Janita, Seasons of Life (Lightyear) For some artists, it's enough to be known by one name, like Madonna, Prince, Sade, and Sting. With Seasons of Life, Janita might be another name to add to the list. Of the four single-moniker icons listed, Janita's style bears the most resemblance to Sade. Both artists deliver sultry vocals that cascade over smooth and jazzy grooves. Still, Janita's sound, tone, and vocal arrangements might also recall the work of R&B crooner Chante Moore, particularly on Moore's sophomore album A Love Supreme. Janita shows us all of life's seasons, from the finger-snapping ode to a soulmate, "No Words", to the reflective title track. Without missing a beat, Janita handles the slow grooves as deftly as the faster numbers. Her voice is sweet and vulnerable on "Bear With Me", but later, on "I Only Want You", she channels it into playfulness in the line, "So OK the reality is/ that I wish you eternal bliss / And may you live a long and beautiful life / with noisy kids and an ugly wife". Each song teaches a life lesson, illuminating a different facet of life's constantly changing character, while also demonstrating Janita's skill as a songwriter. The singer, born in Helsinki, Finland, is backed by musicians from the New York Philharmonic, as well as producer and co-writer Tomi Sachary (keyboards, guitars, bass), Jonathan Maron (bass), Vincente Archer (acoustic bass), Antonio Sanchez and Skoota Warner (drums), Daniel Sadownick (percussion), and Jacques Schwarz-Bart (sax and flute). Other high notes include "That's How Life Goes", "More Than a Fantasy", and Janita's cover of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence".
[Insound]
— Quentin B. Huff
"Enjoy the Silence": [MP3]
"I Only Want You": [MP3]
"I Miss You": [MP3]
"No Words": [MP3]
multiple songs: [streaming]
Soul / R&B
Yea Big, The Wind That Blows the Robot's Arms (Jib) The mind of the electronic artist known as Yea Big is one hell of a terrifying place, as debut album The Wind That Blows the Robot's Arms can attest. The song titles range from cute ("Look for and Remove Any Foreign Objects Seen in Mouth") and self-descriptive ("The Same Stupid Shit, Only Faster") to inexplicably strange ("Floccinaucinihilipilification") and even willfully obtuse (three songs in a row entitled "Elegant as Fuck"), and the sounds are equally diverse, united only in their complete randomness and seemingly haphazard placement. "Please Die, and Leave Me Alone" is an ominously spare hip-hop beat marred by a random storm of painful noise that bursts abruptly into the vocal stylings of a chipmunk-sampled Deep South prison choir; "Manufacturing Morals" is a well-executed aural collage of crumpling papers, chewing noises, and keyboard keys that can best be described as "devastatingly ambient". The Wind That Blows the Robot's Arms is completely disjointed and fragmented, almost impossible to vibe to (I will give my instant respect to anyone who can dance well to this), and meticulously, purposefully impenetrable. Samples are chopped not only beyond recognition but beyond even any recognizable tonality, while jarring electronic blasts crackle arrhythmically: I can't decide if this is complete stupidity or some new form of genius. And I think Yea Big would take that as a compliment. But while it's undoubtedly innovative and never boring, and while its disregard for conventional considerations like structure and beauty is admirable, a nagging problem remains: it's just not that much fun to listen to, and as a 50-minute album, it ends up feeling about 45 minutes too long.
[Insound]
— Michael Frauenhofer
album preview: [MP3]
multiple songs: [MySpace]
Experimental / Hip-Hop
Rocco DeLuca and the Burden, I Trust You to Kill Me (Ironworks) Armed with a Dobro steel guitar and the enthusiastic support of Keifer Sutherland's new Ironworks label, Rocco DeLuca has fashioned a full-length debut culled from the borrowed charisma of Chris Whitley and Jeff Buckley. His politely distorted guitar offers the illusion of bluesy grit, but the polished production and riskless delivery don't exactly kick the dust up from the dirt floor. At times DeLuca hits upon some hypnotic middle-ground (the opener "Gift", with its ambiguous major/minor chord shifts, recalls a sly subversion of Aqualung's "Brighter Than Sunshine"), but mostly he jangles through happythons ("Colorful"), standard heart-on-sleeve-isms ("Bus Stop"), and other variations of the anthemic chorus. With a title like I Trust You to Kill Me, you'd expect DeLuca and the Burden to play it dangerous, deadly, or devious -- anything but safe.
[Insound]
— Zeth Lundy
multiple songs: [MySpace]
Indie
E.Moss, Beatboxes at Dawn (Consumers Label) At five songs and two remixes, Beatboxes at Dawn is just the right length for a turntablist record. You can appreciate the beats, scratches, left-field samples, and hairpin musical turns before they have a chance to get under your skin. While the elements are nothing new to the genre, LA-based E.Moss conjures up some surprisingly dreamlike, evocative set-pieces, most notably the haunting "Your Life Right Here", which resembles a smoother DJ Shadow as channeled through a classical music appreciation course.
[Insound]
— John Bergstrom
"Back to the Edit": [MP3]
multiple songs: [MySpace]
Hip-Hop / Down-tempo / Electronic
