Tops of My Pops for 11/5/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Nov. 5, 2006
1. Severed Heads
2. Mocean Worker
2. Squarepusher
4. Massive Attack
4. Leftfield
6. Cocteau Twins
6. Public Enemy
6. Outputmessage
9. TV On The Radio
9. The Meters

Spent most of the week checking out new (old) arrivals from la la....

Been enjoying a bit of Severed Heads nostalgia, especially the classic Come Visit The Big Bigot, and have also filled a gap in my collection with my recent acquisition of 1991's Cuisine (with Piscatorial). Good solid stuff from that period -- makes me sorry I didn't grab it fifteen years ago!

Got a copy of Mocean Worker's debut release, Home Movies From The Brainforest. The guy makes thoroughly enjoyable jazztronica, so if you're into that sort of thing and are looking for a good place to start with him, I strongly recommend grabbing Enter The Mowo!, his most recent and most accomplished.

Found someone willing to trade me their copy of Leftfield's Dusted single, which features the ubiquitous Roots Manuva. The original version appears on Rhythm And Stealth, but this EP includes remixes by Howie B, The X-Ecutioners and Si Begg. In case you were wondering, there's never been a track couldn't be improved by some RM vocals.

Continuing to obsess over Squarepusher's brilliant Hello Everything and am continuing to dig into TV On The Radio's Return To Cookie Mountain. No shortage of great new (new) music this year!

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

Tops of My Pops for 10/1/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Oct. 1, 2006
1. TV On The Radio
2. Fila Brazillia
3. Junior Boys
4. Ze Frank
5. Justin Timberlake
6. Scissorkick
7. Meat Beat Manifesto
8. Massive Attack
8. Primal Scream
8. The Meters

Last week's stats were lost to the iTunes 7/iScrobbler incompatibility, but Damaged did come through with a fix as predicted, so TOMP is back now!
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Got a chance to give a first listen to TV On The Radio's latest, Return To Cookie Mountain. "Wolf Like Me" is the immediate grabber, which underscores its choice as the lead single. Fun video for that one too. (You can catch it right here – thanks cliptip!)

Also got to dig into the Junior Boys latest full-length, So This Is Goodbye, which is simply fantastic at bringing the sexy back to electronica. Not a misstep to be heard here, with a smooth as glass sound on every track that's retro and future all at once. I'm certain I'll be listening to this over and over again.

Speaking of "SexyBack".... Yes, that really is Justin Timberlake in my top ten. The Timbaland production is the star of the show though IMHO. There are about four tracks on FutureSex/LoveSounds that are so musically tight they can't be denied. As far as I know this is the first time Tim's done a full-fledged mainstream pop record; either way he definitely brought so much game I find myself having to defend listening to JT.

Last but not least, I finally nabbed both discs (from la la of course) of The Meters' fine, fine Funkify Your Life anthology. Timeless music for good times – I don't know why I waited so many years to pick this up.

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives