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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Somehow, I find it hard to leave french-speaking territories music-wise whenever I start listening to their music. There's something quite intangible about the way they sing, the way they feel and the way I feel them singing. And let's be honest for a second here: it's hot singing in french.

Today's singer is Salvatore Adamo, more widely known as simply Adamo, a very popular singer/songwriter from the 60's to the 70's that managed to pen quite a considerable number of hits in his heyday. Although I'm not sure, I am almost certain this is one artist that I can imagine my mother listening to the radio to when she was younger and the world in brighter colors. French music was constantly in the airwaves in my home country some 40 odd years ago, so it's not completely impossible that she did hear him singing a song or two. I'll have to ask her.

In the meantime, listen to Mon Cinema, an impassioned chanson with a funky bass line only the french are capable of. See you soon.

I've fallen completely head over wheels over this canadian fille... A child prodigy and piano player since she was 3 years old, she started composing very early on and here it is, her debut album. And, as usual with me, I've just found out about it and now I'm raving about her to all my friends.

Sometimes, I really don't mind to discover artists this way, when they're about to release a new work (which must be her case any month now) and the promotion for the current album has dwindled and silenced. It's almost like finding out about a well-kept secret and being the last one to know. Wait - maybe that's not so good after all... Oh, heck, I really don't mind just as long as secrets are as sweet and enchanting as these.

I'm going to leave you with the album closer: C'était salement romantique. Stay safe.

I've been waiting for the right moment to write about Neil Hannon's The Divine Comedy new album - Bang Goes The Knighthood - but I guess now's as good a moment as any. This is pop music for all seasons, so let's start the month on a high note, shall we?

This is their first album on their own label, Divine Comedy Records, and the tenth under their moniker and it also marks a sort of stripping down of their usually string-laden songs. While a part of me is kind of sad at the lack of big, dramatic numbers, it's also kind of refreshing to see them try other aural landscapes and come out unscathed and renewed at the end.

However, I have to say that I'm still not completely won over by this new offering, though I'm starting to feel that it's slowly sinking in without me noticing it. Which is always a good thing. I'm going to leave you for now with a delicious duet: Island Life.

I am pretty sure only a small minority of you have heard or know about Glenmor. To this day he remains a national treasure to all french bretons and for no small reason. Hailed as one of the greatest poets that ever lived there, he ended his professional life receiving accolade after accolade. But that is not why I chose to talk about him here today and why I made this particular album - Cet Amour-là... - the aural recommendation of this month.

When I first listened to it, I was a bit taken aback at the strength of his voice and at the complete bravery of the way he delivered the words of the songs. It's something between singing and poetry recital. But the amazing thing is it works, no matter how high-browed in a beatnik kinda way it may seem at first. Which it can be, at times.

Glenmor is the nom-de-plume of Emile Le Scanf, and it means Earth-Sea in breton. Having traveled a-plenty when he was young, he then decided to dedicate his life to poetry and music. This is just one example of his large output. And I simply love that cover! Listen to the title track and have a great Sunday while you're at it!

Rufus Wainwright's new album - All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu - is a rare thing in pop music today. A veritable treasure trove of meticulously composed piano songs, it manages to not be repetitive, self-indulgent or vain. It is instead beguiling, wondrous and completely addicting. But not at first. It takes some listening before it all starts to make sense and for all its dormant beauties to come out from within the intricate patterns of the songs. Which is always a good sign, in my book.

According to him, this particular album serves as a sort of sorbet between courses, in which he takes a break from all the heavy instrumentation that sometimes plagues his other previous albums (though I've never minded that...) and goes back to the basics, in this case, the piano-based song (he being a big fan of the instrument and of the opinion that the piano song is the basis of all pop music, going back to the german lieder as a tradition).

I went to see him live last month and the show was great, just him and the piano and it had two very distinct parts. In the first part, he played the whole of the new album! Every single song! Talk about spoiling the fans. Anyway, enough chit-chat, let's hear some music. Here's my favorite: The Dream.

This being a blog about what music I'm currently listening to, I have to make a guilty confession: I've not been 100% truthful to my readers. I explain. I've been obsessing about Tori Amos musical career for almost 20 years now and I've just realized I've yet to write a post about her. So here it is. And I promise to write more posts on her in the future as penitance.

After the last two posts, it only seems fitting that the Amos album I choose to write first about is American Doll Posse, this one being about the many roles women play in the society, while at the same time using five alter egos (the titular Posse) to sing about what was going on in America at the time of its release. The result is a sprawling double-album of 23 tracks that manage to run the full gammit of piano-led ballads to schizophrenic rock extravaganzas. And schizophrenia is the key word here because Amos is able to encompass so many styles and music signatures in the songs contained in this album that sometimes you feel that you're listening to five different albums at the same time.

The end result is an album that pushes our perceptions of what female singer/songwriters should be all about: fearlessly provocative and endlessly talented in her case. I leave you with Big Wheel, the first single that had very limited airplay due to the inclusion of the acronym MILF in the bridge... Just goes to show how far behind we all still are...

