Gone with the old and ugly, that's my current motto! Sweet video, too.

Keeping my promise of writing more about Tori Amos, my Muse, here I am today with what is perhaps my favorite album of hers: from the choirgirl hotel, a 1998 release. I still vividly remember putting it for the first time on my CD player at close to maximum volume and let its many wonders enrapture me like very few have done since.

Musically, it was a quantum leap for Tori, what with her previous album - Boys for Pele - being an almost exclusively acoustic affair, complete with harpsichords and all. This time around, Tori decided to brew a very special kind of aural magic, lending her classical piano to the drum beat and the electronica sounds. The end result still sounds today as fresh as it came out and as adventurous. Her voice was also able to reach such emotional highs that it drove me to tears in the simple space of a chord change. I clearly remember feeling dizzy for days with the whole experience and this is something that has only happened to me once. What a gift, then. My humble thanks go over to you right now, Ms Amos.

Listen to Liquid Diamonds and let yourself go.

I know, I know, I'm always late to the game. But I've explained here before - I find it much more exciting to (re)discover these new artists just as their hype is going down and I'm therefore able to appreciate and enjoy them in a much more personal way.

I have to say that the title of this album is more than appropriate - Lungs - because this girl has some serious pipes to her credit. It's almost like she's channelling some sort of multitude of angry voices that come out of her throat all at once and the feeling throughout the album is one of exhilaration and urgency. The album is not without its faults, though, with some songs sounding much like each other and there is a variety of singing styles sorely lacking. But I guess all can be forgiven when the end result is as addicting as this.

I'm going to leave you with one of favorite tracks: Rabbit Heart (Raise it up). See you all soon.

He burned as brightly and as quickly as a match, his legacy is forever and ever like all good mavericks' works tend to be. And lately one of his songs keeps playing in my head over and over, almost like it's trying to telling me something. The thing is, I know what it is.

António Variações is currently a legend in his and my home country, Portugal. He only made two albums to his name and some TV showings and just as he was ready to embrace a much wider reach, he died. Such are the lives of mercurial talents. His works keep on being rediscovered by generation after generation and rightly so, because he was able to tap into what makes us portuguese and infuse it with a modern feel, almost like giving us a new fresh look at what we can be.

The song I referred to is called Estou Além [I'm up ahead] and for me it reflects quite perfectly that very state of an artist/person constantly unsatisfied with his/her position in the world and always on the search for something more, something other than this. How do I understand him.

Another proof on how to not fall prey to the dreaded sophomore album curse. Laura Marling says she speaks because she can and we believe her all the way. This, her next after her brilliant debut, proves once and for all that she is here to stay and furthermore that she has made an album for the ages.

It's quite incredible the songwriting maturity she displays in each and every song of this follow-up, with a noticeable improvement both on the lyrics and arrangements department. It's a self-assured artist we hear now and the pathos invested in some of the songs give it gravitas and resonance in a way seldom heard. And if you think I'm going loco with the superlatives, just pick up a copy of this album and give it a try. You'd be hard pressed not to concur with me.

Listen to Darkness Descends, a quite up-beat song albeit its misleading title.

Coming soon...

It's been a long time since I've listened to this album and I always get a kick out of it. It's one of the most infectious retro-pop albums I've heard and it still manages to hit some high notes on the pop barometer.

Written and produced by Paradis' then beau Lenny Kravitz, this is a collection of songs that recall a whole period of time that's very much loved around these parts. Not quite recapturing the pop magnificence of the albums Gainsbourg made with Bardot and Birkin, it's still a nice try and quite a good entry in that particular musical cannon. Paradis sings it all the way through in that Lolita voice that she made all her own and it fits the festivities to a T. In short, I love it.

Listen to the hit single Be My Baby and fall in love all over again.

The french have somehow always managed to produce some of the most enduring and original pop albums that I can remember. I don't know how they do it. Guess they have it in their blood. And when on top of this, they channel their longstanding love of all things Americana, we have something like the album I have here for you today: Emily Loizeau's Pays Sauvage.

Sung both in french and in english, it's almost like hearing the songs a young french female pioneer composed when she first entered american shores and got in touch with "God's Country" very own soul and musical wavelengths. The feeling of the whole album is therefore very "live" and it sometimes feel like you've crashed a barn party and somehow instantly fell in love with it. The songs have a rhythm and a groove that completely permeates any room or space that you listen to. Yes, it's a winner on all fronts and I'm hooked.

