new releases: hybrid, damien rice

before i get into the new stuff, i picked up the owusu and hannibal album and i'm favorably impressed. it's sort of experimental soul music, playing with broken beats and non-traditional song formats. truthfully not all of it works but i think it's well worth 10-15 bucks. great first release from the duo.

hybrid finally delivered another album worthy of the story they began to write with "wide angle", which is one of my fave dance albums of all time. "i choose noise" is a little darker than wide angle but it's a return to form for hybrid after a craptacular sophomore release (morning sci-fi) which was offensively boring. it's got all the big progressive breaks along with orchestral backing which provides a texture/lushness that few other dance artists come close to. it even has a collab with perry farrel (dogstar) which doesn't suck, which is no mean feat in my estimation. the track with Kirsty Hawkshaw is good, as to be expected. all told, this is the best dance album i've heard in a long time, smoking recent releases by a guy called gerald, lay and bushwacka as well as junkie XL.

i haven't had the chance to listen to it yet (pondering downloading it via itunes for our honeymoon) but damien rice has a new album out called "9". the reviews are fairly strong and from my sampling of the album it sounds like a worthy follow-up to the amazing album "O" which he debuted with. the lead track "9 Crimes" sounds like the stand-out. damien gets a little naughty on this album by dropping a bunch of f-bombs, scoring himself an "explicit lyrics" label. maybe a joint project with 50 cent and chingy is right around the corner?