can't help but compare it to the best Abdel Halim Hafez disks I've heard, against which it comes up a touch short, partly because Wahab's voice is a bit less compelling and more reedy/dusky.

While their On the Level, You're a Little Devil is a longstanding favorite I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra's instrumental music until I listened to the first volume of Black Manhattan - it's refreshing, sparkling, and full of zest and pep. A little samey, but so what?

Rechenzentrum's Director's Cut nicely straddles the line between regular and ambient techno and, fitting with its title, is pleasantly cinematic without actually sounding like a Hollywood movie or getting obnoxious with it.

It took a while for me to warm up to Rajan Ke Sirtaj by (Pandit) Jasraj, specifically his rather disinterested-sounding vocals. I feared it was one of those rare occasions where herkyjerky led me astray, but then I started nodding off while listening to and it mingled with my dreams and got good! Funny how that happens. But wait, there's more! I put The Meditative Music of Pandit Jasraj on later and it's exquisite - his husky half-croak in front of the tabla and tambura and I'm-not-sure-what-else backdrop, well, at the risk of exoticizing the other, sounds like a dying alien emissary's last transmission from a dusty desert world to his home planet. It is intensely psychedelic. Fuck psych rock, just listen to Hindustani classical - that's where the Beatles stole all their ideas, anyway. Well, it and Zappa and musique concrete.

Jazz and Hot Dance in South Africa 1946-1959 was the very first Western comp to cover the subject and it's a hoot and a half - the vocals are pretty much the only part of the music that doesn't hit my sweet spot hard AND it's jazz clarinet heaven to boot!

Laxmikant–Pyarelal's Jaal opens with Mohd. Rafi's slinky and nocturnal "Akela Joon Mai" and which mixes the comically sinister with the dreamy. Too bad the other three tracks are utterly nondescript.

The Spazz/Charles Bronson split makes it apparent to anyone who wondered just why both bands are so revered in their scene(s): Spazz's side repeatedly throws multiple tempo changes in under 45 seconds while still remaining punk as fuck, perfectly combining the cerebral and the visceral. Plus, "Hard Boiled" has the bangingest drums I've ever heard in hardcore. Charles Bronson are just plain angry, though, and the youthful, squeaky vox compliment the assault miraculously and give the band way more personality than your average fast 'n' loud kids.

Sora No Niwa by Akino Arai saves its best track for last - the acappella lullaby "Little Edie" is beauty and innocence and sweetness - it's too bad that the record that it acts as coda to is massively uneven: too many tracks seem like toothless pop/rock; not egregious but perhaps over-interested in pleasing the wrong kinds of people; but when the flutes and oboes come in, the album goes dream pop or turns blatant Kate Bush homage, then things really cook!

Charanjit Singh's Instrumental Film Tunes is a real corker, but is notable for two things in particular: introducing me to an instrument called the "Transicord" (!!!) and a cover of "Chura Liya Hai Tum Ne," which would be a highlight just due to the song choice, but is elevated further by the choice of instrument, Hawaiian guitar, which gives it a resemblance to the tracks on one of my most cherished Sublime Frequencies comps, Bollywood Steel Guitar.