Here's one of its more mellow moments: Songes [Dreams]. Take care.

I bet I'm not alone in saying that most of us didn't see this one coming. I mean, this smelled like a vanity project from the go: top model asks her rock star boyfriend to produce an album for her? I mean... How could they make this work and not be ridiculed? Amazingly, that's just what happened. And astoundingly, it's one of the year's best. Ladies and gentlemen, make way for a significant new artist has just walked into town.

Karen Elson is her name and she sings of things both ancient and timeless. She carries the weight of all female suffering with her and her soft and sometimes sandpaper-y voice casts spells on whomever makes an effort to really listen to her. She sings of lost loves, new loves, contradictory loves, timeless loves. And she cradles you while doing so. It's hard to imagine how effortlessly she does all this and how genuinely she does it. You just couldn't tell that by looking at her pretty pictures from her other day-job. What a pleasant surprise. And we want more, Ms Elson!

Listen to Lusana and gently fall in love with her.

I just love it when I "discover" new artists in an almost casual way. I've talked about this before, about my trust in serendipity. And it occasionally produces quite exquisite things like the one I have here for you today.

Morita Douji is japanese and made a string of solo albums in the 70's which were almost like reinterpretations on the same melancholic state of mind, one fueled by apparently a loss of a friend. And that is pretty much all I know about her. And that is pretty much all I need to know to immerse myself in the gloriously sad music she made in those albums. Oh, and she always wore dark glasses. Always. Even in concerts. And she quit her career very early on.

I particularly like her third album - A Boy - because I feel that she was able to convey and fulfill all her musical ambitions in a much more accomplished way than before. Listen to You Are Trembling, my favorite track of hers at the moment. Oh, and if you think that the non-musical coda is a glitch, well, it's not. It's completely intentional and for me it only adds up to the charm this female singer has on me.

And here is Mr. Selway once again with a quite interesting and mysterious video. It's always good for me to see that some artists still deal with the divine in their work.

Here's one that I bet most of us weren't expecting: an album by former Radiohead drummer, Philip Selway. And an excelent one, at that. Mostly an acoustic affair, it manages to both impress us with the consistent quality of its songcraft and the emotion with which it is delivered. A keeper, then.

Galaxies away from the music his former band used to make, this is an album that feels homegrown and as a result, quite intimate. It's almost like the time had come to put out all those songs that he'd been keeping in his drawer that served as an escape to all the avant-garde musical explorations of his former day job. And we're all glad he did. At least I am. This is a very gentle sounding album, much in the vein of the one on the below post, its difference being on the musical ambients Selway manages to conjure, which are in turns mysterious and at times romantic.

Listen to The Witching Hour, the album closer.

Here's a band I've been warming to quite recently, norwegian duo Kings of Convenience. Paraphrasing Vanilla Sky, they had me at the Simon and Garfunkel vocal harmonies. I was literally and instantly hooked on their sweet sounds. And I've been rotating this, their second album - Riot On An Empty Street - quite heavily for the past few days.

Their main appeal is actually quite simple and straightforward. It stems for their exquisite talent in crafting the gentlest melodies I've heard in quite a long time. Because that's just what this is: a collection of gentle songs, gently sung by - yes, why not? - two very gentle men. It's the kind of record you put on a Sunday morning and slowly get into the groove of a new day, preferably spent at home cuddling your pet(s) and drinking latte in front of the TV or on the front porch.

As a taster, I leave you with Misread, one of my favorite tracks at the moment.

I've been listening to this wonderful song for days on end now and I still haven't tired myself of it. It's another of those cases where you find something truly sublime amidst a soundtrack noone's ever heard of before. In this case it's Riz Ortolani's soundtrack for Prosperi and Jacopetti's Addio Zio Tom a.k.a. Goodbye Uncle Tom, a powerful indictment of racism and suppression of human values made by the "godfathers" of the Mondo movie, a kind of exploitative documentary exposing some of the grossest things human beings are capable of.

It's actually one of the most schocking movies ever made and sometimes the message it wants to convey isn't quite that well translated into images like their author's would've wanted them to be but it's there for all to see and judge. The music however is glorious and that's always been the main paradox with maestro Ortolani: no matter the amount of gore and blood on display, the melodies he creates are always grandly romantic which, I personally think, only helps to stress their power by way of contrasting them.