And speaking of beautiful male voices, here's one that ties the post about The Divine Comedy written below and the next video I shall be posting very soon: Scott Walker and his second solo album, simply titled 2.

I've listened so much to his music and voice that he's almost part of my own DNA. He touches all the right nerves and spots and I really feel transported to a very special place in my mind whenever I listen to one of his songs. This album in particular has a handful of my favorite songs from him but I guess I could've picked any album from the first part of his career (which continues to be the benchmark of the continuous fascination he provoques on audiophiles, although he'd be very mad at these words if he read them, with all the avant-garde records he's been putting out recently) and I wouldn't go wrong.

If you like lushly orchestrated pop ballads sung in the most melifluous of voices, this is the record for you. And I leave you with a masterpiece: Plastic Palace People. Until the next post, be safe.

Something strange happens when The Divine Comedy release a new album. Unknowingly to the impending release, I start listening to their records almost as a compulsion and then when I go to their official website to find out what they've been up to recently, I discover that they are about to put out a new album in the near future. Serendipity, they call it.

This is their last one and its title - Victory for the Comic Muse - is a nod to their very first and quite rare album - Fanfare for the Comic Muse - a quite different and very indie-sounding recording that is very much at odds with their following releases.

Victory (...) sees them return to their comic sensibility at its best, combining satirical lines with british wit and heartfelt lyrics often through the course of a single song. It's a trait that its mastermind, Neil Hannon, has been demonstrating again and again to be his main gift and reason behind the band's success. And noone does it quite like him. His character driven songs woven through exquisitely melodic songs are quite a treasure in today's music scene. Not to mention his amazing voice, seemingly intact since he started his career.

I'm going to leave you with my favorite song of the album, the affecting Lady Of A Certain Age. Brilliant, that's all I have to say.

I love when musicians get all adventurous and grow tired of mainstream acceptance and go out and make the biggest follies that only the most unique minds are capable of. The funny thing is that this sometimes result in the biggest hits of their career. Welcome then to the new phase of Ms. Newsom's musical journey.

Losing her voice and rising up from the ashes with a triple-album (no less) is no mean feat. To anyone's standard, I'm sure. But that's just what Joanna Newsom did and she's receiving high praises from both the critics and (most importantly) the buying public. And although it's a daunting work when one begins to analyse it (and listen to it...), it becomes quite clear right from the start that this lady is special. And that she cooks with ingredients sagely brewed from the most mysterious sources.

It's quite a journey to listen to this album from beginning to end and some might want to take it in chunks. Or one record at a time. But it's in cases like these that I remember my muse Tori Amos' cunning words: "Listening to a record is like making love; if you can't endure listening to a long record, maybe you cannot make love for that long, either". Listen to Autumn. See you soon.

Autumn

This is Emily Bindiger's first and only album on a career that encompassed music, film, TV and stage. Really worth your while, too and a shame that she didn't produce more of this wild, spiritual and brave music.

There hasn't yet been a CD reissue of this, her eponymous album with a cover that is strangely reminiscent of another one I posted here earlier. Bindiger singing and songwriting is very coherent throughout the record, with a voice and melodic style that both reminds us of country and irish traditional music. I guess it must be in her genes or something because she is able to travel back and forth these two musical sources with extreme ease sometimes in the course of a single song.

Take a listen to Jesus Said, a wild journey into religion and spiritual freedom and see what you think.

Their Volume 1 was probably my favorite of all the albums I listened to last year, so it was with extreme anticipation that I awaited She & Him's "difficult" second outing, apropriately titled, Volume 2. Thankfully, that sophomore album curse passed them by, because this is a killer album on all fronts and further proof that Zooey Deschanel is a wonderful songwriter.

This time around, the songs are more ambitious in scope, production values and vocal abilities. It's as if they took the best parts of the first album and what made it so good and expanded on all that. The final results are both winning and enduring. Yes, it's got a bit of sunshine pop, a dash of Beach Boys and a good measure of perfectly crafted pop songs that make you feel like everyday is Summer. This is one album I'm certain I'll keep on listening for a long, long time.

I'm going to leave you with Thieves, the wonderful album opener. Keep happy!

Following Ms. Berry's video post down below, I knew I had to dig deeper into this because that song kept playing in my head for many days on end, an already familiar sign to me. And so I have. And I'm so glad I did so.

Berry's Mademoiselle, is one of the best debut albums I've ever heard. I still can't put my finger on what it is that makes these french chanteuses so endearing to the ears and so soothing to the heart that listens. But whatever it is, Ms. Berry's has it in spades. And the word here really is "soothing". Her voice sounds like she's whispering to one's ear while she's singing her little ditties, whilst a delicately fingered acoustic guitar completes the enchantment. "Enchanting" is another word you can perfectly apply here.

I'm going to leave you with Le Bonheur (Happiness) and wish you a perfectly happy day.