Lyon-based Babylon Circus is music laced with ska, gypsy, rock, vaudevillian antics, dancehall and reggae. Their first Australian East Coast tour in 2008 saw the nine piece band sell every show out. They feature on the So Frenchy So Chic compilation and are touring Australia this March.
Django Reinhardt / Minor Swing Backstage, home, in the bus, cooking or having breakfast, is there a time you wouldn’t love to hear this one? We love it anytime, any style, too, as it’s been remixed and rearranged so many different ways. Still, we love the original best.
The power of Afrobeat, sizzling funk, righteous hip hop, rootsy grooves and 20 of the hottest musicians from Melbourne’s booming music scene, all come together on the sublime debut by The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra. Hot on the heels of their impeccable vinyl-only release Two Sides of the Truth/Do Anything Go Anywhere, The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra have made an album to command the attention of world music fans, hip hop aficionados, jazz cats, funk and soul freaks and indie hipsters alike.
Fela Kuti / Shakara For a band playing Afro-beat, it’s impossible to not cite Fela as a chief inspiration. A giant in both the musical and political arenas, Fela IS afro-beat. Taking musical cues from American funk, jazz and traditional African rhythms, he created his own style, his own way and created music that was felt across the world. It’s a big call, but I think this is my favourite Fela track: a bit dark, but it’s still a mover.
The Good The Bad are three Danish desperados, bringing the finest New School Surf and Flamenco to the masses. In the space of just a year, were invited to play Roskilde Festival, German showcase festival Popkomm in Berlin, and do a Christmas mini-tour in London, followed by a quick jaunt to Norway. In 2009, after more English fun at Liverpool Sound City, Hop Farm Festival and a Harley Davidson European Rally in Latvia, TGTB rocked THE KILLERS aftershow party after their Royal Albert Hall gig in London.
The Sonics / Strychnine The production of this song and whole album Here Are The Sonics is, for me, the essence of the sound of rock n’ roll. It just sounds right.
DePedro, known for his work as Calexico’s guitarist, was recently featured as National Geographic’s first record label release, with his album The Sun People.
The Beatles / A Day In The Life A beautiful way of using an entire classical orchestra in a pop song.
Old Man River is the solo project for Ohad Rein. Born in Australia, raised in the middle east and Europe, and finding inspiration through time spent living in India, the US and Israel, Old Man River fuses eastern influences with a western pop sensibility.
Battles / Atlas It’s very rare when you go and see a band and go, ‘this is something I have never ever seen in my life!’ But that was the case when I saw these guys. They absolutely blew me away. So I don’t know what it is they do, or how to describe it, it but it’s awesome. Our kids would probably think it’s mainstream music in about ten years from now.
Los Angeles-based band Divisible, consisting of singer Shola and drummer Albert Sadia, released their debut album Less Than Lion recently, a collection of songs which includes a reinterpretation of Radiohead’s Exit Music [For A Film]) and explores Shola’s journey from the halls of Harvard to a West African reconciliation with her father, who lives in Ghana via a propulsive mixture of rock, electronica, and world music sounds.
Kate Bush / Cloudbusting When you’re working on a new record, you have to seek out new sources of inspiration. I had never listened to Kate Bush before, even though all my musical heroes referenced her. Now, I can’t believe what I was missing all these years.
Golem is Annette Ezekiel-Kogan — singer, accordionist, and 5-foot powerhouse, with vocalist/tambourinist Aaron Diskin, violin virtuoso Alicia Jo Rabins, trombonist Curtis Hasselbring, upright bassist Taylor Bergren-Chrisman, and drummer Tim Monaghan. This 6 piece, Yiddish-speaking, Eastern European punk band is renowned for electrifying dance floors with their globetrotting goulash of Jewish, Slavic, and Gypsy folk songs. Their style “commands your attention and demand a response” (Giant Magazine). Borne out of the dimly-lit, strangely elegant streets of old-world Eastern Europe, Golem’s music also sounds of the grit and tragedy of new-world dreams.
At the Drive-In / One-Armed Scissor I saw these guys live at the New Haven Coliseum, which no longer stands, in the fall of my sophomore year of high school. They were opening up for Gang Starr, who was opening up for Rage Against the Machine. These guys were flailing around in such an incredible tornado-like frenzy, tall, super skinny dudes with huge afros in extremely tight black clothes, flinging their guitars in every which direction while still somehow managing to play the intricately orchestrated shredding punk guitar parts which were assaulting the coliseum from their wall of amps, turned all the way up. The entire crowd hated them, and booed in between songs. At the Drive-In completely blew my mind, and on my way out of the place where as a child I used to watch Monster Trucks crush 50 cars over and over again for three hours, then I grabbed the free disc with two tracks on it, this here track and another one, “Chanbarra,” the two of which I had the worst time deciding about which one was better.
Navegante is fronted by Jean Shepherd, whose song La Raíz is covered by Carlos Santana as El Fuego on the second track of his platinum album, All That I Am. This is Shepherd’s first band following five years of leading the groundbreaking group Radio Mundial. Navegante have been playing its electro Latin funk on stages in and around New York.
Sly Stone / In Time Every once and a while you come across a song that stumps you. You can’t figure out how or why it sounds so good but it’s BANGING. This song, and the entire album (Fresh), had me glued to my stereo for a while. This song sounds like it’s breathing. From the classic drum machine intro to the sneaky guitar lick followed by the unpredictable conversation between the horns, organ, bass, and spazzing vocals. I used try to understand it until I decided to just let it soak and and enjoy it. Masterful funk!
The Cat Empire is a six-piece Melbourne-band, fusing jazz, ska, and rock with Latin influences. Following two double platinum albums, they have recently reached album sales of 70,000 for their third album, So Many Nights.
Avalanches / Electricity From Since I Left You, dare I say it, the greatest Australian album of the last ten years. It’s a killer. We’re all still hanging to see what the hell they come up with next.
Consisting of producers Lil’ John, Riot and Conductor, alongside MC Kalaf, Buraka Som Sistema have released a slew of breakthrough singles, torched the blogosphere with their M.I.A-starring viral video for Sound Of Kuduro, featuring M.I.A. DJ Zonobia, Saborosa and Puto Prata and wowed audiences in over thirteen countries with their spectacular, dance-driven stage show at the heart of Kuduro. Now with their debut long-player, Black Diamond [Fabric/Enchufada through Inertia], finally about to drop, have become the driving heartbeat of the headline-grabbing global ghetto-funk revolution.
Daft Punk / One More Time This came out during a time when there weren’t many people putting nice loops into dance music, so it was like a breath of fresh air. I remember a lot of people hating it when it came out, but seven days later, they were singing the lyrics at the top of their lungs.
My Secret Playlist is a music discovery website and weekly email publication. We invite our favourite bands and musicians to give us the rundown on their eight favourite songs right now. These are their words on the music that inspires them.
