Britta Persson, “Current Affair Medium Rare”
(Jay 3 Photography) - Jhene Aiko's free digital album “Sailing Soul(s)” is full of Aaliyah-style R&B.
No industrialized nation on Earth boasts more pop songs per capita than Sweden. For years, the country has been churning out an endless supply of chirpy indie rock, sunny electro pop and other sounds intended to make us smile.
Maybe that explains why so few have noticed this young Swede, whose third album — released stateside this year — quietly finds a way to reconcile Chrissie Hynde-ish cool and Bjork-ish exuberance.
But along with Persson’s passionate nonchalance comes an unmistakable sense of generosity. Even her rock-star dreams are swaddled in altruistic, feminist, youth empowerment. On the album’s strongest chorus she declares, “I want to help a teenager say good-bye/ To a boyfriend she never even liked/ But who she thought made her look more grown up.”
Los Rakas, “Chancletas y Camisetas Bordada”
This Oakland, Calif., duo — rapping cousins Raka Rich and Raka Dun — prove that some of the most exciting dance music on the planet is still coursing through the Afro-Latin diaspora.
The duo’s hard-partying boasts and earnest shout-outs to their Panamanian roots are all delivered in Spanish, but they remain fluent in a panoply of far-flung rhythms. Crammed into this eight-song EP, you’ll hear the flickering drum breaks of Baltimore club music, the syrupy pulse of reggaeton, the wheezing synthesizers of West Coast hip-hop, the buoyant riddims of Caribbean dancehall and the sound of a mattress squeaking in 4/4 time — a blush-able sound that knows no borders.
Dope Body, “Nuppin”
At last. We have a band that sounds like Henry Rollins arm wrestling Rage Against the Machine in the art school cafeteria.
Dope Body, of course, hails from Baltimore, where cheap rent and countless MICA survivors have transformed Charm City into an enduring weird-rock Shangri-La. But of all the strange sounds to come bubbling out of Baltimore in 2011, this quartet’s hyper-masculine alt-rock sludge was the most potent.
This is brawny, sweaty, herky, jerky, funky, furious, ridiculous music — and it’s more than willing to make fun of itself. One of the album’s most punishing tunes puns on a classic album title by jazz god Ornette Coleman. Take it as a bad joke or a good omen: “The Shape of Grunge to Come.”
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