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.

A classic. Dusty Springfield at her very best and released when she was at the top of her game. I came to it because of my love of her cover version of the bewitching Windmills of Her Mind, which I consider at least as good as the original if not even better in parts. See what you think by pressing the "play" button below.

All the tracks on Dusty in Memphis are winners in their own right and you can really tell that there was a thorough and quite criterious selection of tracks by the producers involved to best suit her unique voice. What really surprises me is that apparently she didn't like her voice and when singing in the booth, she'd ask for the music on her headphones to be as loud as possible so that she could not hear herself singing. Can you believe that? Some people just don't know how good they really are.

Fortunately, that didn't stop her from singing for many more years and from releasing a string of hit albums, though this particular one is viewed as her apex, both artistically and career-wise. If you still don't have this album, I heartily recommend it to you. You will not be let down. Not in the least.

Apologizing in advance for the lack of recent updates, I come back with a great excuse for a post. Remember when I told you in the post below that one of the major forces behind Françoise Hardy's La Question album being one brazilian singer and musician by the name of Tuca? Well, I was intrigued and I wanted more. And so I went searching for her.

She recorded no more than 3 albums worth of music and left an indelible mark on everyone that got to know her by dying very young due to a food disorder. A real shame because she must be one of Brazil's best kept secrets as her music still sounds strong after all these years she's been gone. The album I chose to highlight in this post is her third and last: Dracula, I Love You (an odd name choice by any standard). Her first two are very melodic incursions into the very rich world of Bossa Nova and her voice throughout those two outings is very relaxed and soothing. This one, however, finds Tuca stretching herself both as a composer and as a singer. Featuring lots of scat, demented improvisations, space-age sounds and schizophrenic thematic structures, Dracula, I Love You is proof that she was capable of reaching amazing musical heights in the course of just a few bars.

The music is very chalenging, though and it requires a few listens before it all starts to make sense. A grower, then. I leave you with O Sorvete (The Ice-Cream), one of the many centerpieces on this amazing album.