Music Report

March is Women’s History month so we will be looking at some musical ladies in this week’s Report.

For good office music, you can’t go wrong with Frou Frou, a collaboration of England’s Imogen Heap and former Madonna producer Guy Sigsworth. Best known for their song “Let Go”, on the soundtrack to Garden State, Frou Frou have one full album together called Details, released in 2002. They also have plenty of excellent material separately. Heap was nominated two Grammys in 2006 and a new solo album is expected during Q2 of this year. Some very accurate comparisons for Heap’s music, or at least her vocal style, include PJ Harvery, Annie Lennox and Kate Bush.
http://www.myspace.com/froufrou
http://www.imogenheap.co.uk/

Out of Oakland, California (the location of Mrs. Music Report’s legal externship) Xiu Xiu has among its members Caralee McElroy. She and her bandmates play what might be called noise rock or experimental but there are modern classical and folk elements in there as well. Lyrics examine morose topics including suicide, AIDS, and war but are no always audible over the cacophony. That may not sound great but indie aficionados (hipsters) seem to like it. Their latest album, released this year, is called Women as Lovers.
http://www.myspace.com/xiuxiuband

Together, actress Zooey Deschanel and musician M. Ward, make up She & Him. The sound is alt-country but not aggressively so. It’s the kind of music you would probably call singer-songwriter if not for it being duo. The nice part about alt-country is you get the influence Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn and Merle Haggard without too much twang and NASCAR. Their first album Volume One is released on Merge Records in historical downtown Durham, North Carolina. Perhaps because their common acting background, Deschanel sometimes reminds of Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley (and co-star to Fred Savage in The Wizard).
http://www.myspace.com/sheandhim

In more masculine news, the Raconteurs have released a video for “Salute Your Solution,” the first single off their second album Consolers of the Lonely, which was released this past Tuesday. The video is made up of 2500 black and white still photos taken by legendary rock photographer Autumn de Wilde. I suspect everyone has heard Jack White’s voice but an astute observer described is as somewhere between Robert Plant and Janis Joplin.
http://www.theraconteurs.com/

Fresh off of the Bone Thugs ~N~ Harmony show, this coming Wednesday, reggae and ska legends Toots and the Maytals will play BB King’s. It’s the kind of show you’d want to have in the open air if the weather up there is as nice as it is here, but whaddya ya gonna do? If you don’t have their albums of duets called True Love, get on that.
http://www.bbkingblues.com/schedule/moreinfo.cgi?id=4030
http://www.amazon.com/True-Love-Toots-Maytals/dp/B0001GNDN4

To supplement your Music Report knowledge, and because this company is right across the street from the office, check out the new digital publication from Fader called F2. This quarterly publication, funded by Timberland (the shoes not the rapper/producer), will focus each issue on how a classic genre is being reexamined and reinterpreted.
http://thefader.com/articles/2008/3/26/introducing-f2