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.

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.

And while we're on synthesizer music around here (see below), why not remember a true classic of the genre? And here it is: Jean-Jacques Perrey's Moog Indigo, a trail-blazing work of unlimited fun whenever you put it on.

Perrey started his career by selling Ondioline synthesizers and from there to making albums with another very famous synthesizer - the titular Moog - was a shortcut. Funny thing is, he never intended or pretended to be part of some kind of avant-garde movement with a grand scheme of things. His only goal was to popularize the electronic instrument and let's just say that he did more than alright with it!

I'm going to leave you with one of my favorite tracks from this enormously influencial album (just ask any rap or hip-hop artist about the Moog and you'll get some pretty awkward smiles in return...) and while I'm at it, I'm going to wish you a great week. Listen to E. V. A..

Goldfrapp are seemingly incapable of making a bad record. Head First marks the fifth time they put out an album that is instantly catchy, addictive and barrier-pushing. What are they on and please can we have it, too?

This time around, they're back in time some 20 odd years and it's synth pop and breathy vocals all the way. 80's galore in full-on mode. And amazingly, it works. I have to confess not being particularly fond of that decade, so it's a bit of a surprise when I find that Head First has become my favorite pop record from the 80's, except that it was recorded last year!

Plus, it has the correct total number of tracks - 9, which is all one can take of hearing synthesizers going bonkers and Casio-like beats. The influences are all there to be seen and they do not try to hide them (thankfully) and it makes the record all the more fun for it. I'm going to leave you with Alive, currently my favorite track from Head First and wish you a great weekend - this is the perfect soundtack for that!

Don't know if it's the weather but today I'm feeling a bit melancholic and somewhat depressed. So what better time to hear some good old dramatic virtuosity courtesy of german legend Klaus Nomi, right?

I don't have much more to say than what hasn't already been said about him, so I will not try to go that way. I will say this, though: he is without a peer in what he did. Noone before or after has crafted such a niche and unique corner in the history of music and we all should be thankful that he took the time and the effort to share his immense talent with the rest of the world.

Listen, then to his timeless classic, The Cold Song and while doing it, picture yourself as if living in a planet of a still undiscovered galaxy. Well, it works for me, anyway.

French groovers Air have always been a favorite in my household, be it when I'm chilling after some hard-working day or even at the beginning of one, their sweet brand of vintage electronic euro-pop is able to do the trick every single time I put one of their CDs on.

So, it was with some expectation/trepidation that I waited to put my hands on their newest album, tentatively titled LOVE 2. And, accordingly, I received it with some mixed feelings. While on one side you get what they've always done best (effortlessly melodic instrumental incursions into electronica), you also get to hear them at their most blatant automatic pilot songwriting of late. Which means you get the usual great tracks you will grow to love and repeatedly play, but you also are forced to hear some pretty uninspired songs clearly in need of some TLC thrown into them.

But at the end of the day, I much prefer an o.k. AIR album to the crap I keep hearing on the radio everyday. On that note, I leave you with the album opener - Do the Joy - one of the standouts on their new album. See you soon.

Been wanting to write about this album ever since I bought it but never got around to do it. Well, now seems like a better time than any old time so here it is.

I first got to know her by watching the amazing video she did for Dreamland, the first taste of her brand new album, THE BIG MACHINE. It's one of the most amazing videos I've ever seen and the song kept playing in my head weeks after first hearing it. Knowing me, I knew I had to investigate further and went ahed and bought the album without even listening to any more songs. Turns out my suspicions were right and I ended up loving it and listening to it almost non-stop. I love to listen to music while driving and this is one album that really works in that particular situation.

I've since done my homework on Emilie Simon and read quite a lot about her online. It seems that she is being somewhat chastized with THE BIG MACHINE sounding a bit like Kate Bush's work. Not to mention, voice too. And while I can understand that criticism (especially on some tracks where she doesn't sound like she's trying to mimmick the english chanteuse - she's downright channelling her to the point of scary), I applaud the bravura Simon displays on almost every track to keep things always interesting to the point of view of the listener.

So, here she is with Rainbow, the new single and a accompanying charming video and I hope I made you go out and listen to her music if you happen to be curious about her. I know I want more now. Would love to see her live, though. Maybe the next year will grant me my wish.

And the aural journey takes yet another detour. A left-field one, in fact. Ever heard of Popol Vuh? Well, now you will.

I first got acquainted with the music of this german band when I happened upon the films of Werner Herzog. I think a lot of people can relate to that since they produced some of their most well known work with the equally famous german director. Their soundtracks are objects of cult following all over the world and for a reason: the atmospheres created are otherworldly and help transport the images to another realm altogether.

And so I wanted more. Hosianna Mantra (which presents itself as a marriage between western and eastern religions) is a masterpiece of ambient sounds and pastoral melodies. At the time, it represented both a break-up with their more krautrock oriented sound and a breakthrough to a more transcendental way of making music. It really is an aural delight from start to finish. Listen to Ah!, the album opener:

5:55 is like listening to an Air record with tracks sung by Charlotte Gainsbourg and lyrics written by Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannon. Which is exactly what it is, of course. This might sound a tad demeaning but I assure you it isn't.

Colaborating with such household names in the music business was an excellent bet for Ms. Gainsbourg. And the results show in spades. Air's electronic soundscapes are indeed the leitmotiv that runs throughout the entire record and all for the better: they set up a familiar feeling right from the start and create the perfect background for Ms. G. to lay down her inobtrusive vocals on the songs. She really does sing in a kind of muted way, somewhere between her father's dispirited delivery and her mother's sultry phrasing. Which perfectly suits the sardonic lyrics kindly offered by Cocker and Hannon, by the way.

It's an album that requires multiple auditions to fully appreciate its many qualities. It's also an album that sticks to your skin, which is always a good thing in my book. Listen to 5:55, the album opener.

I will get to that Charlotte Gainsbourg album in a day or two but before I do that, let me just take a minute to talk about an album that I pulled off my shelves today.

POCKET SYMPHONY is the last album officially released by Air and it's a treat. I've been following their career and musical output somewhat closely and this particular album is my favorite alongside their extremely successful MOON SAFARI. The soothing melodies are omnipresent and the fake 70's Francis Lai/Pierre Bachelet/Cerrone sound is here and more convinving than ever. The knack for melodic balladry, so intrinsyc to their music, is also on clear display here. However, there are some suprises: Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannon sing one song each with lyrics written also by them and the koto and the shamisen, two japanese instruments, are new additions to the sonic tapestry of the record. The results are both exotic and exhilarating. It all starts with Once Upon A Time:

Well, I've already managed to get my hands on that Charlotte Gainsbourg album I mentioned below and before I do a whole post dedicated to its (many) charms, I decided to write about a particular record that's been doing the rounds of both my home and car background music for quite awhile now: Goldfrapp's SEVENTH TREE.

Released just last year, it has become one of my most listened records of late. Being a fan of their other albums, each a winner in its own right, I was astonished at how far they managed to change their sound and musical approaches with this one. Straying away from the electronica sound they managed to master with ease in their previous two records, the sounds on SEVENTH TREE are in turns pastoral, acoustic, melodic, trippy and summer-like. It's their most distinctive album to date and it's so richly textured and arranged that it'll keep you listening to it over and over again just to unravel its many rich layers.

I wonder where they'll go from here but I'm certain it will be just as exciting a track as the one that lead them to SEVENTH TREE. By the way, if you're wondering where they got the name for the album, well, it came in a dream to Alison Goldfrapp: she saw a big tree with the number 7 on it. Listen to their album opener: Clowns.