Top Ten Songs of the Week 2/23/09

Because we didn’t give the ladies enough props last week we’ve packed this week’s Top Ten with beautiful voices. Except for #1 which is so good it doesn’t need a beautiful voice.

 

1. The Brooklyn What – Gentrification Rock

Oh yeahhhh babee the Brooklyn What at the top of the charts again. Someday all those the luxury housing sites turning into crackhouses and squats. This is a ferocious youtube clip from the show last summer that  made our Top 20 NYC Area Concerts of the Year list. They’re at Don Pedro’s on 3/5.

 

2. The Blasting Company – Sinking Ships

Balkan noir cabaret from San Francisco that we discovered looking for a completely different band. Good stuff.

 

3. Black Sea Hotel – Makedonsko Devojche

Brooklyn‘s own all-female Balkan vocal quartet have an amazing debut cd coming out and this characteristically haunting number is one of them. Good guess is that the title means “Macedonian Girl.” They’re at Trophy Bar at 10 on 2/25

 

4. Hope DeBates & North Forty – Pink and Mean

This is a soul song, but the South Dakota expat also sings country. One of the most impressive voices to hit town in a long time, with a great band behind her. She does a marvelously deadpan-sultry cover of the Tom Petty AM radio monstrosity Breakdown

 

5. AE – Across the Blue Mountains

OK, even more beautiful voices. This an old Appalachian folk song, but the duo of Aurelia Lucy Shrenker and Eva Salina Primack are also part of the Balkan underground scene.  

 

6. Balthrop Alabama – God Loves My Country

The Bush regime may be over but the memory lingers. Lest we forget, here’s something funny and spot-on.

 

7. Randi Russo – Swallow

This is a brand-new one, one of her quieter, hypnotic post-Velvets songs. Unrecorded, but she’s been doing it a lot live recently. Get well soon Randi!

 

8. Helen Reddy & ELO – Poor Little Fool

OK OK OK, this is the schlocky Aussie singer from the 70s responsible for the odious I Am Woman (written by a guy – figures, right?). But since she didn’t write any of her songs, once in awhile she’d do something good and this is a good example, a Jeff Lynne pop song, with what sounds like the band playing it behind her! Weird or what! Just discovered this on youtube…

 

9. The Ahn Trio – Dies Irae

Absolutely beautiful violin/cello/piano composition from this sister act playing Barbes on 3/7 at 8.

 

10. Soil & “Pimp” Sessions – Crush

Fast groove jazz with a wild sax and a tinge of hip-hop. From Japan. Fun stuff. From their new cd now up on itunes.

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