The song I have here for you today is called Oh My Love and is sung by Katyna Ranieri. And it's wonderful. Take a listen.

I'm not trying to provoke any cosmic backlash unto me but the fact is that today is Equinox and here I am talking about a record by Oberon called Midsummer Night's Dream.

I just found it by simple hazard (I prefer to call it serendipity) and fell in love with it. It's extremely rare (I think only 150 original copies were made!) and it features some of the loveliest folk sounds you'll likely to hear in quite some time. For seasoned folk lovers, maybe you won't find here nothing new but in my opinion, it has that one ingredient that separates it from most of what you've heard so far: magic.

I especially like the treatment they made to one of Debussy's classic pieces: Syrinx. I could hear it ad eternum and imagine myself daydreaming in a meadow somewhere. Maybe I just will.

Lovely video for Headless Heroes' Just Like Honey. Very evocative of their own particular brand of sound. Stay safe.

One of the initial goals of this little blog was to kind of promote awareness to music that is often times underevaluated and unknown, while at the same time reevaluating that same music and getting the readers to listen to it with new ears. Today I bring to you something I'm quite sure only some of you have ever heard of. At least, I assume so.

Stevie Wonder's Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants began its very life as a soundtrack for a documentary of the same name which in turn was based on a book of the same name. Plus, it had the very ungrateful task of following one of Wonder's high watermarks - Songs In The Key Of Life, which many consider to be his masterpiece. So, a difficult album case study. However, not only does it succeed beautifully in following that almost miraculously produced album, it even surpasses it at times, which is no mean feat at all from whichever angle you see it. And for as hard as I try to explain it here with mere words, you simply have to listen to it to fully understand just how far he was pushing his production and songwriting skills at the time. Sometimes, it feels like an aural orgasm, especially if you listen to it with your headphones on.

For proof, try the gorgeous Come Back As A Flower. See you soon.

Genre-hopper extraordinaire Ryuichi Sakamoto's Smoochy album is one I find myself listening to from time to time always with a renewed sense of wonder. It's almost like I keep finding new things about it everytime I listen to it.

And this is a crucial album if you want to find out what this man's music is all about and how it got where it is today. In it are the seeds of everything he went on to do, be it his electronic explorations with Alva Noto, his acoustic albums with piano and strings, or even his ongoing romance with bossa nova and other latin american music languages. It's all here.

I'm going to leave you with one of my favorite tracks - Bibo No Aozora - one that has been reworked by him in multiple ways in the past and always successfully, which only goes to prove just how simple in their complexity his songs really are. And in this lies his greatest gift. Enjoy it.

If you haven't heard of this man, shame on you. But don't stress. Here's your opportunity to do so. And prepare to fall in love with one of the most beautiful male voices ever to grace a recording studio.

Ney Matogrosso is a brazilian artist with quite a long career on his shoulders and who's still going from strength to strength with every tour he undertakes. Yep, he's still touring and one of my biggest sorrows is never to have caught him live, even though he's been to my country many times. I'll try and reassess that the next time he'll be here. For sure!

Bandido is one of the many albums he recorded in the 70's after going solo (Secos e Molhados was his first musical project) and one that deserves to be better known. Combining popular and traditional brazilian music with a latin american twist, this album manages to seduce its listener and enchant us in a way very few can. I could choose any track to represent it here but right now I'm absolutely in love with his rendition of Gaivota (Seagull). So here it is.

I admit to having a strange ritual choosing my aural selections: frequently, I choose them visually. Confused? Don't be. I explain: for me, album artwork is almost as important as the musical contents. I cannot take them apart and I often times feel disappointed when a great album jacket doesn't correspond musically or vice-versa. This one here today is not the case, thankfully.

Headless Heroes is a project by a very eclectic New York combo headlined by singer Alela Diane who decided to assemble a collection of songs of famous contemporary songwriters and do some covers. The Silence of Love is the final result and it is beguiling. Since I'm not that familiar with the original versions, it was almost like hearing them for the first time ever, not even registering the fact that they are in fact cover versions.

I'm going to leave you with To You, my current favorite track of this, an album I'm sure I'll give a lot of spins to.